Doom is id Software's first-person shooter series in which a space marine on Mars fights hordes of demons from Hell.

Where did Doom come from?

id Software released the first Doom in 1993, and the franchise is now published by Bethesda through its Slayers Club community.

In gaming culture, Doom refers to id Software's FPS franchise and, more broadly, to the classic shooter design that shaped the whole genre.

Beyond playing the games, fans build custom maps, weapons packs, MIDI music, and total conversions and share them through Doomworld's /idgames archive.

Is Doom still popular?

Yes. Bethesda promotes the franchise heavily through the Slayers Club and expansions like The Dark Ages, and Doomworld's forums are still active with mod releases and speedruns.

id Software created Doom, and Bethesda now publishes the series as part of its wider game lineup.

Doomworld is a community website launched in 1998 that hosts Doom news, forums, mod releases, speedrun boards, and the /idgames archive.

What is the /idgames archive?

It is a community-run archive on Doomworld that stores user-made Doom files going all the way back to 1993, maintained by volunteers rather than by id or Bethesda.

What is the Slayers Club?

The Slayers Club is Bethesda's official Doom fan community, which promotes new content like The Dark Ages expansion and marks 30-year franchise anniversaries.

Did Columbine shooter Eric Harris really build Doom levels of his high school?

No. Snopes checked the rumor and found that while Harris did make his own Doom levels, they did not depict the school as the story claimed.

How did Doom influence other games?

Urban Dictionary contributors credit Doom with paving the way for later shooters including Counter-Strike, Halo, Quake, Unreal, and GoldenEye.

Where can I find Doom mods?

Doomworld hosts sections for maps, weapons, total conversions, sprites, and MIDI packs, and the /idgames archive stores decades of user uploads.

Doom

1993video game franchiseclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Doom is id Software's 1993 first-person shooter about a space marine cutting through demons from Hell, and the video game series that grew out of it. The original release helped popularize the FPS genre and its moddable engine turned it into an internet mainstay, with fans still building maps, running speedruns, and porting the game onto every piece of hardware they can find.

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Overview

Doom is id Software's first-person shooter series where a space marine, later nicknamed Doomguy by fans, cuts his way through hordes of demons trying to overrun Mars and Earth from Hell3. The original 1993 release is one of the founding works of the FPS genre, and Bethesda still markets id Software as one of the most influential video game developers in history2.

The series is known for fast, aggressive gunplay, gory demon designs, and a moddable engine that lets fans build their own maps, weapons, and total conversions1. Community wads have been trading hands through what became the /idgames archive on Doomworld since 1993, keeping the original game playable and endlessly remixed5. Urban Dictionary entries from fans still credit Doom with laying the foundation the whole first-person shooter genre grew from, from Counter-Strike to Halo to Quake6.

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Origin & Background

Platform

PC (MS-DOS) / community forums (viral spread)

Creator

id Software

Date

1993

The first Doom shipped on December 10, 1993, and its sequel Doom II: Hell on Earth followed on September 30, 1994, both built by id Software, the Texas studio whose earlier Wolfenstein 3D had already helped set the FPS template that Doom then pushed further with faster movement, deathmatch multiplayer, and hidden secret levels3.

id extended the series with Doom 3 in August 2004 and a live-action Doom film in October 2005, then handed publishing duties to Bethesda Softworks in 2011 and released the Doom 3: BFG Edition remaster in 2012, before shipping a rebooted Doom on May 13, 2016 and Doom Eternal on March 20, 2020 after limited alpha and open beta tests3. Bethesda has since kept the fanbase engaged through Slayers Club events and expansions like The Dark Ages, along with celebrations of id Software's 30-plus year run2.

How It Spread

Doom's community footprint went up fast. The Doomworld hub launched in January 1998 and became the main gathering point for user-made maps, mod discussions, deathmatch coordination, and speedrun records, along with sections dedicated to every port from GBA to N641. Its sister service, the /idgames archive, has stored user-made wads dating all the way back to 1993, and it is run as a volunteer project by community members like Linguica rather than any official id or Bethesda team5.

Beyond the map scene, Doom also picked up strange cultural baggage from the darker corners of its history. Snopes documented and debunked the widely spread rumor that Columbine shooter Eric Harris had designed custom Doom levels shaped like his high school, noting that while Harris had made and posted his own maps, they did not actually depict the school as the story claimed4. Snopes explained the rumor spread easily because Doom's premise, gunning down anything that gets in your way, matched how people wanted to frame video game influence in 1999, but the levels themselves never matched4.

Fans on Urban Dictionary still write about Doom as the single reference point for modern shooter design, arguing that Counter-Strike, Halo, Quake, Unreal, and even GoldenEye all trace back to id's 1993 release6. Bethesda later gathered fans through its official Slayers Club community site, which hosts merch, in-game tunables, campaign updates, and 30-year celebrations of the id Software franchise2.

How to Use This Meme

There is no single Doom template so much as a set of community habits. Fans build custom wads using the original engine, ranging from single new maps to full megawads, weapon mods, sprite packs, MIDI music sets, and total conversions that turn the engine into an entirely different game1. Finished projects are uploaded to Doomworld's /idgames archive, which sorts contributions by category and has kept a running record of user work since 19935. Speedrunners post their runs, both regular and tool-assisted, through the same community, and multiplayer fans keep deathmatch and cooperative modes going through dedicated forum sections1.