{"id":451935,"date":"2026-05-20T22:45:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/451935\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T22:45:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:45:28","slug":"doom-the-story-of-the-ultra-metal-shoot-em-up-and-its-iconic-soundtrack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/451935\/","title":{"rendered":"Doom: the story of the ultra-metal shoot-\u2019em-up and its iconic soundtrack"},"content":{"rendered":"

The metal-inspired soundtrack for 1993 shoot-\u2019em-up Doom entered the Library Of Congress\u2019 National Recording Registry<\/a> last week, joining music by the likes of Metallica<\/a>, Beyonc\u00e9, the Beatles and Bob Dylan. In 2024, Hammer interviewed designer John Romero, Bury Tomorrow<\/a> bassist Davyd Winter-Bates and Periphery<\/a> guitarist Misha Mansoor to find out how the game was created \u2013 and why it made such a lasting impact on heavy music.<\/p>\n

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\"A\n<\/p>\n

In January 1993, upstart US game developers id Software put out a press release announcing a game that would revolutionise the world. According to the press release, it was set in a scientific research facility where \u201cwave after wave of demonic creatures are spreading through the base, killing or possessing everyone in sight\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gamers would play one of four off-duty soldiers. \u201cAs you stand knee-deep in the dead, you must eradicate the enemy and find out where they\u2019re coming from\u2026 the safest place is behind a trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

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The hyperbole didn\u2019t stop there. Such was id\u2019s confidence in the game, they proclaimed that they \u201cfully expect it to be the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world\u201d. They had a striking name for this soon-to-be released classic: Doom. The only problem? Its creators had yet to write a single line of code for it.<\/p>\n

Not that the devs at id were worried. They\u2019d already upended the industry the previous year with the anarchic Wolfenstein 3D, a dark, blood-soaked, shoot-the-Nazis counterpoint to Mario and Sonic, with cutting-edge audio that allowed players to feel the impact of every bullet they fired into the bad guys. That game, like its yet-to-be-written follow-up, had been created by a team that worked and partied together in a small housing complex in Mesquite, Texas.<\/p>\n

Unlike such corporate counterparts as Electronic Arts, id Software\u2019s informal office was more like a university hangout. These four 20-somethings spent their days laughing, coding and blasting metal late into the night as they tinkered with game engines and pushed computer tech to its limits. John Romero, who co-founded id in 1991, was the lead designer on Wolfenstein 3D.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all total metalheads, and that attitude really started coming through,\u201d says John, speaking to Hammer via Zoom. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a game that was that violent, the crazy speed\u2026 it was genuinely shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

But it was nothing compared to what John and the id team had in mind for Doom. Sending players straight into the depths of Hell, the vision for id\u2019s gnarly demon-slaying epic was to bring their favourite metal album covers to life. Hitting shelves and shareware sites in December 1993, Doom was an instant phenomenon, matching Wolfenstein\u2019s first-month sales in just one day.<\/p>\n

One-upping Wolfenstein\u2019s sense of speed and combining it with a uniquely hellish brand of futurism, it was unlike anything else in videogames. Bury Tomorrow bassist Davyd Winter-Bates remembers booting up Doom\u2019s iconic title screen as a young kid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to get my uncle to buy it for me,\u201d he says. \u201cAfter Wolfenstein 3D, I thought shooters couldn\u2019t get any better, but Doom really blew me away. The weapons, the soundtrack, the speed\u2026 it was just super-, super-cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How did id wind up creating the most metal videogame to ever hit the medium? For John Romero, metal wasn\u2019t just a soundtrack, it was his life. Moving from the US to England as a computer-loving teenager in 1983, it was here that he fell love with the genre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be in the back of the bus going to high school, and they\u2019d have a giant boombox,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d crank it all the way up and play Accept<\/a> until everyone\u2019s head was banging!\u201d<\/p>\n

He was a budding singer, even trying out for a metal band. \u201cBut it didn\u2019t work out because they wanted me to scream,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I stuck with programming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metal\u2019s loss was gaming\u2019s gain. When John and his id colleagues began working on Doom, their only thought was, \u201cThis is gonna be the best game in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Pantera<\/a> blasted out of the id office speakers, something took shape that was darker and more violent than anything ever released before. Doom felt like it was written in blood. Its giddying speed, unrelenting violence and terror-inducing sense of momentum were an adrenaline-pumping shotgun blast to the face, while its demonic imagery, metal-inspired cover art and scalpel-edged logo was metal brought to (virtual) life. All it needed was a killer soundtrack to match.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Tool\n<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in Metal Hammer issue 386, May 2024. (Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t ever like, \u2018Hmm, what kind of music should we use?\u2019\u201d says John. \u201cIt was so obvious that it was metal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only snag was that id\u2019s longtime composer, Bobby Prince, wasn\u2019t a metal fan. Instead, he loved jazz. Cue John and the rest of id going full School Of Rock and giving him a crash course in the genre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sat him down and said, \u2018Right, let\u2019s talk about metal,\u2019\u201d says John. \u201cBetween us, we had all the bases covered \u2013 prog metal, thrash<\/a> etc. We gave him CDs from Pantera, Slayer<\/a> \u2013 different groups that had certain sounds that would be really cool to translate to MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface]. Alice In Chains<\/a>, too. Even though that was kind of grunge, Jerry Cantrell was a badass metal guitarist.\u201d<\/p>\n

