When the original DOOM launched in 1993, it was a true bolt from the blue. It wasn’t the first FPS ever made, an honor belonging to Wolfenstein 3D, but it was the game that really showed just how viable the burgeoning genre could be. Not long after DOOM came out, new FPSes came out of the proverbial woodwork trying to ape its success, with the phrase “DOOM clone” getting tossed around a lot by the gaming community of the time.
It’s been a long time since then, but somewhat unsurprisingly, more than a few strands of classic DOOM DNA still exist at the core of quite a few shooters. Many of these games are directly inspired by DOOM’s style and gameplay, while others weren’t going for that specifically, but ended up that way nonetheless. While it may be a bit reductive to classify as such, these games could be most simply described as “like DOOM but (blank).”
9 Chex Quest HD
Like DOOM But A Snack Commercial
DOOM was one of the hottest IPs in the gaming scene in the nineties, and everyone with a marketing plan wanted a piece of the action. One mildly bizarre example of this was Ralston Foods, the company that makes Chex. To bolster the cereal brand, Ralston hired a team of developers to make a PC game for it, licensing DOOM’s actual engine out from id Software.
The result was Chex Quest, a full conversion that was given away for free in boxes of Chex cereal. Strange as it was, it had quite a cult following, which is why in 2020, a successor to that game was released, Chex Quest HD, this time with a full cast of characters based on the various pieces you find in a bag of Chex Mix.
Despite being in 3D, Chex Quest HD is still pretty much exactly the same as DOOM, from its selection of weapons to its use of colored door keys. But there’s just something about playing as a dude in a massive, Chex-shaped armor suit that makes it magical. Or maybe I’m just hungry.
8 Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun
Like DOOM But More Judgmental
I admit, I know next-to-nothing about Warhammer 40,000. Ultramarines are really tall and have a lot of cool guns, the God Emperor of Mankind is mostly dead, and orks shout a lot, that’s about it. What I do know is that “tall guy with cool guns” is one of the critical ingredients in both Warhammer and DOOM, so it’s not rocket science to try and merge the aesthetics into Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun.
Boltgun casts you in the exceptionally hefty shoes of Ultramarine as you stomp down onto a planet covered top to bottom with cultists and monsters and use your titular weapon to gently dissuade them from being alive. Boltgun kind of feels like DOOM with a little extra muscle under the proverbial hood. Both the humanoid and monstrous enemies bear striking resemblances to the possessed soldiers and Pinkies of Mars, but are a little more mobile and expressive, not to mention die in more spectacular ways.
Your Ultramarine also feels like a more in-your-face protagonist than DOOM Guy, especially in his skill with melee weapons like his chainsaw sword and his own massive fists. There’s even a dedicated button for pointing at enemies and decrying their heresy! The Ultramarine is just as perpetually angry as DOOM Guy, just for different reasons.
7 Fashion Police Squad
Like DOOM But Fashionable
Similarly to Chex Quest, Fashion Police Squad poses us a salient question: what if you could defeat all of your enemies in DOOM without actually killing them? I have few hangups about violence in games, but I always welcome a creative concept for the sake of diversifying. In Fashion Police Squad’s case, the order of the day isn’t blood and bullets, but sewing needles and tasteful adjustments.
As a member of the titular Fashion Police, you are beset by civilians driven mad by their own crimes against good taste. By using an array of clothes-correct weaponry, you can add a splash of color, make figure-complimenting adjustments, and just generally be rid of socks with sandals.
The core gameplay is similar to DOOM in that you’re shooting oncoming hordes of 2D-rendered-in-3D enemies, but the twist is that you need to be conscious of which weapon you’re using. Your fashion tools aren’t one-size-fits-all, so you need to use the right weapon to fix the corresponding fashion faux pas. Just blasting away mindlessly won’t fix anything.
6 Void Bastards
Like DOOM But A Roguelite
As with nearly every other genre under the sun, roguelikes and roguelites have thoroughly intermixed with FPSes to create a variety of high-difficulty, permadeath shooters. By simple virtue of high-speed, high-impact gameplay, many of these games are at least partially reminiscent of DOOM, though the one that first springs to my mind is Void Bastards.
In Void Bastards, you have to guide a conscripted criminal through a series of abandoned starships full of mutants and weirdos in order to secure the parts necessary to fix your own ship and equipment. The game is ostensibly supposed to be like System Shock or BioShock, and certainly, the inventory-management aspects of it resemble those games, but the action gameplay feels more distinctly DOOM-ish.
Maps are cramped and labyrinthine, enemies have an uncanny nose for your position, and even with multiple weapons at your disposal, you can get overwhelmed very easily if you just stand there and take fire. That’s not even mentioning the fact that you and your enemies are rendered in 2D sprites, albeit drawn ones rather than pixel art.
5 Chop Goblins
Like DOOM But Stupider
I genuinely, wholeheartedly adore stupid things. I’m not just talking about “lol random” corporate slop, I’m talking all-natural, farm fresh stupid, the kind of stupid that arises because someone earnestly wanted to make something fun and ridiculous. To me, one of the epitomes of that flavor of stupid is a little FPS by the name of Chop Goblins.
