32 YEARS AGO, TWO ‘80S SEQUELS SMUGGLED THEIR NIGHTMARES INTO GAMING—BIRTHING THE FPS APOCALYPSE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING! 🎮💀
Demons pour from hellish portals on a red-rocked moon, shotguns roar like chainsaws, and marines quip through gore… all ripped from a xenomorph hive raid and a cabin full of undead slapstick. One dev’s “light” nod to over-the-top chainsaw limbs hid the blood-soaked blueprint for a genre that’d spawn billions.
Dive into the cinematic heist that forged a legend. Click before the imps overrun your feed.
The year is 1993—a pixelated dawn where floppy disks spun tales of doom, and id Software’s four-man garage team in Mesquite, Texas, unleashed a beast that would devour 3.5 million copies, birth the FPS genre, and etch “rip and tear” into gamer gospel: Doom. John Carmack’s engine revolutionized 3D rendering; John Romero’s level design turned corridors into coliseums; Adrian Carmack’s sprites bled Hell’s palette. But beneath the BFG blasts and Cacodemon skies lay cinematic DNA from two unassuming sequels, dropped 32 years prior in 1986 and 1987. Aliens—James Cameron’s pulse-pounding xenomorph siege—and Evil Dead II—Sam Raimi’s gore-soaked comedy of chainsaw limbs—weren’t overt blueprints, but subtle sparks that ignited Doom‘s unholy fire. As Romero recalled in a 2024 PC Gamer retrospective, “We watched Aliens for the base-under-siege vibe, Evil Dead II for the absurd weapon gore. It was quiet inspiration—no credits roll, just raw energy we stole and amplified.” In an era of Wolfenstein 3D’s Nazi hunts, Doom (Metacritic-equivalent 94 from archival scores) wasn’t just a game; it was a Hollywood heist, smuggling ’80s sequel swagger into silicon eternity.
The timeline aligns like a Doomguy shotgun shell: Aliens hit theaters July 18, 1986, grossing $85 million on a $18 million bet—Cameron’s follow-up to Ridley Scott’s 1979 slow-burn, transforming H.R. Giger’s horrors into a squad-based swarm-fest. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) leads Colonial Marines into LV-426’s Hadley’s Hope, a sprawling colony turned hive. Contact lost, power fails, xenomorphs multiply in vents—cue pulse rifles, motion trackers, and Hudson’s (Bill Paxton) iconic “Game over, man!” panic. Evil Dead II arrived October 9, 1987, Raimi’s $3.6 million splatter-comedy sequel to his 1981 cabin curse, ditching dread for slapstick: Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) battles Deadites with a boomstick, then hacks his possessed hand with a chainsaw, becoming the grizzled one-liner machine. Both films—low-budget rebels grossing bank—premiered amid Reagan-era excess, but their DNA seeped into id’s code like Implasma.
Id’s inception traces to 1991’s Commander Keen, but Doom‘s 1993 shareware revolution owed its terror template to Aliens. Romero, in Doom Guy: Life in Death (2019 memoir), credits Cameron’s film for the Mars UAC base siege: “Lost contact with Phobos? Straight from Hadley’s Hope. Demons swarming vents like facehuggers—pulse rifles became Super Shotguns.” The plot kicks with a routine Mars moon transfer—scientists open a hellgate via teleport tech—mirroring Aliens‘ colony blackout. Doomguy (unarmed marine, like Ripley’s ragtag crew) grabs a pistol, then chainsaws through Imps in blood-slicked labs. Level design echoes: Tech corridors branch into hive-like hellscapes, with “telefrag” kills nodding to xenomorph ambushes. John Carmack told Wired in 2013: “We played Aliens on loop during crunch— that relentless pace, the squad wipeouts. It taught us horror in tight spaces.” Sales spiked post-Aliens home video boom; by 1994, Doom had 10 million downloads, its mod scene birthing Quake.
Evil Dead II‘s influence? Pure chaotic glee amid the gore. Raimi’s sequel amps Ash’s arsenal—sawed-off shotgun, chainsaw arm, boomstick quips like “Groovy!”—turning possession into pratfall pandemonium. Id devoured it for weapon flair: The chainsaw revs like Ash’s limb-hack, shotgun blasts mimic his Deadite dismemberments. Romero: “Ash’s one-liners? That’s Doomguy’s silent snark—impaled Baron of Hell, flip the bird.” The Super Shotgun, Doom II‘s 1994 star, echoes Ash’s double-barrel boom; Cacodemon fireballs spray gibs like Necronomicon blood. In a 2022 Retro Gamer interview, Adrian Carmack admitted: “Evil Dead II was our palette cleanser—Aliens for tension, Raimi for release. Chainsaw levels? Direct rip.” The humor tempers horror: Pinky demons charge comically, Cyberdemons roar absurdly—Raimi’s slapstick in pixel form.
Thematically, the duo forged Doom‘s bipolar soul: Aliens‘ corporate dread (Shinra-like UAC experiments) meets Evil Dead II‘s absurd resilience. Ripley’s maternal grit inspires Doomguy’s lone-wolf rampage; Ash’s everyman heroism fuels the marine’s unkillable quips. Both sequels subvert originals—Alien‘s isolation to squad action, Evil Dead‘s terror to comedy—mirroring Doom‘s Wolfenstein evolution. Engine-wise, Carmack’s raycasting mimicked Aliens‘ claustrophobic vents; sprite scaling gibbed foes like Raimi’s practical FX.
Production lore crackles. Id’s $100,000 budget—peanuts vs. Aliens‘ millions—funded four devs in a metal shed. Romero sketched levels on napkins, inspired by LV-426 blueprints (bootlegged VHS). Doom‘s 1993 Christmas shareware episode? Timed to Aliens‘ TV premiere. Mods exploded: “Aliens TC” (1995) swapped demons for xenomorphs; “Evil Dead Doom” (1998) chainsawed Deadites. Legacy? FPS giants cite it—Half-Life‘s Black Mesa nods Hadley’s Hope; DOOM Eternal (2020, 88 Metacritic) revives Ash’s boomstick.
Critics hail the osmosis. Edge (1994, 10/10): “Doom channels Cameron’s frenzy, Raimi’s frenzy—FPS perfected.” Detractors? Satanic Panic backlash (1994 congressional hearings), but sales soared to 20 million by 2000. In 2025, as DOOM: The Dark Ages preps (Bethesda, 2025 release), the roots endure—id’s Eternal nods Aliens‘ hive raids.
32 years on, Doom‘s genesis whispers: Greatness steals quietly. Aliens and Evil Dead II—sequels scorned as cash-grabs—smuggled siege and slapstick into code, birthing a genre that’d gross $100 billion. No credits, no fanfare—just imps in vents, chainsaws in Hell. Rip and tear? Indeed.