This intensive programme of homework paid off. Listen to the still-iconic soundtrack today, and the thrash influence clearly punches through the virtual instruments. The metallic MIDI bleeps and bloops added a mosh-ready feel to the carnage.<\/p>\n

\u201cBobby did a really great job making the music,\u201d John says. \u201cEven today when people talk about how metal Doom was, they still remember what it was like to hear those songs back in the day and how crazy that was, because you just didn\u2019t have anything like that. But today\u2026 it\u2019s horrible!\u201d he adds with a laugh.<\/p>\n

For the young Davyd Winter-Bates, that \u201chorrible\u201d soundtrack changed him forever. \u201cI played Doom before I was even properly into metal,\u201d he says. \u201cI was listening to all those 8-bit riffs, like, \u2018This isn\u2019t pop music!\u2019 I think a lot of my love of real heavy thrash riffs comes from slaying beasts in Doom.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Doom\u2019s legend spread, its influence inevitably fed back into the metal world. \u201cGwar<\/a> were nuts about Doom!\u201d John Romero recalls excitedly. \u201cIt was like, \u2018Holy crap!\u2019 Rammstein<\/a> played Doom all the time, too. Doom massively influenced the creation of that group.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Doom\u2019s most famous fans was Trent Reznor, who became obsessed with the game on tour. Such was his fandom, that the Nine Inch Nails<\/a> leader would collaborate with id to create the soundtrack to Doom\u2019s landmark follow-up, Quake. Abandoning its predecessor\u2019s apocalyptic hellscape for a more gothic castle-style locale, Quake swapped Doom\u2019s gore-splattered approach for shuffling undead, oppressive atmospherics and a deeply unsettling brand of supernatural horror.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew when we were making Quake that what it needed was disturbing industrial music,\u201d John recalls. \u201cWe thought, \u2018What if we had Nine Inch Nails do the soundtrack?\u2019 Who didn\u2019t love NIN? The Downward Spiral was brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, id and NIN shared an agent, though John and his colleagues didn\u2019t know that at the time. One of the company\u2019s business guys reached out to the band to see if they would be interested in getting involved.<\/p>\n

Doom 1 – Mission 1 Gameplay – YouTube
\n\"Doom<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey go, \u2018Holy shit, we play Doom all the time!\u2019\u201d says John. \u201cAnd then Trent comes out to see us.\u201d<\/p>\n

John recalls that, at the time, he had lingering doubts about whether NIN could pull it off. \u201cI was like, \u2018That\u2019s fucking cool, but can they do no lyrics? Can they just make an unsettling thing?\u2019 Because their sound is great, but it\u2019s also very high-energy industrial, can they do something that\u2019s not as high energy?\u201d<\/p>\n

The finished soundtrack proved they could. \u201cThe Nine Inch Nails soundtrack was so good,\u201d says John. \u201cI needed Quake to be a deeply unsettling and violent world where you don\u2019t feel safe, and they matched exactly that aesthetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quake may have redefined 3D videogames when it was released in 1996, but much like its cast of formidable demons, Doom refused to die. A successful sequel, Doom II: Hell On Earth, landed in 1994, its code allowing fans to constantly mod new single and multiplayer maps into the game. Two more spin-offs, Final Doom and Doom 64, arrived in 1996 and 1997 respectively.<\/p>\n

Like so much connected with metal culture before it, Doom became embroiled in controversy. In 1999, two teenagers, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, shot and killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado, before turning their guns on themselves. The media picked up on the killers\u2019 love of Doom, making it a scapegoat for the shootings alongside Marilyn Manson.<\/p>\n

By the mid-2000s, Doom\u2019s popularity had finally been superseded by other games. Doom 3, a reboot of the original game, was released in 2004, but fans didn\u2019t respond well to its slower-paced take on survival horror. Yet this brooding behemoth refused to stay buried. In 2016, 12 years after the last instalment, Doom emerged roaring once more in the shape of a reboot that reimagined its demonic limb-blasting for a new generation of gamers and metal fans alike.<\/p>\n

