had a surprising realization recently, playing the remake of resident evil 4...

which is that doom 2016 doesn't play like the OG doom games. i've always thought this but i didn't really have a way to describe what it plays like instead, and it's resident evil 4, but in first person. the remake even more so, but that's only because the remake is building upon what's already there:

big, restricted non-linear combat arenas where you're encouraged to be constantly moving, kiting opponents, and prioritizing targets. that's not classic doom, that's resident evil 4, which was taking the "survival" part of being survival horror and reinterpreting it as faster-paced, more aggressive action horror. the village fight in both versions of RE4 could translate to doom 2016's gameplay loop almost entirely unchanged!

and i think that's fascinating when it doesn't feel like that was intentional at all. but resident evil 4's gameplay loop defined two entire decades of video game design and continues to define it today (see: uncharted and last of us). RE4 itself was taking MGS2's innovations on MGS's gameplay, particularly the over the shoulder shooting from cover, and developers responded to those innovations by creating the third-person cover shooter that was every AAA video game for at least two entire console generations.

so what you have in doom 2016 is an attempt to go back to the roots of first person shooters, but not by going back to how doom 1993 played in reality. instead it's taking the "cover" and "third" out of "third person cover shooter" by making it a first person shooter about constant movement... which is going back to how resident evil 4 played, before gears of war looked at RE4 and established the third-person shooter as we know it.

what a wild back and forth in the history of this medium. it's SO interesting to think about.


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