Chop Goblins is a retro-inspired FPS that is chock-full of remarkably silly nonsense, pitting you against a legion of knife-wielding, toothy critters as they wreak havoc through time and space. You explore levels, you shoot everything that moves, and you wrap the whole thing up in about 30 minutes. It’s everything you like about old-school DOOM in a cheap, snacky package.
I cannot overstate, however, how much this game’s style makes me laugh. Like, one of the bosses is Count Dracula, and he spends the entire fight singing his operatic theme song about how awesome he is and how he’s going to beat you up. There is no precedent for this, he just does it because he can. Frankly, more games should have moments in them just because they can.
Like DOOM But A Rhythm Game
DOOM’s soundtrack has always been a fan-favorite, even back when it was all rendered in MIDIs instead of actual instruments. The whole demons from Hell on Mars aesthetic is already like something off of a heavy metal album cover. If you could set an entire game in that hypothetical album cover, and make its music a central game mechanic, it would probably be something like Metal: Hellsinger.
Metal: Hellsinger is an arena-style FPS with similar environment and enemy designs to DOOM, as well as a similar selection of guns and abilities. The obvious difference is that, in addition to being an FPS, Metal: Hellsinger is also a rhythm game, with your damage and score increasing as you fire shots and dodge attacks to the beat of the awesome metal backing track.
Part of the fun of playing DOOM back in the day, all alone in a dark bedroom illuminated by a CRT monitor, was losing yourself in the soundtrack and blasting demons in time with the peaks of the MIDI soundtrack. It’s the same feeling you get from Metal: Hellsinger, just on purpose.
3 Forgive Me Father
Like DOOM But Lovecraftian
DOOM’s demonic entities come straight from the legions of old-school Hell. Demons, disembodied souls, everything covered in blood and spikes, so on and so forth. You generally know what they’re about from the word go. However, while DOOM goes best with demons, they’re not the only kind of supernatural horrors that are fun to brutalize. In Forgive Me Father, for instance, we get to tangle with Lovecraftian terrors instead!
Forgive Me Father pits you against comparable hordes of supernatural foes to DOOM, but instead of demons, it’s men driven mad, shoggoths from the sea, and various flavors of tentacle’d monstrosity. The levels are large and full of secrets to uncover, and there are plenty of areas both large and small to explore.
One big difference from DOOM is the addition of magical abilities to your firearms. With a little bit of Eldritch mojo, you can conjure forth all kinds of delightfully blasphemous weaponry. The game also has a sanity system, affecting what you see and hear as you explore, which probably wouldn’t be that different from what DOOM Guy would go through if he weren’t blind with rage.
2 Cultic
Like DOOM But More Strategic
The DOOM Guy, later the Slayer, has always been something of a force of nature. He can run right into a horde of demons with guns blazing and come out with no worse than a few scratches and holes. That’s certainly part of what gives DOOM’s gameplay its charm, but what if you maintained that same gameplay, yet took away your protagonist’s natural resilience?
Cultic plays similarly to DOOM on the surface with a similar array of weapons and large crowds of enemies to mow down. However, your protagonist in this evil cult is substantially less hearty than the DOOM Guy. He’s no pushover, but he can’t just rush in guns blazing either. As such, you need to play this game a little bit more strategically than usual.
In addition to being a good shot, you need to stay on your toes; duck, dodge, slide, and take cover. You can try to go it Rambo-style if you want, or you can take the slower approach, laying traps and goading enemies into bushwhacks. It’s still a fast-paced arena shooter, just one that asks you to put a little more thought into the proceedings than you normally might.
1 Turbo Overkill
Like DOOM But With More Chainsaws
What would you say is DOOM’s signature weapon? The Super Shotgun? The BFG? Both fair choices, and not inaccurate, but if I had to pick the one weapon that really screams “early 90s action aesthetic,” it would be the chainsaw. I guess the developers of Turbo Overkill took that aesthetic as gospel, because they decided to give the protagonist of their game four chainsaws.
Turbo Overkill is like DOOM with whatever limiters it may have had forcefully ripped off and replaced with pointy, bladed implements. Not only do you have chainsaws in both of your arms for slicing and dicing, you have chainsaws in your legs as well, with which you can dash along the ground and dice up anyone unfortunate enough to be standing in front of you.
Turbo Overkill’s selection of guns also feel very DOOM-reminiscent, such as the shotgun, chaingun, and rocket launcher, but each with a high-tech twist. The double-barreled shotgun launches grenades, the chaingun doubles as a flamethrower, and the rocket launcher can stack multiple rockets at once to launch in a burst, just to give a few juicy examples.
- Security Camera Installation – indoor/outdoor IP CCTV systems & video analytics
- Access Control Installation – key card, fob, biometric & cloud‑based door entry
- Business Security Systems – integrated alarms, surveillance & access control
- Structured Cabling Services – voice, data & fiber infrastructure for new or existing builds
- Video Monitoring Services – 24/7 remote surveillance and analytics monitoring
Author: 360 Technology Group
