"Deconstructing" The Dark Lord

"Deconstructing" the Dark Lord

There's a lot of things to be said about this character.

The most i usually say is "it's a mix of things that could have been seperate" and there's a good reason: He's a character almost made special by the ingredients combined that define him.

And each idea that represents him lead to fans expect anything but the final result and i believe even id themselves have second thoughts about this character (You've probably heard the idea that he was supposed to have a dragon phase).

So this post of mine is both me explaining why some fans didn't like the Dark Lord, while also thinking out ideas that could've worked or appealed more to fans.

Even if some of these ideas don't make a lot of sense or "contradict lore", it's more about Doom "being epic" and how some concepts rank in a "cool factor" for a series like Doom (At least considering some fans).

MAJOR SPOILERS, even if this is Doom.

"EVIL DOOMGUY"

People expected a 1v1 style duel where you fight a "mirror/copy" of Doomguy and not a "retouched Marauder" (This specifically feels wrong in the era of the series where lore matters a bit more and there's a special focus around Doomguy's current state as the ultimate demon killer).

The explenation of him looking like Doomguy may not help: I forgot but i think it's a weird context that means Doomguy IS the actual copy even if not intentional (To fans, Doomguy's appeal is that he was a random guy that got into a whole mess and wasn't always special).

And i guess how Doomguy's face isn't faithfull enough in 3D yet, but i mentioned that in a previous post of mine.

Ideally, "Evil Doomguy" could be like this:

Make the armor like the Immora/Skullface/Cultist skins where it's a demonic version of the Praetor suit.

Give him an arsenal of different weapons that are bound to phases.

The phase weapon system means he could start with a weak pistol and shotgun, like he's growing his arsenal by phases.

His weapons (Shotguns, chaingun, rifle, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, Gauss/Ballista equivalent etc) would have somewhat unique/different alt fires/mods even if their primary fires are the same as the player's.

At the last phase, he'd obviously have a BFG9000 and a Crucible with its own melee attacks.

Even his Chainsaw has melee attacks.

He can also double jump and dash, while also having his own equipment launcher cannon.

He can glory kill nearby fodder enemies for resources: THIS right here is his weakness, because he can run out of resources and has to fight for them like Doomguy does, so it's like a window of opportunity to hit him back.

His health bar has his own animated face on the HUD, just to show how much of a Doomguy clone he is.

At some point, his helmet falls during combat and he shows his face.

Lore: Make him a creation by Hell that exists as a mix of both fear and hatred Hell has toward Doomguy.

Alt lore idea: Remember Doomguy's boss that was mentioned in the D1 manual? Maybe he ended up going through his own journey through Hell and became an "Anti-Slayer" (And then his shoulder equip launcher is like a snake creature).

Stage? Maybe something like a "deathmatch arena" you'd expect out of Quake 3 or something, since a simple large circular area won't be good enough.

The idea of a rival for Doomguy seems special when you consider factors like how the Marauder still had a limited arsenal, when D3 has a boss that was Doomguy's boss turned into a monster with the BFG9000, zombie soldiers always carrying familiar/ingame weapons etc.

Plus, "evil version of the protagonist" is popular in some other games as well, so it's like Doom lied about its own version of it.

(Scythe 2 screenshot taken from Doomwiki, since the wad includes an "evil marine" that the player faces; Speaking of which, Colorfull Hell had a boss called "Player 9" that replaces the Zombieman and it's a fake deathmatch player invading your game)

THE "DEVIL" OF DOOM

Because if it's not the Icon of Sin, maybe "the Devil" could have been a bigger creature, almost like planet size or even "Hell itself" if you assume that an infinite, reality defying, evil dimension can be its own living entity.

So depending on how "eldritch" and giant the "CEO of Hell" would be implied to be, i thought of a boss fight where you're "inside the beast" and combines level puzzle elements with combat.

Visually, it has a weird surreal aesthetic like all the weirdest parts of Hell combined and some new weird elements.

But there's a variety of weak points (Some shootable, others punchable, even some where you jump on top of them like that "Jumpable" enemy idea i wrote before) where the Player fights the beast they're inside in, while avoiding hazards and traps to stay alive.

Maybe there's special artifacts or items (Some unique to this fight) to keep the player closer to their goal.

In general, this idea is inspired by stuff like the classic IOS and Quake's Chthon and Shub fights where the level design is part of defeating the boss (Along with D2RPG having the VIOS or something).

Then there's the seemingly unused "6 archdemons".

Maybe we could even go with the idea that Hell has a lot more "dark lords" because humans will never truly comprehend who rules Hell, as if it was meant to confuse humans.

