Doom 3 in Unreal Engine 5 almost makes it look like a decent game
Oh come on, I’m only kidding. It’s still Doom 3 after all.
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Doom 3: a divisive game to say the least. Some call it the best in the series, believe it or not, while others, myself included, see it as a bit of a one-trick pony that lacked the staying power and surprise factor of its predecessors. The argument is all rather moot now because, ultimately, Doom 3 put the series on hiatus for a long time before the widely appreciated 2016 reboot. But for some, the candle flame remains lit.
One of those is coder François Montagud, a 3D modeller and designer, who decided to remake a small slice of Doom 3 in Unreal Engine 5. It feels a bit wrong seeing a Doom that isn’t on idtech but nevertheless this is a seriously committed piece of work: Montagud has built his own 3D models, textures, animations, and lighting, and the whole thing is being played live in the video. He’s not going to release it, obviously, because he doesn’t want to be sued into oblivion.
What this reimagining does is zero-in on the horror angle of Doom 3, which was probably one of its strong points. It is brighter than the original game, but the original was too dark anyway (remember the duct tape mod? Essential stuff, you shoulda been there), and obviously the enemy models are not quite of a standard to what a dedicated AAA team might produce. And if you think it looks like they were running a blue light special at the Lens Flare Store, you’re not alone: Creator Montagud admits that “indeed, there is too much lens flare, I will change that.” But despite those quibbles, it gets the atmosphere alright.
This is actually making me nostalgic for Doom 3, which is weird. As for the contemporary Doom happenings, Eternal got what will probably be its last significant updatejust under a year ago. As for the never-ending game of ‘will this thing run Doom’, the latest examples areentirely within a motherboard BIOSand, rather sweetly,on a Lego brick PC.
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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as “[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike.”
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