Many video games are inspired by other media in one form or another. The Grand Theft Auto series draws from TV shows like Miami Vice and movies like Casino, while Conker’s Bad Fur Day parodies classics like Jaws and The Matrix. That said, some games are more heavily influenced by other works than many realize.
One of the best examples is the game that helped define the first-person shooter genre: Doom. While Doom was so influential that early shooters were often called “Doom clones,” it was itself heavily inspired by two films. What’s even more surprising is that both of those movies are sequels.
Doom’s Story Was Heavily Inspired By James Cameron’s Aliens
Even though Doom is best known for its gameplay, it also has a story and world-building behind it. It begins when the player character, popularly referred to as the Doomguy, is sent to Mars after refusing an order to open fire on innocent civilians. He now works for the United Aerospace Corporation and is stuck on a dead-end assignment on Mars. As it turns out, the corporation is conducting dangerous teleportation experiments, and when things go wrong, the base finds itself under attack.
At first glance, this might not seem that similar to Aliens, the action-packed sequel to Alien, but the two works are more alike than they might seem. Aliens begins when Ripley is rescued from space by a salvage team and wakes up on a salvage station. She’s blamed for destroying the Nostromo, the ship she blew up at the end of Alien, and is persuaded by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation to join a mission to investigate a terraforming colony.
As it turns out, the colony has been almost completely annihilated by Xenomorphs. It’s later revealed that the attacks began after the Weyland-Yutani Corporation ordered colonists to investigate a spaceship containing alien eggs. The corporation was hoping to profit from the sale and underestimated just how dangerous the aliens could be. Now, Ripley and the mission’s other survivors must fight their way to safety.
While the plots aren’t identical, there are obvious parallels between the two stories. Doomguy and Ripley are both being punished for past behavior and are begrudgingly involved with their missions. There are also clear similarities between the United Aerospace Corporation and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, both of which are indirectly responsible for the presence of the terrifying creatures that propel the stories forward.
There’s also the matter of how the film’s and game’s plots are properly set off, with Aliens effectively starting from the moment contact with the colony on the exomoon LV-426 is lost, while Doom effectively starts from the moment contact with the base on Mars is lost. That said, there are some substantive differences in tone between the two, which is where another source of inspiration comes in.
Evil Dead II Gave Doom Its Action
Ash battles the possessed body of his girlfriend Linda in Evil Dead II.Image via De Laurentiis Entertainment
While Doom owes a lot to Aliens, it was actually designed to be a hybrid of two different movies. “Thematically, Doom was viewed as Aliens meets Evil Dead II,” said the game’s lead programmer, John Carmack.
Evil Dead II is a 1987 comedy horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi, who went on to direct the Spider-Man trilogy in the 2000s. While it serves as a sequel to Raimi’s debut feature, The Evil Dead, it leans more heavily into comedy and is known for its over-the-top action scenes. The B-movie was a favorite of Doom’s developers, and they tried to mimic Evil Dead II’s style when creating the game’s weapons.
Like with Aliens, the developers took light inspiration from Evil Dead II instead of copying it outright. While Doom doesn’t have the sawed-off shotgun that Evil Dead II’s protagonist, Ash, uses in the film, it’s clear the movie pushed the developers to create more elaborate weaponry with devastating effects on enemies.
While Evil Dead II sees Ash fighting demonic enemies, it wasn’t actually where the idea for Doom’s enemies came from. Instead, the concept of a battle with invading demons came from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign played by the game’s developers. The campaign, which saw demons overtaking a planet, was the finishing touch the team needed to bring Doom to life.
Doom, Evil Dead II, and Aliens Are All Classics in Their Own Right
Doom on Sega 32X with a player shooting enemies.Image via id Software
Doom, Evil Dead II, and Aliens have one more thing in common: they’ve all become classics in their respective mediums. Aliens was both a critical and commercial success, and many fans prefer it to the original Alien. Evil Dead II was only a modest box office success, but it’s now considered to be one of the greatest cult films of all time.
As for Doom, it became an early gold standard in gaming and played a major role in popularizing the first-person shooter genre. Like Aliens, it built tension through sci-fi horror themes, and like Evil Dead II, it balanced that darkness with over-the-top action and a subtle sense of humor. Even though it was released in the ’90s, its influence can still be felt today, with later entries in the franchise, like 2016’s Doom, revolutionizing the genre like the original did.