Why does Doom Guy, dressed as medieval knight riding mechanical dragon while shooting demons with minigun, need backstory explaining his motivations?
He doesn’t. The premise explains itself. Demons exist. Doom Guy kills them. The appeal is shooting demons with increasingly powerful weapons while metal soundtrack plays. Adding plot about why demons invaded or what Doom Guy thinks about the situation doesn’t improve this experience. It just adds millions in development costs for narrative design, voice acting, motion capture, and cutscene production that players will skip to get back to shooting demons. The industry convinced itself that first-person shooters need stories when actually they need good shooting mechanics, enemy variety, weapon satisfaction, and level design that enables interesting combat encounters.
What Stories Cost
Professional game writers earn $60,000-120,000 annually depending on experience. Narrative design teams for AAA games employ 5-10 writers working 1-2 years on story content. Voice acting for major characters costs $2,000-5,000 per session with A-list actors demanding significantly more. Motion capture sessions require actors, technicians, and expensive equipment running $10,000-50,000 per day. Cutscene production involving cinematography, animation, and post-production easily exceeds $100,000 per minute of finished content. A game with 30 minutes of cutscenes and fully voiced dialogue throughout costs several million dollars just for narrative content before considering the opportunity cost of development resources focused on story instead of gameplay.
These costs make sense when narrative is central to game design. The Last of Us justifies expensive story production because the game is fundamentally about narrative experience. However, Doom is fundamentally about shooting demons. The millions spent on narrative add nothing to core experience and might actively harm it by interrupting flow with cutscenes players want to skip. The return on investment for FPS narrative spending is negative when story doesn’t enhance the reason players purchased the game. The money would create more value if invested in additional enemy types, weapons, or levels that directly improve core gameplay loop.
The cost also creates pressure to justify the investment by making story prominent rather than skippable. This leads to unskippable cutscenes, mandatory story sections with minimal gameplay, and pacing problems where combat gets interrupted for narrative beats that don’t serve gameplay purposes. The financial investment in story content creates incentive to force players to experience it whether they want to or not, which degrades the experience for players who purchased the game specifically to shoot demons without narrative interruption.
When Quake Didn’t Need Story
Quake released in 1996 with minimal narrative context. Players were soldiers fighting interdimensional invasion. The premise was established in brief text screen and then players spent entire game shooting monsters in corridors. Nobody complained about lack of character development or questioned why the protagonist never spoke. The gameplay was excellent. The weapons felt powerful. The enemy variety forced tactical decisions. The level design enabled interesting combat. The absence of story didn’t diminish these qualities because story was never what made Quake compelling.
The same applied to original Doom in 1993. The premise was “demons invaded Mars base, you’re the only survivor, kill them all.” This minimal setup took thirty seconds to communicate and then players had dozens of hours of shooting demons without any narrative interruption. The simplicity served the game because it removed barriers between players and gameplay. Modern Doom adding extensive story about Doom Guy’s backstory and demon invasion motivations solves problems that never existed while creating new problems through disrupting gameplay flow.
The evolution from Quake’s minimal narrative to modern shooters demanding elaborate stories represents industry solving wrong problems. Players didn’t stop playing Quake because it lacked narrative depth. They played it for years because shooting mechanics and multiplayer were excellent. The industry decided FPS games needed stories to compete with other genres without asking whether players wanted stories in their shooting games or whether resources spent on narrative would be better invested in improving shooting and level design.
The Half-Life 2 Exception
Half-Life 2 demonstrates that FPS stories can enhance games when narrative is integrated seamlessly with gameplay rather than existing as separate cutscene layer. The game tells story through environmental details, NPC interactions during gameplay, and level design that communicates narrative information without stopping action. However, even Half-Life 2’s story isn’t necessary for enjoying the game. A player who ignores all story content and just shoots Combine soldiers and solves physics puzzles still experiences excellent game. The story adds value but isn’t prerequisite for gameplay working.
The distinction matters because Half-Life 2’s approach to narrative required design decisions that shaped entire game structure. The decision to tell story during gameplay rather than through cutscenes affected level design, encounter pacing, and resource allocation throughout development. Modern FPS games adding stories don’t typically make these fundamental design commitments. They build shooting galleries and then attach narrative through cutscenes that interrupt gameplay rather than integrating story into level design and encounter structure. The result is worse than Half-Life 2’s approach and worse than Quake’s approach of having no story at all.
The exception also proves the rule because Half-Life 2 required Valve’s specific expertise and resources to execute properly. Most studios attempting similar integration fail because seamlessly merging narrative and gameplay in FPS context is extraordinarily difficult. The safer and cheaper approach is either committing fully to narrative like The Last of Us or abandoning narrative like Quake. The middle ground where studios add stories to shooting galleries wastes resources on content that doesn’t improve games and actively harms them through interrupting flow.
