What genre is DOOM?

Patreon: / ahoy
00:00 Introduction
00:50 How was DOOM originally described?
02:20 DOOM clones
04:33 Quake Killers
6:06 A hypothetical question
12:05 Conclusion
Bibliography
[1] Compute! Magazine, Issue 167, August 1994, p73
[2] The Ultimate Doom, Manual, p5 (id Software / GT Interactive Software 1995)
[3] 'Virtually Real', ST Format, Jan 93, p43
[4] Computer Gaming World, March 1994 (116), p38
[5] Computer Gaming World, November 1994, Doom Toos (feature), p104-114
[6] 3DO Magazine, February 1995, p64
[7] 64 Magazine, Volume 1 1997, p73
[8] Amiga Power, August 1995, p53 (Future)
[9] Computer Gaming World, November 1994, cover
[10] Mean Machines SEGA, September 1995, p12
[11] Mean Machines SEGA, October 96, p56
[12] Computer Gaming World, April 1995, p104-106
[13] Computer Gaming World, May 1995, p94-96
[14] PC Multimedia & Entertainment, April 1996, web.archive.org/web/199706241...
[15] EDGE Supplement, May 1994, p8
[16] Mean Machines SEGA, August 1994, p12
[17] PC Gamer, April 1995, p103
[18] PC Zone, March 1997, p49-50
[19] PC Zone, August 1998, p54
[20] PC Zone, August 1997, Cover & p63
[21] PC Zone, February 1998, p53
[22] PC Zone, March 1999, p98-99
[23] PC Zone, January 1999, p74
[24] PC Zone, February 1999, p13
[25] PC Zone, September 1999, p109
[26] PC Zone, October 2000, p87
[27] PCGames, November 1992, p46
[28] Tilt, September 1992, p58-59
[29] Computer Gaming World, September 1992, p50
[30] PC-Spiele '93, 1992
[31] Masters of Doom, D. Kushner, p89
[32] .info, September 1990, p60
[33] Computer Gaming World, March 1994, p110,112
[34] PC Format, December 1995
[35] Computer and Video Games, January 1994, 104
[36] PC Zone, June 1994, p108
[37] PC Games, August 1996, p62

[@aaronchua5129]

Clearly Doom is a benchmark test for household appliances

[@fus132]

Real

[@DinnerForkTongue]

And portable appliances, such as phones, PDAs, calculators and pregnancy testers.

[@rabidguineapig]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a couch somewhere that can run doom

[@shidderalpha2293]

Not just electronics, they've even played it on bacteria

[@GreyWolfLeaderTW]

Not that far from the truth. Some mad lad programmed a very basic form of Doom on low-powered graphing calculators as a hobby/joke.

[@TheDeadmanstrolling]

"Doom is an action RPG" is a phrase that deals 2d6 psychic damage

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Becouse is true.

[@germtm.]

technically true for the old Java mobile "ports".

[@doomguy19931]

​@@germtm. Man i remember playingg the DooM RPG on my flip phone in middle school

[@user-ml2bn7xx7e]

I wonder if it haves 16 times the detail

[@AgentHeroic]

If you want a good Doom RPG, DoomRL (Doom Roguelike) is a good start

[@Brunosky_Inc]

5:34 "Co-op's for girls? Not according to Team Fortress 2" That is _certainly_ a headline.

[@burnthompson286]

Of all the headlines that came out that year, that is certainly one of them

[@burnthompson286]

Its crazy that TF2's production looked like that Holy crap the article is from 1999 and the expected release was SUMMER. It took over 7 years to release from that point!

[@jacobspadt2567]

@@burnthompson286 I'm not certain but I assume the article was about TF Classic, which may have been called TF2 before release. TFC released April '97 and would've been the sequel to the original Quake mod.

[@Matth3w23]

@@jacobspadt2567 In the bottom left it says that TF2 is scheduled to release just before Quake 3, which was released (and announced I think?) in 1999! And also it definitely looks like early TF2's more realistic theming.

[@Tuxfanturnip]

every TF2 player coming out as trans 20 years later:

[@Teapose]

Fun fact: back in the day, Apogee distributors had what they called a “Shoot-em-up Collection” that I wanted Dad to get me. Immediately he got angry and said “I’m not buying you shooter games.” And I had to go like no, Dad, it’s stuff like Terminal Velocity and Raptor, and I THINK it also had Biohazard, which is what I really wanted. He was like “oh”. Still didn’t get it. Within a couple years we were playing Doom deathmatches AdHoc over a telephone line.

[@Yotarian]

Oh man... Terminal Velocity and Raptor were awesome.

[@Teapose]

@@Yotarian TV was my jam, I loved that music, Fury3 was sick too

[@Gwunhar]

Raptor is on Steam these days! I love that game still.

[@txcrix9236]

​@@TeaposeI loved Fury 3! New Kroy and it's soundtrack will always be my favorite.

[@Browsignal]

@@txcrix9236 Fury 3 might be my all time favorite pc game honestly... i still remember playing the demo when i was a child it came on a windows 98 cd haha

[@rosskwolfe]

"I will be taking no questions." Now that's a power move.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

It's how a troll runs away before anyone points out Gauntlet isn't any kind of RPG.

[@arciks11]

​@@juststatedtheobvious9633Ahoy woke up and decided to use his skills for mild evil. I respect that.

[@ghoulbuster1]

Chad

[@JustKrin]

If you want to ask him about it, wait until the next video. We're back in the play by mail era with Ahoy

[@electricboogaloo2369]

​@@juststatedtheobvious9633 >ahoy >troll lol

[@pawahara]

WAKE UP BABE AHOY'S UPLOADING AGAIN

[@user-p6-3561]

new kino just dropped

[@APHEXACE]

Kino ​@@user-p6-3561

[@Dootsauce]

WE UP WE WATCHIN WE SITTING DOWN

[@r3d3y3dstranger]

@@user-p6-3561 Tsoi lives!

