We live in an age of remakes and revivals, both in Hollywood and in the world of video games. The difference between the two areas is that while Hollywood’s reboots and remakes fail to live up to their originals, video game remakes and reboots don’t try to erase or replace the original but to build something better on their legacy. After all - as the example of the notorious Duke Nukem Forever has shown us - disappointing fans almost certainly lead to the downfall of a franchise.
In the last decade, we’ve seen many DOS classics gain life anew, often as a result of the fans’ hard work - but sometimes, at the hands of the original developers and publishers. One of the best examples would be Doom, the franchise that, riding the top technology trends of 2020, has become one of the most-played games of the year (so far) thanks to Doom Eternal. But even if it stands on its own, and looks nothing like the original, it has taken a moment to bow its head in front of its great ancestor, the original Doom.
Classic Doom in Doom Eternal
Doom Eternal follows the Slayer through a series of stunning rooms and halls that he is busy redecorating with the entrails and blood of the enemies, for the greater glory of the UAC - or his own.
When back in his crib, the Slayer proves to be not only a prolific wielder of various killing devices but a nostalgic, too - in his quarters in the Fortress of Doom orbiting Mars, he has an old-school PC with a CRT monitor and a keyboard hooked up to it. If you turn it on after finishing the main campaign of the game, the computer will reward you with a playable version of Doom 1. And if you enter the code “FLYNNTAGGART”, you’ll also be able to play Doom 2 on it.
The code itself is an easter egg: it’s the name of the Doomguy in the novels based on Doom 1 and 2, released by ID Software over the years.
2.5D dreaming in Wolfenstein
Does B. J. Blazkowitz ever sleep? If you only played the games in the series released between 1981 and 2009, your answer is probably “I have no idea”. But if you venture into the first-person-shooter-interactive-movie revival of the game “The New Order”, you’ll see that, like all other humans, B. J. doesn’t only sleep - he also dreams. And he happens to dream in 2.5D.
When entering a safe house in a village in Nazi-occupied Poland, B. J. finally finds a place for some shut-eye. But even in his dreams, he is shooting nazis - he dreams about the times when he tried to escape his prison in Castle Wolfenstein.
The dream he has may look oddly familiar for old-school gamers: it’s Wolfenstein 3D, the first FPS of the series, released in 1992. And B. J. can’t wake up until he finishes the map.
