If someone gave a quick overview of Dead Space and the latest Doom game, it’s not unlikely that the two would seem relatively similar. Nonspeaking, male main character? Check. A near-future setting with new technology? Check. Scary monsters whose only goal is to kill the main character? Check. A wide variety of weapons to kill these enemies that pop out of nowhere? Check. Brutal character death animations? Check. Blood and gore as far as the eye can see? Definitely check. Despite these similarities, however, the games feel and play completely differently. Dead Space is a slow moving, deep psychological horror that sets out to disturb and unnerve the player through its nearly cinematic experience. Doom (2016) on the other hand, starts fast and moves even faster, throwing the player into the fire (literally, since much of the game is set in the depths of Hell) and telling them to shoot their way out.
This essay focuses on a select group of characteristics of both Dead Space and Doom that I believe differentiate them from each other, but also from much of the rest of the video game market. The goal here is to highlight these differences and with that, show how these games achieve similar results with their different methods.
Aspect 1: Speed
One of the first things a player will notice about Dead Space is just how slow Isaac Clarke really is. Practically everything about him is slow, his default walking pace, his sprint, his melee attacks, and even the lethargic speed at which he aims his weapons. Admittedly, part of that is because of technical challenges the game had when converting the game over from the Xbox 360, but this makes sense, since Clarke is a regular mechanic who presumably, isn’t trained in complex combat techniques.
Doom, however, blows all of these ideas out of the water. Doomguy (you are never given an actual name) is fast. Everything from his movement to aiming his weapon is done at a blistering pace. This speed creates moments of chaos as you sprint around the arena (something we’ll get to in the “Maps” section) where the player has to make split-second decisions, lest they be torn to shreds by an oncoming demon horde. Doomguy even can double-jump, turning him into an insanely mobile, demon-hating death machine wearing a suit of armor.
So how do these different styles play into how the games convey horror? In Dead Space’s case, it makes the player feel weak and vulnerable, since they are no more capable of fighting off the enemy in the game than they would be in real life. Players feel an unconscious connection to Clarke, as there is no confusing him for some superhero-like character who can run and jump around enemies with ease. Doom obviously takes a different approach to this entirely. By turning the movement speed up to ludicrous and adding in the ability to double-jump, the creators of Doom created a clear line between the player and the game. This will become a common theme throughout Doom, as there is a self-awareness and hypermediation that permeates everything the game does.
For reference, watch this brief comparison of the two.
Aspect 2: Storybuilding
Dead Space is a story-driven game. From the very beginning, the player is treated to cutscenes, strategically placed audio logs, and well-timed video chats to keep the player in touch with the plotline, directly relating to the methods used in the Resident Evil series as Ewan Kirkland describes in his paper Resident Evil’s Typewriter: Survival Horror and Its Remediations, which makes sense, since Dead Space was based directly off of the Resident Evil series[1]. These are all used to build the world of Dead Space, to build tension, and to drive player investment into the game.
Doom is not a story driven game. In the very first scene of the game, this becomes abundantly clear as Doomguy throws the monitor in which one of the few other characters in the game is using to try and convey the plotline to you. The game does have a story though, you just have to find it.
Again, we see the difference between Dead Space and Doom, and their approach to the story. Since the story important for the world of Dead Space to be created, the story is forced upon the player, so that they’re always informed of exactly why they should be scared. Doom, on the other hand, doesn’t care. The previously mentioned self-awareness of Doom plays into this again shows itself as it puts gameplay first. The player can go the entire length of the game without ever really listening to, reading, or experiencing the story of Doom. That’s the postmodern part of Doom coming through. Hypermediation applies here as well in a convoluted sort of way, as the hyper-awareness of Doom being a video game allows players to shamelessly avoid the typical elements that create “buy-in” into a video game.
The following video should give a good idea of the differences between each game’s storytelling.
Aspect 3: Perspective
Dead Space puts the player into a third-person, behind the shoulder viewpoint as they control Isaac Clarke and trudge through the desolate spaceship that is the setting for the game. The camera shifts around Clarke and allows for some level of corner-peeking, letting slightly nervous players to get a few moments of advanced warning and letting the player look behind them in case a pesky necromorph tries to sneak up on them.
Doom places the player front-and-center, using a first-person perspective to carry the player through the hectic levels. There is no separation between the player and the action, allowing the player to witness firsthand the brutal and bloody evisceration of the demons that dare tread near Doomguy.
Dead Space is an excellent example of cinema verité as described in Barry Keith Grant’s paper Digital Anxiety and the New Verité Horror and Film[2]. While Dead Space may lack the first-person, shaky camera that other works of cinema verité may have, the player is drawn in and involved in the experience, with subtle additions like Isaac Clarke’s breathing (which changes depending on the state he is in) creating a feeling of almost a violent voyeurism as the player forces Clarke forward into the unknown. Doom uses the first-person perspective to draw the player in and make them experience the game exactly how the developers wanted the player to experience it. Doom’s first-person perspective also allows the player to experience aporia and epiphany, something that Jeff Rush describes in his paper Embodied Metaphors: Exposing Informatic Control Through First-Person Shooters as a moment in the game where the player is presented with a situation that they cannot immediately figure out, and must try multiple times before having an “epiphany” and finding a solution to the problem[3]. This first-person perspective restricts the amount the player can see at a single moment, forcing these roadblocks to present themselves to the player.