[@gdzpseudi]

So true 😂

[@novelezra]

I wish I could have been there to see John Carmack hear about texture mapping for the first time (probably one of, if not the most important technical leaps in 3D game design), only to pause for a few moments to ponder this concept and then say: "I can do that" And then do it on a scale that is still astonishing to this day.

[@rya3190]

I've had those "ah, ha!" moments... wish I had half of Carmack's drive and ability to bring them to fruition.

I don't think he heard about texture mapping for the first time then, it was already a thing in computer graphics for a long time. Rather it was probably the first time he heard someone say they are going to do it on commodity hardware in real time (in a game). Compare to how ray tracing has been around for over half a century in computer graphics, but is only now becoming feasible to do in games in real time.

[@Roxor128]

@ The Demoscene has been doing real-time raytracing since 1995. Transgression 2 by MFX from 1996 being a good early example. Heaven 7 by Exceed from 2000 ups the capabilities. Still Sucking Nature by Federation Against Nature from 2003 looks better than games of the era and showcases environments that wouldn't be out of place in one with system requirements of just a Pentium II with 128MB of memory. Well, okay, it _has_ fallen out of favour in recent years, due to ray-marching of signed distance fields catching on, as it's a hell of a lot easier to make organic stuff with it than raytracing or rasterised polygons.

@@Roxor128 Yes. The demoscene does cool stuff, but it's also not quite the same as what you can achieve in a playable game.

[@BaddeJimme]

IIRC Carmack was inspired by news that Ultima Underworld was going to have texture mapping, which led him to realize that he could do it much more efficiently, albeit in a limited way.

[@IAmEnormous]

I played the original games after the 2016 revival, and all I could think was, "People really do not talk enough about how much dungeon crawler DNA is in these games."

[@madjackmadjack]

Absolutely, just like Diablo 1 was originally going to be a turn based Rogue like. Dungeons and Dragons and Rogue contributed a lot to both of these foundational titles. Also, if you want it to feel even more like a dungeon crawler, load to each level with cheats or intentionally die and respawn; you'll start each level just liley you started the first, with a pistol and fifty rounds of ammo. Then each level becomes a puzzle, as you try to rebuild your arsenal and defeat or avoid enemies without the benefit of previous levels' surplus supplies.

[@LocalSlasher]

​@@madjackmadjackaka pistol start; iirc they made every level with that in mind too. Hmm... So what you're saying is Doom... is a puzzle game. Brilliant!

[@TrumpLester]

"Daikatana was a Quake killer." Now comes the part where we throw our heads back and laugh.

[@jojothefine]

Daikatana was a Daikatana killer

[@SosumiInc]

Daikatana got pretty good with the latest fan patches.

[@twerkingbollocks6661]

@@SosumiInc Yeah, but check Unreal with the fan patches, still a very pretty game, and plays really good. Shame they delisted it from every store.

[@atifarshad7624]

​@@SosumiInctrue. It did become decent, but still nowhere near Quake killer.

[@ShadowAngel606]

@@atifarshad7624 It definitely is better than Quake 1 (Tech Demo and nothing more, considering the advances the build engine FPS' made, Quake being on the same design level as Doom was in 1994 was lame) and Quake 2 (which is probably the most overrated FPS ever)

[@mixererunio1757]

First I was like "Thats a stupid question. It's an FPS" But then I noticed is an Ahoy video. And I became really intrigued.

[@ikagura]

Like the first video game

[@LyaksandraB]

FPS is a modern classification, though, so you're applying that label retroactively. I haven't watched, but I imagine the video will be about what genre it was considered back then.

[@drunkndwrf]

I wasn't ready for Doom to be classified under that genre. Love your videos when they come off as a riddle to your viewers.

[@NeroVingian40]

The video even opened with the exact same question lmao

[@mypdf]

@@LyaksandraB Genre names are always retroactively applied to games, as a genre only exists when there are multiple games that have similarities. You can't have a genre with just one game in it. So in the beginning Doom was just Doom, but as the genre started to exist it fell into the newly created FPS genere.

[@wcsoblake85]

Ahoy is like the favorite uncle. You barely get to see him but you are always thinking about Him. When he shows up unexpectedly, you get excited!

[@Pangloss6413]

I like how your pfp is of firefighters and EMTs but not cops

[@Burn_Angel]

Doom doesn't require you to kill enemies aside from boss fights (which we could say, they count as 'special levels'). It's just about getting from point A to point B, maybe looking for a couple of keys. It's a walking simulator, with obstacles. An interactive walking simulator, if you might.

[@chazcampos1258]

So it was a failed attempt at inspiring physical fitness.

[@YayaFeiLong]

Well, more of a running-full-tilt simulator, really

[@Burn_Angel]

@@YayaFeiLong Funny you mention it, I was going to write it as "Wheelchair simulator, but in Mars/Hell", since, because you can't jump, the idea of Doomguy being on a wheelchair has been a running gag ("running" gag, lmao) for decades.

[@k0lpA]

it's a racing game

[@RustBot42]

@@Burn_Angel I second this motion.

[@rgal]

DOOM is an adventure game in which pointing and clicking elements on the screen is a key game mechanic. A point-and-click adventure, if you will.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

It makes more sense than his nonsense about arcade quarter munchers being RPGs because keys, smart bombs, and health packs dressed up in fantasy gear.

[@diydylana3151]

What makes it funnier is that adventure games root in rpgs and the videos answer is action rpg :"D

[@HeltonYan]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 why are you so passionate about his statement? Are you personally offended that gauntlet is obviously an rpg?