John Romero was no longer involved with id Software, but the Doom reboot enlisted Mick Gordon, an Australian musician and acclaimed videogame composer, to work on a soundtrack that would become as iconic as the original. He was blown away by how the developers working on the new version had nailed the feeling of the original game. Yet the people behind the game had one significant request.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Trent\n<\/p>\n

Nine Inch Nails\u2019 Trent Reznor (pictured in 1994) was one of Doom\u2019s most high-profile fans. (Image credit: Tim Mosenfelder\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the pre-conditions of working on Doom was, believe it or not, no metal. Nothing,\u201d he told PC Gamer in 2016. \u201cYou\u2019d think it\u2019d be the opposite, right? The worry was that it would be corny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Mick sneakily incorporated more and more guitar into his compositions, morphing an unsettling electronic soundtrack into something with the teeth to match its snarling demons. The end result was a brutal, low-tuned, riff-filled sonic assault: a sophisticated realisation of what Doom could have originally sounded like.<\/p>\n

The game itself was a hit, shifting two million copies in its first year on sale, and Mick\u2019s crushing soundtrack \u2013 a mix of industrial, djent and extreme metal \u2013 became a success in its own right. He even ended up performing a track from it live at the 2016 Game Awards, backed by drummer Matt Halpern of prog metallers Periphery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMick is obviously immensely talented, and obviously loves Meshuggah, like everyone should,\u201d says Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor, an avid fan of the Doom reboot. \u201cI remember hearing that soundtrack and playing that game and just thinking it\u2019s so awesome that something like this could happen, because this is not the safe choice. Generally, first-person shooters have heavy electronic elements or dark industrial elements, so players think they\u2019re gonna get electro, and then when it hits, it\u2019s a metal riff. And that\u2019s so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bury Tomorrow\u2019s Davyd Winter-Bates sees Mick Gordon\u2019s soundtrack as being just as important to late-2010s metal as the original was to the early-90s scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it can be a gateway to more people liking metal, but, at the same time, those extra soundscape elements also show us what that genre can do,\u201d he says. \u201cThe only problem I have with that soundtrack is sometimes the riffs are too good, and they distract when you\u2019re playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And John Romero? The Daddy of Doom himself was blown away by the soundtrack. \u201cI love it!\u201d he enthuses. \u201cIt was really awesome. Mick Gordon did such a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

DOOM \u2013 Launch Trailer – YouTube
\n\"DOOM<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

As with the original Doom more than two decades earlier, the reboot\u2019s influence bled into the metal world. Misha Mansoor says he saw an upswing in interest in djent and tech metal from people who might not have otherwise encountered it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a perfect storm, because Mick did a really, really great job with the soundtrack,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople got to experience what metal could be, as opposed to this sort of watered-down impression of what someone thinks it is. When someone gets to experience that in earnest, you can have those \u2018Oh shit!\u2019 moments where everything clicks, and it becomes your gateway drug.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mick Gordon himself has become a go-to collaborator for metal bands. Bring Me The Horizon<\/a> enlisted him to work on 2020\u2019s Post Human: Survival Horror album. The composer has also worked with the likes of Architects<\/a>, Motionless In White<\/a> and Monuments, while the 2016 iteration of Doom and its acclaimed 2020 sequel, Doom Eternal, influenced Bury Tomorrow\u2019s 2023 album, The Seventh Sun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of what makes that soundtrack so good is everything that\u2019s going on \u2013 from the squelching to the shooting, to the reloading to the voiceovers \u2013 it all ties in,\u201d says Davyd Winter-Bates.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn our last record, we started to do that with things like chains and sirens, weird things that we would just be like, \u2018Hey, we should put this noise on there!\u2019 I really liked the idea of pulling in things that aren\u2019t necessarily instrumental into our music. Adding in those things comes from playing games like Doom.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Romero\u2019s time working on Doom may have come to a close long ago, but his love of the series and for metal has never left him. Now living in Galway, Ireland with wife and fellow game developer Brenda Romero, he still attends as many metal gigs as he can. Recently, he\u2019s contributed to Iron Maiden<\/a>\u2019s Piece Of Mind<\/a> comic book, celebrating the band\u2019s 1983 album.<\/p>\n

Right now, John and his studio, Romero Games, are working on an all-new shooter that\u2019s shrouded in secrecy. Whether or not it\u2019ll have the same impact as Doom remains to be seen, but the legacy of John\u2019s blood-soaked art continues to reverberate in the worlds of gaming and metal alike.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in Metal Hammer issue 386, May 2024. The eighth Doom game, Doom: The Dark Ages, was released by Bethesda last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The metal-inspired soundtrack for 1993 shoot-\u2019em-up Doom entered the Library Of Congress\u2019 National Recording Registry last week, joining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-451935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}