The Ultimate Doom (1995)
The Ultimate Doom is a 1995 shooter video game made by id Software and Activision.
The Ultimate Doom collects all four episodes of id Software's 1993 original, including the bonus episode Thy Flesh Consumed added for the 1995 release. A lone marine on Phobos finds his base overrun by demons after a teleportation experiment at the Union Aerospace Corporation fails. The game's design is spare and exact: fast movement, no jumping, weapon pickups scattered through maze corridors, and a pacing built around the sound of something around the next corner. It is the game that gave the genre its name and its grammar.
Quick answers
What is The Ultimate Doom about?
The Ultimate Doom collects all four episodes of id Software's 1993 original, including the bonus episode Thy Flesh Consumed added for the 1995 release. A lone marine on Phobos finds his base overrun by demons after a teleportation experiment at the Union Aerospace Corporation fails. The game's design is spare and exact: fast movement, no jumping, weapon pickups scattered through maze corridors, and a pacing built around the sound of something around the next corner. It is the game that gave the genre its name and its grammar.
When was The Ultimate Doom released?
The Ultimate Doom was released on 30 April 1995.
Who made The Ultimate Doom?
The Ultimate Doom was made by id Software, Activision and GT Interactive Software.
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A few thoughts on The Ultimate Doom
The DOOM: Original Game Soundtrack is the 2016 reboot's score, not the original MIDI, but the contrast is instructive. Hell Comes to Frogtown captures the same B-movie register: a lone, resourceful fighter moving through a hostile world that wants him dead.
Music as relentless and heavy as Doom's own soundtrack
The Ultimate Doom set its pace to a fast, relentless heaviness, and that same intensity carries into DOOM: Original Game Soundtrack's later industrial assault, Death's Leprosy and Ministry's Leather Teeth grinding through metal's harshest textures, The Prodigy's The Fat of the Land turning breakbeats into a weapon, and Repo! The Genetic Opera's theatrical, distorted rock opera.
Horror where the building itself wants you dead
The Ultimate Doom traps its marine in maze-like corridors where something demonic waits around every corner, a dread that Backrooms turns into an entire liminal-space premise. Supernatural and From build whole seasons out of ordinary places hiding something hostile, Tomie gives that same dread a body that keeps coming back, and Lee Cronin's The Mummy resurrects an old monster for a new scare.
Violent stories that refuse to look away
The Ultimate Doom doesn't soften its violence, gore is part of the pacing, not an afterthought. American Psycho and Mr. Mercedes push their violence into deliberately uncomfortable territory instead of glossing over it, Mortal Kombat II carries fighting-game brutality straight onto the screen, and Hell Comes to Frogtown wears its B-movie gore with a grin.