[@RutabagaSwe]

@@HeltonYan I don't think Gauntlet is "obviously" an RPG in any way, to be fair 😅

[@nthedecent7717]

TF2 sniper main here, I will defend that point with you *ba-dum-tss*

[@Glegh]

Doom. The genre is Doom.

[@ridhosamudro2199]

If not, then why's the other game is called "Doom Clones"?

[@danmur15]

My first thought too haha

[@LyaksandraB]

Yeah, sure, but that's the endpoint of collective consensus. Surely there were more labels along the way, and we should put special consideration on the ones the devs thought up. I mean, they made the damn thing.

[@machinatingminotaur6285]

@@LyaksandraB you don't need collective consensus to have been blown away by what doom was and what it offered in 93. I didn't need anyone to tell me this was something else entirely

[@oliparkhouse]

​@@LyaksandraBwell said, memes be memes but there's time for philosophising too. Apart from @machinatingminotaur6285 he simply felt it in his bones

[@LesGummo69]

In Italy we simply referred to every game with a lot of shooting involved as "sparatutto", literally "shooteverything" being there fps, side scrolling shooters or whatever. i don't remember when the thing stopped, but i'm pretty sure it lasted at least well into psx era

[@BenzaieLive2]

only works if nobody questions Gauntlet as an RPG, when it's mostly based on mazes & shooting, truely inspired by RPGs, like Druaga, but Doom is evidently molded from catacomb 3D evidently molded after catacomb, which is drawn frow gauntlet, but gauntlet has more to do with shooting in mazes than dungeon master is

[@Arnathor4582]

C'est vrai que Doom est indéniablement imprégné d'une ambiance dungeon crawler Beaucoup de fan de la première avec qui je discute sur les forums m'ont assuré que le jeu était flippant à sa sortie, qu'il y avait définitivement un côté horreur très présent. Content de te voir ici Benzou

[@lainothefirst]

Carmack was kinda crazy with it. Like, he just hears some term from Romero and casually goes with it. "Texture mapping? ...yeah, I can do that." Gigachad behavior

[@Sekir80]

I have high respect for Carmack. Guy can talk about anything for an hour and I just watch in awe. Interesting how efficient he is.

[@AnimatedStoriesWorldwide]

Carmack is as good, as Romero was proud. You needed both of them to make Doom/Quake

[@ghoulbuster1]

Carmack the Code God

[@hoorayimhelping3978]

Knowing what I know about him, he was probably already investigating texture mapping and thought it was cool and came up with a novel way of doing it that was 40% more efficient, so he went ahead and whipped up a demo on Friday from 6:00 PM until 3 the next morning.

[@pauloricardo-wn6ps]

Benevolent hyper-intelligent architect of the post-singularity simulation we all live in, John Carmack was beast

[@qwesx]

I'm so glad that you didn't find an angle to categorize it as a Pong clone.

[@ClokworkGremlin]

Missed opportunity. Now he's going to have to re-make the entire video from scratch.

[@coriander_sun]

It's an interesting inversion on the genre - Instead of one ball being passed back and forth, you have an inventory of different varieties of one-time-use balls you can send out. And instead of trying get the ball past your enemy, the goal is to have as many as possible come into contact with them (while avoiding the balls they send out). It's a novel take on a genre that was in danger of going stale

[@RevRaptor898]

It is pong just the baddies are really bad at catching the ball, admittedly it is a very fast and painful ball :)

[@DrSpaceman69]

@@coriander_sunI like how they still managed to capture the original spirit of pong despite the inversion!

[@magnesiafrost1863]

Pong killer!

[@LeeeHack]

Come to think of it, EVERY game is some sort of an RPG: - HalfLife? - you take on the role of Gordon Freeman - Quake? - you are now a Ranger - Railroad Tycoon II? - you are now the Fat Controller...

[@r0de]

Its something I noticed in the behaviour of certain players. Taking on the ROLE of the character you inhabit. Its most noticable when you see people playing and kinda going "along" with the script. I distinctly remember watching a friend play HL2 and when he was in a conversation with Kleiner in the chapter 'Red Letter Day', he'd actually nod his head to one of Kleiner's questions. I asked him about this and he plainly told me "Well, he's my friend and he just asked me a question. It'd be rude not to answer" Its a rather fascinating part of player psychology and immersion

[@AccoSpoot]

Convinced my friend, who only plays football manager games, that he was actually playing an RPG.

[@raid55]

Carmack is the father of modern gaming. His work on the quake engine, that instead of selling he open sourced, inspired every modern engine to this day. There is still code from the quake engine in unity, source and even unreal engine to this very day. He redefined gaming so many times and never did it for profit, but for his prolific love of games and game development.

[@TheBellTolls]

"Thank you, I will be taking _no_ questions." Perfection.

[@burnthompson286]

I gotta say, when I first saw the title of this vid, I immediately thought "dungeon crawler". To me it seems like Doom gameplay focuses equally on shooting and movement, especially navigating the often maze-like levels. Evidenced by the fact that you dont strictly need to kill every monster to advance to the next level. Thanks for the great vid as always!

[@planetdrull1701]

Even the score at the end of the level is decided by the number of enemies killed, power ups used and secrets discovered. Each level was really a unique dungeon to explore

[@Grease-Goblin]

Dungeon crawler is a pretty solid one, actually. I would have called it a first-person action game, but this feels like a natural description for the time. It certainly seems like a more sincere attempt at defining Doom's genre than to call it an action RPG.

[@adre2194]

I think people often put too much emphasis on how much combat made up Doom. It was big yes but like you said the exploration was just as much. I genuinely can't object to calling Doom a dungeon crawler.

[@MrCantStopTheRobot]

Levels with dense enemy placement definitely become "first person shmups" or "first person bullet hell" as you weave between projectiles. But recall that Sandy Peterson designed levels with D&D consciously in his mind. Which he mentions in almost every interview he's given.