Meanwhile, John Romero's SIGIL ending text had the phrase "Baphomet was only doing Satan's bidding" and the episode made use of Christopher Lovell's pre-existing "Satanic" artwork.

ALSO GOD

I think people were already fine with The Father, even if not with the twist of him also being VEGA.

But to think Doomguy technically "kills God" because him and "Satan" were the same thing seems odd.

Maybe this also depends on how people feel about Urdak and whether or not Doom is getting "less Christian" even if the series never tapped that much into "accurate" Biblical references.

THE MECH SUIT

It's something that could have been a super heavy enemy at best, like if Immora's army had mech guys or even if 2016's Hell Guard made a comeback with a tech aesthetic (Yet again, something i wrote in a previous post).

Davoth wearing this armor doesn't really give the idea of being "on pair" with Doomguy.

It's weird because the mech itself makes him bigger than Doomguy but he only has few attacks.

THE NAME "DAVOTH"

The use of the name “Davoth” and one of the concept art knight designs of the Dark Lord could inspire a tall humanoid Immoran knight that references Goliath; So imagine if Immora had a 12 feet tall knight named Davoth and he could be a miniboss or something.

The name itself isn't bad and neither is that "metal heart" thing on his chest, even if it sounds like i'm talking about reusing them for something else.

CHARACTER AND MOTIVATION

Might be getting it wrong, but wasn't he mad that he didn't found immortality or something and that lead to him being betrayed by his own servants?

Because when you think of the idea of Hell, you'd think he could have been "Evil for the sake of it".

May seem weird for a series whose appeal is "badass space marine destroys the ultimate place of evil".

IMMORA

Also something i talked about before but:

The idea of "Hell's heart" being a city with humans seems weird for, again, the place of evil where bad people go where they die.

And the sci-fi aesthetic seems weird, not just because "they painted Urdak red" but because the original games already had an idea of "Hell tech".

(Again, flesh walls with stabbing metal pipes and giant skull with computers inside the sockets)

When you think about it, it's as if Hell only ever had technology just to mock humans; Something in a "God creates, Satan imitates" way.

Even the Cultist Base aesthetic could've worked to suit the "evil technology" idea.

It's part of why i thought 2016 making it that the UAC created cybernetic demons is weird: It might weaken Hell a bit and take away the weirdness that the classic games already presented.

Because even if Hell had armies and stuff that almost put them on the same level as UAC/Sentinel soldiers, it should still have a touch of "evil magic" or as if something was created from a spiteful nature.

Indicating that Hell has a 100% evil "personality" that cannot be reasoned with.

And also, like i said: D2016's multiplayer had cooler demonic armor sets and the Reaper weapon was done dirty when used by the Demonic Troopers.

I thought Immora would work more if it was a "paradise for sinners" where its soldiers were sinners and evil former humans that were more competent than other former humans because they were "rewarded".

Maybe a legit Satanic cult paradise, where its humans are those that betrayed mankind?

And the fact that there's "humans" in Immora could justify them as "evil copies/parodies", so you could make demons that look "humanoid" but are still weird.

WHAT ELSE

It's easy to see that The Ancient Gods shouldn't have been made under a year one season pass release contract.

But i wonder if even without those limitations, things would change that much.

Because Doom was never a "lore bound" series, which is why i think there's an "easy" solution to "bad lore ideas": Just having a new game do things differently, even if they "break lore".

Perhaps the fact we even think of "how to fix the Dark Lord" means there's a somewhat positive impact on the DL existing in general: A reminder that Doom is fun to reinterpret.

Whether it's for fun or because some fans weren't happy with certain things.

One can also see thing as "fans making Doom more epic than it actually is", even if it's not new/caused by new fans when older fans were always doing that too.

"What about the dragon idea?" Maybe make that a seperate monster/boss, even with some homage to the D3 Maledict or even Quake and Hexen or something.

FooSarr did an interesting video about a demonic Wintherin, but i already posted it before.

And semi-related but Bethesda artist Jonah Lobe drew a "demonic" version of the Doomslayer.

Perhaps a criticism is that it factors too much into certain D2016 aspects that made the demons "even more alien than in D3", though this is a prespective worth mentioning in a different post.

Honestly, it feels like there's a lot of ways you can go with "evil Doomguy"; Again, me talking about Doom's "true versatility" even if it's too easy to talk about it than anything actually being made.

At least the idea of Doomguy being put to rest after defeating the main bad guy isn't so bad and i guess his theme song wasn't bad either.

Could have said something about the "final fight" starring the Sentinel army and how Doomguy needed to go to Earth to use the gate to Divum or something but maybe for another post.