What Players Actually Want
First-person shooter players want satisfying shooting mechanics where weapons feel powerful and enemies provide interesting challenges. They want level design that enables tactical decisions about positioning, cover usage, and target prioritization. They want enemy variety that forces adapting strategies rather than using single approach for all encounters. They want progression systems where acquiring new weapons or abilities meaningfully changes how they approach combat. None of these desires require narrative context to be satisfied.
The weapon satisfaction in Doom comes from animations, sound design, and feedback when hitting enemies. The double-barreled shotgun feels powerful because of visual and audio feedback when fired and because of how enemies react to being shot. This satisfaction is independent of any story about where the shotgun came from or why Doom Guy uses it. Adding cutscene showing Doom Guy finding the shotgun doesn’t make shooting it more satisfying. It just interrupts gameplay with content that doesn’t serve the reason players are playing.
The enemy variety in Doom works because different demon types require different tactical approaches. Flying enemies force looking up and tracking movement. Heavy enemies require sustained fire and crowd control. Swarm enemies require area-effect weapons. This variety creates interesting combat regardless of narrative context about what the demons represent or why they attack. The tactical decisions about which enemies to prioritize and which weapons to use exist purely through gameplay mechanics without requiring story to make them meaningful.
Far Cry’s Narrative Creep
Original Far Cry focused on soldier fighting mercenaries on tropical island. The premise was simple. The gameplay was excellent. Later entries added elaborate stories about dictators, drug lords, and political conflicts that required extensive cutscenes and character development. The narrative additions didn’t make shooting mechanics better or level design more interesting. They just added hours of content that interrupted gameplay for players who wanted to shoot people on tropical islands without caring about geopolitical commentary.
The series demonstrates how narrative creep damages FPS design by shifting resources from gameplay to storytelling. Far Cry 2 through 6 have worse shooting mechanics than modern military shooters because resources went to narrative content rather than refining gun feel and enemy AI. The games compensate by making shooting easier and adding progression systems that automatically improve player capabilities. This creates situation where story content gets more investment than core gameplay that allegedly justifies the genre existing. The priorities are backwards because FPS games should prioritize first-person shooting over narrative regardless of what focus groups say about wanting stories.
The comparison to Doom is direct because both franchises started with simple premises and excellent shooting before adding elaborate stories that didn’t improve experiences. Original Doom and original Far Cry succeeded through focusing on core gameplay and minimizing distractions. Modern entries in both franchises diluted focus by treating narrative as equally important to shooting when actually shooting is the entire reason these games exist as FPS rather than different genres. The lesson should be that successful formulas don’t need fixing through adding unrelated content that serves different purposes than original design.
The ROI Question Nobody Asks
What percentage of Doom players wanted story content? What percentage would prefer the millions spent on narrative were instead invested in additional weapons, enemies, or levels? The industry doesn’t ask these questions because answers would reveal that narrative spending serves developer and publisher priorities rather than player desires. Studios want to be taken seriously as storytelling medium. Publishers want games that appeal to broader audiences who might not enjoy pure shooting galleries. These priorities conflict with what core FPS audience wants, but core audience isn’t consulted because their preferences don’t align with industry ambitions.
The financial analysis also never happens because it would reveal negative returns on narrative investment in pure FPS contexts. A studio that invested narrative budget into doubling weapon variety and enemy types would probably generate more sales than one investing in elaborate story because gameplay improvements attract FPS audience while story additions don’t convert players from other genres. However, the analysis doesn’t happen because admitting FPS games don’t need stories would undermine industry narrative about gaming maturing into legitimate storytelling medium. The ego investment in being taken seriously as art form overrides financial logic about maximizing return on development investment.
What “Mature Gaming” Actually Means
The industry push for FPS narratives stems from insecurity about gaming’s cultural status. Movies tell stories. Literature tells stories. Therefore games must tell stories to be legitimate art form worthy of respect. This logic ignores that games are interactive medium where player agency and systemic depth create experiences that non-interactive media can’t replicate. A game where shooting mechanics create emergent tactical situations is using medium’s strengths. A game interrupting shooting to show cutscenes is imitating movies badly rather than doing what games do well.
The insecurity also creates situation where industry celebrates games for narrative achievements while ignoring whether gameplay is actually good. Reviews praise FPS games for story quality without seriously evaluating whether shooting mechanics work well or level design enables interesting combat. The critical establishment treats narrative as marker of quality regardless of whether story enhances gameplay or interrupts it. This creates perverse incentive where studios invest in narrative to receive critical praise even when investment harms core gameplay that players actually care about.