[@SuperDropsX]

I would add to the Action RPG signs that, while the setting is futuristic, the enemies are demons, the domain of fantasy for the most part. I also would add that, in germany, when the genre emerged we called them "Ego-Shooters". I haven't followed german gaming press in over a decade, so it'd be interesting to see if/when that term died

[@DanArnets1492]

"Ego" just comes from the fact that it's on first-person, nothing else really

[@n3rdy11]

@@DanArnets1492 A fact that went over most German mainstream medias heads in the early 2000s when they were all in hysteria over "killer games". They claimed the "ego" in "ego shooter" stood for the egoistical power fantasy of killing other people, one that FPS games are allegedly teaching people.

[@mrheisenberg83]

@@n3rdy11 Remember when Doom and Mortal Kombat were seemingly public enemy nr. 1? The good old days of kids getting into serious trouble for making quake maps of their schools. The hysteria was real. And the BPJS were my mortal enemies.

[@rafaeldasilva6247]

I'm on the hospital treating what I believe and hope is a minor infection, and seeing this pop up on my recommendations brightened my day immensely. Also, I loved the use of the "Suspense" theme, it was a highlight on the previous Doom video, and didn't disappoint here either. Finally, "Doom is an action RPG". This is the evilest thing I've ever seen in a while, I loved it!

[@tehbigshow]

I remember way back, before Quake, I used to call what we now call FPS, shoot-em-ups. Anytime I searched that genre, I got top-down shooters. Never understood this. Back at this time, the term 'corridor shooter' was what we call Doom-like games. FPS feels like it took hold around the time Half-Life came out.

[@ronindebeatrice]

Yup. All I wanted in the mid 90's were FPS games. "Shooter" was about all I knew to try to find them. All I got were top down and 12 year old me saw those as old hat.

[@twerkingbollocks6661]

They were doom clones until duke nukem, then shoot-em-ups up until proper third person shooters started becoming popular on pc around the year 2000, where we got more third person shooters in a year than we had in the entire previous decade and the distinction was kinda necessary, and then the next year we got max payne which was all about the shooting.

[@DrundeFPS]

And then Half-Life came out and ruined the genre.

[@thechief00]

i remember too when all these games were just called "shoot-em-ups"... we're old now. lol

[@ActionGamerAaron]

Return to shmups and be happy.

[@Henners]

The reference to 64 Magazine at 1:56 calling doom a “First person shoot’em up” was referring to Doom 64 from 1997, after the genre title was already defined

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

the whole first half and the related part in the second half are all just a time capsule of how video game journalism has always been the lowest form of journalism. they were trying to fill pages and paid by the word, and long after saying "first sight" twice before calling Descent a DOOM clone they were still hyping the next thing as Halo killers.

[@SATO_FD2R]

Glad to see Ahoy not taking a billion year hiatus again, I can’t handle the wait

[@WhiteZet1]

3:10 - Just realized we do indeed call rogue a roguelike. Also would be interesting to see Ahoy cover the topic of roguelikes/roguelites.

[@synchronos1]

It’s actually interesting to analyse that if you consider the difference of gameplay in Doom 1993 and Doom 2016, it mostly boils down to added RPG elements.

[@itzhexen0]

and made by completely different people.

[@ikagura]

And closer to Quake gameplay.

[@itzhexen0]

Also the original doom is darker and not rip and tear I'm a bad ass. You actually get your ass kicked in it. Even though you guys have turned it into that.

[@mothertrucker341]

​@@itzhexen0and I thought I needed to get laid

[@doodguytheblank2403]

@@itzhexen0sounds like a skill issue

[@Vodkarn]

Talk about a blast from the past. I'm in my 40's now, and this reminded me that very early on, people would use 'FPS' to mean "First-Person Shoot-'em-up". We even (briefly) said 'TDS' for "Top-Down Shoot-'em-up". Thanks Ahoy, for the memories ;)

[@gentuxable]

If you're playing a "Top-Down Shoot-em-up" shouldn't you close your eyes when killing something?

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

@@gentuxable yes, you have to wear your safety squints.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

I think a lot of this depends on how into gaming mags people were because it wasn't until a few years later than the internet became common enough to shape the way that the terms are used in any significant way.

[@craig2196]

Ahoy's voice is getting more and more gritty with every upload, not a complaint, just an observation. Also the 90's inspired editing is top notch!

[@lev7509]

At 5:35 one can see what TF2 was initially sketched to be before being completely redesigned to what we know and love it as, a nice glimpse into history and a reminder how creative genius often comes during the process.

[@MrWertheron]

In France we called them 'Doom like' and it took longer for FPS to 'win' (and the fact it's not translated like STR for RTS is a good indicator of that).

[@adynat0n]

We should honor the origins of the genre and start calling them "Wolfendooms"

[@ClokworkGremlin]

@@adynat0n You're definitely going to get the furry community's attention with that one.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@adynat0n Ahh, that follows the idea of "Soulslikes", or rather "Soulsbornes"

[@adynat0n]

@@HappyBeezerStudios And Metroidvanias

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@adynat0n oh right. Metroid and Symphony of the night.

[@OhShiznitz1]

I think we're going through a similar situation right now with "souls-like" I wonder if the genre will gain a name of its own or will follow the path of Rogue.

[@waywardscythe3358]

I think there's a fair chance "Soulslike" will stick with "soulsborne" being the broad term for Fromsoft games in that category. though who knows, maybe "soulsborne" will stick across the board like metroidvania did

[@DanArnets1492]

For me those are "brutal action RPGs" · They're really violent and hard · There's not much time to think when things are going down · There's plenty of role-playing as you can choose classes and such

[@lukemccullough9279]

Soulslike is a confusing genre. The main innovation and characteristic present in all of the Sousborne-ring games is the introduction of multiplayer elements to what would be otherwise a singleplayer game, such as invasions and messages, however games like Noby Noby Boy and Death Stranding also feature these mechanics and are not referred to as soulslike. The other descriptor for Dark Souls is the merger of action RPG and Metroidvania. At what point to genres turn from game descriptor to marketing gimmick?

