Nick's (Gothic) Movie Insights

This Q&A series, playfully titled "Hell-blazers," interviews Twitch streamers, speedrunners and Doom fans about Doom Eternal (2020); it asks them, based on their own experiences, to compare the game to the rest of the franchise, and what effect it will have on speedrunning and gaming at large.

General information about the Q&A can be found, here; a compendium of the interviews as they are published can be found here (which also includes interesting videos, break-downs and other articles).

Nick: My name is Nicholas van der Waard; I have my MA in Gothic literature and wrote my thesis on Metroidvania.

DraQu: I'm DraQu, a Twitch streamer & FPS Speedrunner.


The Player
Nick: What got you into Doom? Do you remember the first game you played?

DraQu:A close friend of mine introduced Doom to me back in middle school. I think the source port we used back then was Doom95. He introduced me to Doom (1993), Doom 2 (1995), TNT (1996), and Plutonia (1996). I have very fond memori…

This compendium contains the interviews for "Hell-blazers," my Doom Eternal Speedrunning Q&A Project, and any salient links.

Note: Interviews are posted every Friday. When they are, this compendium will also be updated.



Foreword
Aimed largely at the Twitch crowd, but also speedrunners, Doom Eternal can be speedrun like any videogame. I've followed Doom Eternal closely to see how speedrunners feel about it. In time, can it rank alongside classics like Super Metroid (1994) or Goldeneye (1997)?
My name is Nicholas van der Waard, and I'm independent researcher/post-grad whose work is focused on Metroidvania, but also horror-theme FPS. For more information about my work, as well as the Q&A and what it covers, please refer to this extensive post.

The Compendium
The Players

These are the persons who have kindly agreed to be interviewed for this project. While all of them are gamers, each person represents a different aspect of gamer/speedrunning culture.

DraQu: A Twitch …

Starting next Friday, I will be posting interviews from "Hell-blazers," my new Q&A series on Doom Eternal (2020). Like my "Alien: Ore" (2019) interview series, it will be organized into a compendium that is updated weekly.


The Q&A

This interview series examines Doom Eternal as a game to be played fast—not just by speedrunners, but Twitch streamers of all sorts: DraQu, The Spud Hunter, Byte Me, King Dime, and Under the Mayo. The Spud Hunter isn't a speedrunner, for example; he's an arena combat specialist, but still plays the game quickly because of its design.

This Q&A examines different aspects of gameplay in Doom Eternal. These include: Difficulty, Speed, Glitches, Game Length, and Technique. It also examines how Doom Eternal is played by speedrunners. Doom Eternal caters to many different styles, which typically manifest as categories: glitches/glitchless, 100%/0%, and so on. Some "warp" past much of the game; others try to preserve…

This review is strictly about Doom Eternal's (2020) single-player campaign. I don't delve into the game's lore, or examine its multi-player.

I'll start with the most important question, first: "Is it Gothic?"

Well, sort of.

In Britain, the Neo-Gothic movement initially focused on the return—of a Romanticized past, imprinted on the Catholic faith as demonized during the Reformation. By visiting Hell on Earth, Doom Eternal returns an "older," devilish religion to the mortal plane: the Hell priests. These robed outsiders announce themselves with gaudy icons, skulls and yawning spires; also an outside, the Slayer belongs to an order of medieval knights called the Sentinels. It's all highly Romantic from a visual standpoint; deliberately antiquated.



Doom Eternal ignores many of the other ways a Gothic space can function. Its levels aren't mazes to lose yourself in; they're scenic, and have only one direction by which to move: forwards. Gaze u…