The mature approach to FPS design would be acknowledging that shooting galleries can be excellent games without needing narrative justification. Doom Guy shooting demons is complete experience that doesn’t require explaining why demons exist or what Doom Guy’s motivations are beyond “demons bad, shooting good.” The confidence to make pure gameplay experiences without apologizing through adding stories would demonstrate actual maturity rather than insecurity about whether shooting galleries deserve to exist without narrative context legitimizing them.
When Stories Actually Hurt Games
Stories interrupt gameplay flow by forcing players into passive observer roles during cutscenes. The transition from active shooter to passive viewer breaks immersion and momentum. A player in flow state executing perfect combat strategy gets yanked out by cutscene explaining plot developments they don’t care about. The interruption means returning to gameplay requires rebuilding the mental state that cutscene disrupted. This happens repeatedly throughout games with extensive narratives, creating constant friction between story and gameplay that damages overall experience.
The production values for narrative content also set expectations that gameplay can’t match. A cutscene with professional voice acting, motion capture, and cinematic camera work creates level of polish that gameplay sections can’t sustain because gameplay requires different production values focused on responsiveness and clarity rather than cinematic presentation. The contrast makes gameplay feel rougher and less polished by comparison even when mechanics are excellent. This is particularly problematic when cutscenes show spectacular action that gameplay can’t replicate, creating situation where watching game is more impressive than playing it.
Stories also create pacing problems by requiring setups, payoffs, and narrative arcs that conflict with gameplay pacing. A story might require slow introduction establishing characters and setting before action starts. Gameplay benefits from teaching mechanics through immediate action that gradually introduces complexity. The conflict between narrative pacing and gameplay pacing creates compromises where neither works optimally. Games either have slow starts that bore players before good gameplay begins or have narratives that feel rushed because gameplay demands getting to action quickly.
The Doom Guy Doesn’t Talk Defense
Some defenders argue that Doom Guy never speaking preserves player projection where players imagine themselves as protagonist rather than watching character with defined personality. However, this defence validates that FPS protagonists work best as blank slates without extensive characterization. If Doom Guy doesn’t speak because giving him personality would harm player immersion, then building elaborate story around him serves no purpose because story requires character development that the silent protagonist deliberately avoids. The argument for silent protagonist undermines the argument for elaborate narrative because they’re incompatible design goals.
The silent protagonist also creates awkward situations where other characters talk at protagonist who never responds. The one-sided conversations feel unnatural and highlight that protagonist isn’t real character participating in story but rather camera for player to view story through. This acknowledges story exists separately from protagonist rather than being about protagonist, which raises question of why FPS needs story at all if protagonist isn’t actually participating in narrative. The honest answer is that story exists for industry validation purposes rather than serving gameplay or player desires.
What Doom Should Be
Doom should be excellent shooting galleries with creative level design, satisfying weapons, interesting enemy variety, and soundtrack that makes violence feel epic. The premise can be established in thirty seconds. The gameplay should then run for 10-15 hours without interruption. The ending can be “you killed all the demons, congratulations” without requiring explanation of broader implications or character growth. This would be better Doom than current version with medieval aesthetic and mechanical dragons that exist to justify plot about time travel or alternate dimensions or whatever narrative excuse developers created for why Doom Guy is dressed differently this time.
The resources spent on story, cutscenes, voice acting, and narrative design should instead fund additional weapons that change how players approach combat, new enemy types that require different strategies, larger levels with more complex layouts enabling more interesting encounters, and more varied environmental design that changes combat dynamics rather than just providing different scenery. These gameplay improvements would increase replayability and player satisfaction more than narrative content that players experience once and then skip on subsequent playthroughs.
The Industry Won’t Change
Publishers believe narrative content markets better than pure gameplay because stories can be shown in trailers and previews while gameplay quality requires actually playing games. A spectacular cutscene generates more social media engagement than demonstration of excellent shooting mechanics because visual spectacle is easier to appreciate through passive viewing than interactive systems. This creates incentive structure where publishers demand narrative content for marketing purposes regardless of whether content improves games. The pressure comes from business side rather than creative side, but developers comply because publishers control budgets.
The critical establishment also reinforces narrative focus by treating story as primary criterion for quality. Reviews dedicate paragraphs to narrative while dismissing gameplay with “shooting feels fine” without evaluating whether shooting mechanics are actually good. The emphasis tells developers that critics value story over gameplay, which influences what developers prioritize during development. The cycle perpetuates itself because developers chase critical praise, critics praise narrative achievements, and publishers market narrative content because it generates better preview coverage than gameplay systems.
Does Doom Guy shooting demons with increasingly powerful weapons while metal music plays need narrative context about demonic invasions and ancient prophecies, or should the industry admit that sometimes you just want to blast shit without storytelling pretensions interrupting the fun?