[@egoalter1276]

Dark souls is definitely an ARPG, with heavy influence from action adventure games like Legend of Zelda, and Legacy of Kain.

[@aliceyuri]

given roguelike stuck and metroidvania stuck id put money on soulslike sticking too, especially since with soulslikes I feel like if you stray too much from the souls influence you've just made an action rpg

[@D-Arora]

To the people getting salty: it's almost like all forms of categorisation are made up and bleed into each other when you look at the evolutionary phases.

[@D-Arora]

At the end of the day, we're all just fish that call ourselves human

[@TheA1ternative]

Good to hear we stopped using “Doom Clone” to describe every game with a first person perspective and a gun! Now we can call it better things, such as a “souls-like”. /s

[@CarelessFoolFallsFlat]

What I love about this conclusion is that the influence is seen not just in the mechanics, but also in the environments and the enemies themselves. It's practically painted all over the walls...at least, it is after Doomguy is finished making paste out of everybody.

[@chaseldridge3382]

I don’t know if it’s a conscious choice or a limitation of those early 3D engines, but it’s interesting how all the early FPSs are essentially dungeon crawls with guns.

[@nirmalsuki]

I thought Shadowcaster was a game I made up in a dream back in the 90s, because I remember playing it at a friend's place (His was the only computer that would play it) and enjoying it thoroughly. I was not sure if that memory was real... Literally nobody I know had heard about it, let alone played it.

[@jasonblalock4429]

It's also one of the few Origin games from that era that, iirc, was never rereleased and isn't even on GOG.

[@LocalSlasher]

​@@jasonblalock4429Any idea why not?

[@iwantagoodnameplease]

I've always joked about how everything is a role-playing game, and used Half-Life as a good example. And now it turns out, thanks to this video, that I have a source I can reference to say "see, Half-Life is an RPG!"

[@ForumArcade]

All genre classifications are inherently imperfect, but I think rather than dividing shooting games into first-person and third-person, a more useful standard is the nature of the gameplay mechanics and narrative. Doom is predominantly an Action Shooter. Mass Effect is a Roleplaying Shooter. You can have Stealth Shooters, Adventure Shooters, Casual, Puzzle, and so forth. A game like Deus Ex would fit well into multiple categories.

[@SynRequiem]

There’s also an overlap with “immersive sims” with games in the lineage like Dishonored, BioShock, Deus Ex, etc.

[@DoomRater]

What's really interesting is the lack of description of Doom as a horror shooter. While very fast paced once you start always running, there is a consistent theme of hell, demons, and dread. The skill ceiling was unknown at the time, and speedrun history will show that

[@hiramesensei3112]

in reality it doesnt matter at all and arguing about it is pointless because the only reason the classifications exist is to give people some guidance on whether its a type of game that would appeal to them

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

I'd probably go with something along the lines of "corridor shooter" as opposed to "arena shooter" because you're not locked into rooms with tons of monsters with relatively few in between. There are definitely rooms with a large number of enemies, but you're not typically locked in with them the way you would with a arena shooter.

[@DoomRater]

@@SmallSpoonBrigade That, and corridor shooter is more along the lines of how Gauntlet plays as well. Though Doom's faster paced, more like an arena shooter like Smash TV. Or well, it could be if it bothered to force players to deal with small hordes instead of letting them retreat everywhere. Yeah the only real flaw is calling Gauntlet an RPG. You don't deal with stat management in any western sense and your only role play in that game is who you pick at the start. There's no meaningful character or stat progression. What's funny is there IS such a progression in Doom- in the weapons you pick up along the way.

[@madjackmadjack]

What Doom is missing as an RPG is character skill abstracted away from player skill; you can't put more points into "don't miss with shotgun". Character skill as an abstraction is what makes a RPG; you can play as a skilled swordsman or wise wizard without having to know the difference between Ox Guard and Plow Guard or being able to recite the seven metals.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Witcher.

[@ReverendTed]

It's possible to do a very minimal amount of role-playing in Doom. You can "roleplay" as a Barbarian by deciding to go through it melee only, or as a pacifist by killing only when necessary, but yeah - you're absolutely correct from a modern understanding of the genres and the idea of character abstraction.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@ReverendTed Not all role plaing is based of what you want to do. Is about what you can do.

[@celeron55]

So essentially, an FPS is a 3D action RPG without the character skills? I'm sure there are quite a few FPSes that just changed their genre to 3D action RPG...

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@celeron55 Genre don't exists.

[@ReverendTed]

I am immediately reminded of a single panel from Penny Arcade's June 11th, 2001 comic (which capped a series of 4 strips starting June 4th, decrying the state of gaming at the time). "This is more of a mid-to-late 80s platformer, with... Yes, I believe there's a hint of sim." "Yes, sim. Quite right. Garcon! More genres!"

[@f.o.c4039]

"Garcon means boy"

[@arturbb]

Surprisingly, I've actually always thought that, but instead of RPG I'd use the term Dungeon-Crawler, since I think that's a more appropriate genre that applies to the games you label as RPGs in the video, and was also a very common label that was used at the time. Doom definitely shares a LOT of DNA with those games, so I do think a more "academically correct" way of referring to Doom genre-wise in 1993 would've been "Action Dungeon-Crawler".

[@OscarGreenworth]

The phrase DOOM clone reminds me of the term souls-like. A game so successful that it inspired an entire new genre.

