Doom (VG)

:This article is about the video game series and covers weapons appearing in the released titles Doom, Doom 2, The Ultimate Doom, Final Doom and Doom 64. For the 2005 live-action adaptation, see Doom.
Doom is a 1993 videogame released by id Software for DOS and later ported to many other systems. A spiritual successor to the earlier Wolfenstein 3D, Doom represented a radical technological leap forward, running on an advanced engine capable of producing non-orthagonal walls and pseudo-3D effects such as stairs and elevators.
The following weapons appear in the classic Doom video game franchise:
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=Overview=
Doom was followed by a series of sequels/modifications using the same set of weapons; Doom 2 in 1994 was a major engine update and featured new monsters and a new weapon, the "Super Shotgun." This was followed by The Ultimate Doom in 1995, which was a simple expansion of the original title, and Final Doom, which contained a pair of new 32-level campaigns, in 1996. A Nintendo 64 exclusive (although it would later receive an official port in 2020 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC), Doom 64 was released in 1997 as the last entry in the original franchise, featuring an entirely new campaign, overhauled graphics, and both new and modified weapons and enemies.
Given that the majority of these titles feature the same graphics, and that the recent ones feature little in the way of identifiable guns in general, this article will cover firearms from what can be considered to be a part of the classic Doom library. 
Doom used a process of photographic digitization to create most of the sprites used in the game; the monsters were created from latex, while the weapons were toy guns and cap-firing replicas bought from Toys "R" Us stores. In many ways, this would be similar to later games using photographs of either real or replica firearms to texture 3D modeled weapons. If the toy or replica is known, then that will be referenced. However, given the number of weapons in the Doom games that aren't even meant to be firearms, this page will for the most part layout only the weapons that are actually firearms in the Doom universe. For sci-fi weapons such as the Plasma Rifle or BFG9000, see the talk page for their associated information.
=Pistols=
==Beretta 92FS==
The "Pistol" in the first three Doom titles is, as evident from the general shape of the top of the gun, a Beretta 92FS. According to game designer John Romero, the pistol was created from photographs of a bright orange water pistol that was modeled after a Beretta which was then painted black. The pistol is one of the weakest of the game's weapons, and isn't very useful after obtaining virtually any other weapon.
 
==Desert Eagle Mark I==
Doom 64 swapped out the Beretta-styled pistol for what is most likely a Desert Eagle Mark I, judging from the shape of the back of the slide, hammer, rear sight, and barrel contours. The sprite's low quality and the handgun's lack of a visible safety, however, makes it somewhat difficult to make a positive identification.
=Shotguns=
==Tootsie-Toy "Dakota"==
One of the earliest available weapons in any Doom title is its famous pump-action shotgun. However, rather than being based on a real firearm design, the gun is made up of photographs of a Tootsie-Toy "Dakota" cap gun, a popular type of toy gun that was made from the 1980s to the 1990s and is not based on any particular real-world firearm (upon closer inspection, it can be said that the main source of inspiration was the Winchester 1300 Defender, but at the same time it deliberately mixes them with features of the Remington 870 and Ithaca 37). Doom 64 introduced new sprites for the shotgun, seemingly based on an entirely different gun. However, the exact model, if it is indeed based on anything specific, isn't very clear from the sprites themselves. Unfortunately, due to spatial limitations with the Nintendo 64's game cartridges, the shotgun does not feature a pump animation, leaving the player with no profile view of the weapon. The pickup sprite for the gun, however, still seems to resemble the "Dakota" cap gun. 
thumb|none|400px|Tootsie-Toy Dakota cap shotgun.
==12 Gauge Double Barreled Shotgun==
The only new weapon to appear in Doom II was the "Super Shotgun," a 12 Gauge Double Barreled Shotgun with sawed-off barrels that proved to be extremely popular in multiplayer circles. The weapon has since appeared in every Doom title since, save for Doom 3, which didn't introduce the weapon until its expansion pack Resurrection of Evil. The shotgun fires both barrels at the same time and is instantly reloaded upon doing so, making it the only weapon in the classic Doom game to do so up until Hacx introduced a reloading Uzi. A slightly more detailed looking sawed-off appears in Doom 64, although due to a lack of memory space on the game cartridge, the gun's lengthy reload animation was cut. It still makes the necessary sounds, however.
=Submachine Guns=
==Generic SMG==
Doom Guy holds a futuristic SMG in some official artwork, but this weapon does not appear in the game itself. It is possibly a remnant of the early Alpha versions, where an SMG (albeit of a more traditional appearance) was originally used instead of the Chaingun below.
=Rifles=
==Generic Rifle==
Zombiemen enemies and the world graphics for the player character both carry a rather generic-looking rifle that looks to be something of a cross between an M16 and a USAS-12 shotgun. This is yet another remainder of Doom's alpha versions (see below), having been replaced by the Pistol in the final version of the game.
=Machine Guns=
==Tootsie-Toy "Ol' Painless"==
Found in Doom's second level, the "Chaingun" (which is actually a minigun) is a machine gun weapon that's useful for cutting through low level foes quickly. The graphics were photographed from a cap-firing toy minigun, a Tootsie-Toy "Ol' Painless", which appears to be partly inspired by the hand held M134 Minigun from Predator. Several other in-game assets are also based on this toy, including columns and floor lamps made out of its barrels. Interestingly, the in-game pickup sprite appears to be a box-fed minigun that is held like a conventional rifle as opposed to a belt-fed hip-fired weapon. Unlike the player, the Heavy Weapon Dude enemies in Doom II hold the gun with one hand and use their other arm to feed a backpack-mounted belt into the gun.
thumb|none|400px|"Ol' Painless" Handheld M134 Minigun with M60 handguard, as seen in Predator - 7.62x51mm NATO
thumb|none|400px|Tootsie-Toy Ol' Painless Gatling Gun. A spitting image, almost.
 
=Launchers=
=="Rocket Launcher"==
As the name implies, the Rocket Launcher is a powerful weapon that is effective over long distances but deadly for the user in close quarters. Rather curiously, the Rocket Launcher is based on the toy rifle from the 1991 G.I. Joe: Hall of Fame Duke action figure.
=Trivia=
==Weapons of the Doom Alpha Versions==
Alpha versions of Doom used different graphics for weapons. Version 0.2 had the Dakota shotgun as the sole available weapon. In the 0.3 and 0.4 Alpha versions, instead of the usual fist, a rifle with a attached bayonet was used; instead of a pistol, the same rifle without the bayonet was used; the shotgun had an original unedited look, and instead of a Gatling-style chaingun it used another weapon, looking more like as SMG (vaguely resembling the Star Z-45). Alpha version 0.5 changed the graphics of the rifle and machine gun to new ones (but the others remained the same from 0.4, including the version of the rifle with a bayonet), giving them a more futuristic look (and the "machine gun" now really looks like a machine gun). The Press Release version finally changed all this to the weapons that everyone knows from the final version.
Another interesting detail is that the Alpha versions depicted a shotgun with a sawn-off buttstock (and in this form it can still be seen in the final version on some artwork), but later the original buttstock was reintroduced.
Some more info can be found here.
Category:Video Game
Category:First-Person Shooter
Category:Science-Fiction