Aspect 4: Maps
While Dead Space and Doom both have linear maps, ferrying the player character along a designated course with specific landmarks the character must pass for the game to progress, each game drew the line from A to B a bit differently.
Dead Space used narrow hallways and curving corridors for much of the level design, creating natural points where enemies could spawn to surprise the character as they turned a corner. While Doom does have hallways and various paths, for the most part these are just to get the player to the next section of the game. The true gameplay of Doom occurs in large arenas, with a large amount of verticality built in, allowing Doomguy to jump up and down to his heart’s content in order to bounce around the demons.
Aspect 5: User Interface
Dead Space refuses to clutter the player’s screen with various bars and meters and counters to tell the player the information they need to continue playing the game. Instead, the developers decided to integrate all this information into the game itself. The health bar is placed on the back of Clarke’s spacesuit, along with his ability meter, hiding these player stats in plain sight. Ammunition is displayed on the weapon itself, a simple numerical value that follows the weapon as if it were an optic attached to the weapon. When the player examines Clarke’s inventory, Clarke follows along, looking at whatever item is currently highlighted in the menu as if he were rummaging through a backpack, looking for some medication.
As is probably expected by now, Doom takes the opposite approach. Health, armor, and ammunition meters reside in the bottom portion of the screen, with a minimap tucked away in the corner at the top. Menus and various screens are plentiful in Doom, despite Doomguy not actually having an inventory to gather found items in.
Dead Space wants to keep the player engaged in the game as much as possible, and the user interface shows this perfectly. Everything (even saving the game!) is incorporated into the gameplay so it all feels like one contiguous cinematic experience, from game beginning to end. The developers actively sought to meld the player and Isaac Clarke together as tightly as possible, something that the developers of Doom most certainly did not try to do. This is neither a good or bad thing, just different game design. The games both flex their postmodern muscles in opposite directions, with Dead Space trying to blur the lines between player and game, while Doom points out the breaks in reality with a gleeful, gory energy.
Aspect 6: Shooting Mechanics
This time, Doom will come first. Doom is blessed with one of the greatest developments in gaming history, the weapon wheel. Simply hold down a button, and you can choose between any weapon you have picked up so far, transferring from a shotgun, to a laser rifle, to a full-sized Gatling gun in less than a second. The player can choose from various modifications to each weapon at the press of a button while moving, keeping the pace up and the player engaged. When the time comes to use these weapons, Doom delights in the chaos. Loading screen hints openly admit to the player that they should aim for the head whenever possible to inflict as much damage as possible. As the player whittles down the health of the demons surrounding them, the demons become bloodied and stumble backwards. Once at low enough health, enemies stop moving, wobbling in place, allowing the player to go for a “glory kill”, a brutal and quick contextual animation of Doomguy (sometimes literally) tearing the unfortunate demon apart. If the player hits an enemy with an abundance of damage, the enemy will ceremoniously explode into various bits of gore, accompanied by the sound of crunching of bone and flesh.
Dead Space’s combat is a bit more subdued. While yes, there are many weapons available in Dead Space, Isaac Clarke can only carry a paltry four at a time, forcing the player to run back to an equipment bench to replace their weapons if they want to try a different strategy. Melee attacks are slow and cumbersome, making getting up close and personal with an enemy a tenuous affair. What is special about Dead Space’s combat is the fact that the game encourages you to tear off the limbs of enemies, as that is the only way to inflict enough damage to kill the necromorphs once and for all.
Combat is really where Doom gains its horror chops. From the very beginning, the player is forced to confront the demons that are chasing after them with intense and brutal ferocity. Paired with the first-person perspective, the player sits in the front seat of something akin to a demon snuff film. The spectacle that is Doom’s combat is what makes it postmodern horror, as it laughs in the face of typical first-person shooters as they try to become more and more realistic. Dead Space uses combat more as a method to build suspense and depict the horrors of the world that is being created.
Final Thoughts
Overall, what can be seen by comparing Dead Space and Doom are two very different strategies to accomplish a similar task. Dead Space went the suspenseful route, building tension through careful world building and making the player feel vulnerable as they progress through the game. Doom took the opposite route, choosing to shove violence and gore into the player’s face to excess, gripping the player in terror as they must determine how to defeat the swaths of enemies that are closing in around Doomguy. These games break barriers in very different ways, but they succeed in the main goal of these broken barriers, drawing in the player and forcing them to face their fears.
Works Cited
[1] E. Kirkland, “Resident Evil’s Typewriter: Survival Horror and Its Remediations,” Games and Culture 4, no. 2 (April 1, 2009): 115–26, https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412008325483.
[2] Barry Keith Grant, “Digital Anxiety and the New Verité Horror and Sf Film,” Science Fiction Film and Television 6, no. 2 (June 27, 2013): 153–75.
[3] Jeff Rush, “Embodied Metaphors: Exposing Informatic Control Through First-Person Shooters,” Games and Culture 6, no. 3 (May 2011): 245–58, https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412010364977.