[@natayaway]

triangle square circle upsidedown triangle is such a clever abstraction of AHOY

[@jademonass2954]

i love seeing what people call a thing before it becomes truly coined like, before "conlang" was coined, people sometimes called them "fantasy languages", "planned lanuage" and "ideal language" to name a few i am exceptionally curious what the new name is going to be for the "souls like" genre, cuz i know we wont stick we that considering we have the ability to name it whatever we want

[@ReverendTed]

At this stage, there are so many "Souls-likes" that the term may well stick around, similar to roguelike and rogue-lite.

[@lucasLSD]

The roguelike term is older than millions of people playing games now, I don't think it can change without it becoming too descriptive. I also think soulslike will stick around because we don't have the Strife of dark souls yet, every game is still closely following fromsoft's formula.

[@applehack97]

yeah, reminded me of the labeling of new music genres. Like, what did people call Black Sabbath before the term "heavy metal" was coined? Psychedelic rock? Hard rock? Overdriven-guitar-based technical blues?

[@NigelXW]

@@applehack97 To a lot of those bands that laid the foundation for metal, they would just say they're playing rock and roll

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@applehack97 hard rock, dark rock, yeah. But generally just rock unless pushed to specify

[@WastelandPuppy]

You are right. And Diablo is a fantasy 2D shooter. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

[@jroggs85]

Kind of surprised light gun/ rail shooter games never came up. Seems like a much more apt comparison than shoot-em-ups, at least from the perspective angle.

[@TheAgentdp]

I would dare say that this issue also plagues the Dark Souls trilogy. What defines Dark Souls, and what is a "Souls-like"? High difficulty with high rewards? Berserk inspired visuals? Dodge-rolling? Intricate story telling? Character creation? I know there are videos debunking this, but I still feel that the issue persists. It would seem that as games were compared to Doom as Doom-clones, so to shall other games be compared to a vastly more popular game that preceeded it in it's genre(s).

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Consequences, everything being part of the world and permament save. Yep, that's all.

[@VanessaMagick]

I like Yahtzee's term for it, which is a "recursive RPG"

[@unfilthy]

Ah, but are Souls-like really like Dark Souls, or are they really Souldborne-like?

[@ThePageofCups]

Soulslikes are pretty much uniformly defined by weighty combat with a stamina system, checkpoints you have to explicitly activate, monsters that can kill you as quickly as you can kill them, and typically very hostile location design with either traps or malicious (read: mean) enemy placement. Also very common is a general dour moodiness to the world that's either in its waning days, darkest days, or in days attempting to rebuild. Not always (Slay the Minotaur is weird) but common.

[@Hexagonaldonut]

@@ThePageofCups Also very common is losing all or most of a particular resource (that usually functions as money) whenever you die, which is how games like Hollow Knight get considered to be vaguely soulslike themselves. (The atmosphere also helps.)

[@igormoreno3464]

Well, the id Software gang were indeed playing a lot of DnD while developing Doom, and even the inspiration of the Cacodemons came from the cover of a DnD book... :D

[@Big-Wumpus]

Also the premis of doom having demons invade earth from hell comes from on of IDs dnd campaigns

[@penelopermolai]

ooooh yeah. 3rd edition of Spelljammer right?

[@wallyhackenslacker]

The original idea for Quake was pretty much turning their DnD campaign into a videogame IIRC, before crunch forced them to turn Quake into what it is.

[@Smurfman256]

The source code reads a lot like how DnD battles are played out.

[@TheCyberDruid]

Yep, that makes a lot of sense. I was never into arcade shooters that much, but the (granted quite limited) adventure/exploration/'RPG' elements that Doom offers really hooked me.

[@DirtDude117]

I'm glad to still see these videos pop up, I have missed you Ahoy!

[@KirbandtheOatmeals]

Doom is clearly one of the games ever made.

[@TalkingVidya]

Doom: a game that would become it's own genre

[@Eric_Pham]

Dude, i was thinking and commented the same thing!

[@malikfaisal416]

Souls-like

[@vinnie245]

Whats Doom? Its Doom.

[@Kesvalk]

I mean, you're not wrong, people tend to marry RPGs with leveling but it's simply "Role playing game" and almost every game has you playing the role of a certain character in a certain way. almost every game is an RPG.

[@juneguts]

I cannot believe you found something brand-new to say about doom in 2024

[@TheUnaturalSelection]

So good to see you back and with doom content. So good.

[@jd3666]

It's just like Die Hard. It's a Christmas story about a man trying to get back with his ex wife.

[@nuberiffic]

It's not a Christmas story, it just happens at Christmas

[@RyuakiraX]

Die Hard is a Metroidvania. A man unlocks more parts of the tower by gathering more powerful weaponrym

[@S4BRETOOTH]

@@RyuakiraX But is a metroivania with a Xmas setting! Christmasvania.

[@Henners]

@@nuberifficthe set up for die hard can’t happen without the Christmas party and coming to CA from NY for the holidays. Plus the large amount of Christmas music, and they say Christmas more than home alone. If die hard just takes place during Christmas than the same applies to home alone

[@Cadmann778]

If you boil it down to the essentials it's a hallmark movie

[@Kinoksis]

3:03 "But there's a bit of a problem in describing broad categories of games with the name of another." Dark Souls: 👀

[@jasonblalock4429]

So then I suppose MIDI Maze / Faceball would be the first "pure" FPS without any RPG elements. That said, I've never been sold on the idea that Gauntlet is an RPG. It's more a fantasy-themed shmup in a maze. And there's precedent for that, Konami's Tutankham. But Gauntlet's complete lack of character-building - beyond putting in quarters to add food - is why I'd hesitate to call it an RPG. (And same for Doom.) If you say I'm "role-playing" as an Elf in Gauntlet, then you might as well also say I'm role-playing as a Vic Viper in Gradius. Hell, Gradius actually has more character-building than Gauntlet, through its upgrade system. So therefore, Gradius is also an RPG. 😁

[@benvel3392]

- *Ahoy shows up* - *States that Doom is a Action RPG* - *Leaves with an explanation* EDIT: edited due to popular demand

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

Gauntlet is an RPG? A game with no permanent growth, and built on quarter munching sadism? What a waste of everyone's time.

