TITLE
Breakout, Ripoff, Genre: How Fiction Outgrows Originality
AUTHOR
John Wiswell
PUBLICATION
Uncanny Magazine
YEAR
2025
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
Doom is a lot like Lord of the Rings, which is a lot like Superman. You don’t have to admit you loved Doom. In fact, you can pretend you never even heard of this videogame about a floating gun that shoots as many demons as the player can find. It was so popular that the US Senate tried to ban it. It kicked off a historic trend in games, but there are only two things you really need to know about Doom:1. It was not the first first-person shooter ever made.
2. Every first-person shooter after it for years was called a “Doom clone.”[…]
Now, Doom was specifically about a space marine shooting his way through hordes of demons. But if you made a game about a dystopia cop shooting his way through mutants? It was a Doom clone. You were hunting through the jungle with a bow and arrows to fend off dinosaurs? Doom clone. You were a wizard using spells to blow up monsters? Doom clone. Everything was a Doom clone.
Until suddenly, nothing was.
GAMES MENTIONED
Doom (1993)
PRINT AVAILABILITY
March/April 2025 (Issue 63)