[@brotherbrother2137]

Ah I see that you watched the video

[@Hush.Elementz]

Bruh there's a whole 13 minutes serving an explanation, you can't miss it

[@jprice_]

@@brotherbrother2137 He was talking about himself. He left without listening to the explanation.

[@apocalypticpioneers2116]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 RPG didn't mean what it means now, it means ROLE playing game, not level up simulator. You're playing a ROLE.

[@JamesR624]

Kinda reminds me of how in the 2000's, every keyboard phone was a "Sidekick" and every smartphone was a "Blackberry Clone", and in the late 2000's to early 2010's, every all-touchscreen smartphone was an "iPhone clone", and every tablet was an "iPad".

[@cattysplat]

Laptop was a "portable computer". Talking to people online was for "weirdos." You didn't browse or search the internet, you surfed.

[@pokehybridtrainer]

This Unihertz Titan and older Key 2 pales to the functionality of the Sidekick. I still miss it and these keyboard phones are great for IT work to not lug a laptop around.

[@armorhide406]

Didn't help seemingly every parent said you were playing Mario on your Nintendo... Even if you were on an XBOX 360 playing Halo

[@goat-eyes]

​@@armorhide406You poor thing. How ever did you survive such neglect?

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

reminds me of at the time how people called the thing after the brand

[@dissolutionsounds426]

I don't think I met anyone who thought of video games as having genres until about 2000. It was a video game. Like Gauntlet or Pacman or NBA Jam.

[@CCNeverender]

Just wanted to take a second to recognize the effort you put into the visual style of this episode with the very 90's styled backgrounds and stickers and whatnot. Love seeing creators mix it up and get creative with the window-dressing :)

[@duffman18]

You should be earning millions making Hollywood documentaries. No hyperbole. You're fucking amazing mate.

[@diydylana3151]

100% agreed ahoy is on another level. Theres so much throwaway content on youtube but ahoy makes proffesional quality, interesting, well researched, well presented, beautifully edited documentaries/journalism. The time it takes to make them is so worth it.

[@SuperM789]

Please know what you’re saying…

[@cattysplat]

Except real documentaries are taken up mostly by talking head interviews with progressing "revelations and reactions" as well as the documenter talking in person about their opinion. A lot more fluff for entertainment purposes. Ahoy is far more streamlined and artistically stylised.

[@ghoulbuster1]

ewww hollywood huge downgrade

[@mihirx27]

​@@cattysplatYou're looking at real cash-grab documentaries. I'm talking moreso "love letter" documentaries like the ones NoClip make about video games, or bigger Video Essays like Liam Triforce makes, or heck, I remember this one that Redbull made very recently for CS:GO. I LOVE those kinds of interviews where u just let the subject of the interview build the narrative for you.

[@yahoosashimi]

Seeing Doom as an action RPG makes me rethink the gameplay experience of it. Always love how thought-provoking your videos are.

[@akeem2983]

Doom is a dungeon crawler

[@DeanoSauruzRex]

The magazine at 4:58 made me ask for an Insight into Dungeon Keeper, i don’t feel that game gets enough retrospective that it deserves!

[@FolfHavoc]

I've heard some call old FPS games are called Boomer Shooters, but I like calling them Wolfendooms, similar to the genre "Metroidvania" (I dunno, it sounds cool to me)

[@Prikense]

Boomer shooters should be called quakers by that logic, as they have more in common with quake (fast move speed, quirky physics, movement tech, etc) than doom

[@davidemelia6296]

Boomer shooter is an utterly dumb name. Carmack, Romero et al were not boomers, and neither were nearly all of the people playing them, even back then.

[@gibberishdump1610]

​@@davidemelia6296nowadays, boomer is used as a term describing anyone of age so the name stuck

[@dougcarey2233]

Can I interest anyone in a Xooter?

[@rearlafull2870]

@@gibberishdump1610 they are not in a baby boom, most won't even have families, dumb ironic name

[@trollman1296]

I don't know, naming the genre the game itself created sounds paradoxical

[@ikagura]

Like with Dark Souls and GTA.

[@feryth]

Oh, what do you mean, *roguelikes*? How boring!

[@shrouddreamer]

- "What genre is Doom?" - "The genre is Doom, obviously!" - "But didn't you just make up Doom?" - "Yes." - "So how do we know what genre it is?" - "The genre is Doom, obviously!" - "But didn't you just make up Doom?" ...

[@pnutz_2]

@@ikagura and total war

[@electricsabbath996]

Sound reasonable to me. I mean Doom is Doom, you don't need a genre to label tetris or pong.

[@EyeBallTank]

I guess the idea of Doom being called an RPG makes Doomguy originally being a blank slate kinda funny. I wonder what it'd be like if Doom ever had a character creator or even made Doomguy purely armored, like way before 2016 came up with the Doomslayer.

[@wulf4785]

All of my favorite creators have posted in the past week, god bless the work you do. I love your stuff!

[@JanNemcekCZ]

Being a Linguistics major and always interested in the vocabulary of the video game world, I really enjoyed this video. The situation was very similar in Czech computer magazines, in the 90s FPS were very often called "doomovka", which can be roughly translated as a "doom-like" game. It makes sense that the situation changed with the launch of Half-Life, because it also meant a fairly significant innovation of the genre (no keys and sharply separated levels, more emphasis on scripted sequences), so that the games no longer resembled Doom so much in their structure. But it never occurred to me that FPS have their roots in the first 3D RPG games, that's a really interesting idea considering how in recent years many FPS games are infused with RPG elements (which raises the debate if it's actually always functional and necessary), because in a certain sense it is not an innovation, but a return to the roots.

[@penguincamp]

I am so overjoyed that you included the bibliography in the video description!!!

[@DiscGolfLeagueMVP]

The 🐐 dropped! Looking forward to seeing y'all again in November

[@Bacxaber]

...Run & Gun. Next question. You don't need 13 minutes to solve this.

[@WJ0476]

RETURN OF THE KING

[@corryjamieson3909]

Hail to the king baby.

[@ikagura]

3 days ago?

[@leaky4230]

@@ikagurayou mean months?

[@Ze_eT]

@@leaky4230 WJ is referring to the comment being 3 days old when the video came out 20 minutes ago.

[@dashthatoneviewer]

@@ikagura Must be members' perks

[@DrakoWulf]

Ahoy is a blessing every time he posts. Only LEMMiNO gets me more excited for documentary-style content, and that's a high bar.

[@purebaldness]

Throw in David Firth and you have my 3 favourite YT channels 👌

[@DrakoWulf]

@@purebaldness I've not heard of them. What's their style of content?

[@purebaldness]

@@DrakoWulf It's the creator of 'Salad Fingers' and many, many other works. It's an animation channel and not documentaries, to be fair.

[@DrakoWulf]

@@purebaldness Ah, a Newgrounds classic.

[@purebaldness]

@@DrakoWulf LEMMiNO uploads a video one day after Ahoy lol

[@mrchester7349]

Gauntlet is a top down shooter. A top down perspective shooter. If you change the perspective from top down to first-person it would become a first-person perspective shooter

[@HattmannenNilsson]

Oh, sweet relief! Someone else remembers when 2.5D/3D shooter games we're still called shoot-'em-ups, with various descriptors sometimes applied like 3D or first/third person and so on. I still think of those kinds of games in those terms. I'd go as far as saying that some rogue-lights are also basically shoot-'em-ups. Top-down, side-scrolling, first person, third person, with or without procedurally generated maps or being screen-locked.

[@purplehaze2358]

"Computer Gaming World described it as an action game with a first-person 3d environment." So basically, just a roundabout way of saying "first person shooter" before we had that name for it.

[@retroforager]

yeah i like how in all the examples cited, it's clear we were always pointed in the direction of the name "fps" and just slowly got nudged into it over time.

[@JustKrin]

I like the evolution of "3d first person perspective shoot em up" into "first person shooter/fps". We know it's 3d, we know what it means with being in first person, and we know that we have to shoot things

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

only in a reality where action is synonymous with firearms.

[@kylegonewild]

@@TheJacklikesvideos Squares are still rectangles. Shooting is still action.

[@rubberjohnny1]

My day is automatically a good one when Ahoy uploads

[@flounder31]

Missed you, Stuart! Thanks for another great vid.

[@SteveKi]

I was shaking my head the last couple minutes knowing where this was going but the final minute sold me.

[@my4trackmachine]

I love the angle of this video. Understanding the evolving general consensus of the time and the failed or forgotten ones really paints a picture of where things were at. This is an excellent way to convey history and the feeling of living through it. I don't think things are covered in this way nearly enough. Brilliant work.

[@ValkyrieTiara]

Check out Jeremy Parish's channel for about 10 years worth of content of looking at games in the context of their own time. He focuses mostly on 80s consoles, but in his search to "understand" the NES and Game Boy he has gone through many other more obscure (mostly Japanese) consoles over the years. If you're interested in game history that focuses on understanding games from a consumer perspective, he can't be beat.

[@my4trackmachine]

@@ValkyrieTiara Thanks for the tip! I’ll check it out.

[@Dsand23]

It's very nice to see the pivot towards a steady(ish) stream of starter content in addition to the masterfully produced documentaries I pay for. Thanks for amazing content, as always!

[@minecraftsteve2504]

Documentaries you pay for? Does he have more documentaries locked behind a pay wall somewhere?

[@doomguy19931]

​@@minecraftsteve2504 he might be a Patreon supporter

[@Dsand23]

@@minecraftsteve2504 No, but Patrons get videos ~ 3 days earlier

[@chownful]

How much do you pay? Would you consider yourself a pay pig?

[@lukaszsawicki9441]

As always your materials are high-quality, interesting, informative, well facts-checked. Amazing. Thank you. Bigger thank you because yesterday I had 39 birthday so, it was amazing gift for me:) THANK YOU

[@ihavecojones]

Ahoy released a new video at the same time as Lemmino? Christmass came early this year baby! Whoooo!

[@codeinefrosty88]

DOOM is it. And it can run DOOM.

[@KandiKid87]

Immediately connected my bluetooth for this one. So good to see ya again, Ahoy!

[@chrishalsall188]

Good to have you back. Would be lovely to have a bonus update on life behind the scenes Stu. It’s been time.

[@Atreus21]

THis has been a good weekend. Both Ahoy and Lemmino uploaded.

[@pfrancescutti]

Today turned out to be a good day. AHOY posted.

[@Supermunch2000]

What a power move! "I will be taking no questions" and leaves the comments enabled.

[@Mr.GuGuGaCucaSnooch]

"The FPS genre didn't exist when Doom released" - Wolfenstein 3D - Catacomb 3D - Pathways Into Darkness

[@Pancakes4everyone42]

There is no Ahoy like genre. There's just Ahoy's videos. Honestly nothing has topped your Polybius video

[@Mace2.0]

Ahoy, matey!

[@Adonisius_Kavata]

Ahoy dropping a video is like witnessing a shooting star and eclipse at the same time

[@Klatchan]

This reminds me of how early Death Metal bands (including Death) were called Thrash because the term Death Metal didn't exist yet.

[@levifzephyr]

So good to watch your videos! Thanks for your time and effort.

[@xthegrim]

Loved this, always happy to see quality talk about the first Doom