I don’t think it’d be hyperbolic to say that first-person shooters, as a genre,wouldn’t exist as we know them todayif it weren’t for id Software’s tentpole franchises,WolfensteinandDoom.
With the release of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 and the original Doom in 1993, it became abundantly clear what it truly meant to roam massive halls, gun in hand, blasting away at all manner of baddies and beasties.
Wolfenstein: 10 Best Games In The Series, Ranked
A song and dance that never gets old, blasting the Axis powers has never been as fun!
FPSes have reached the level of prominence we know today on the backs of Wolfenstein and Doom’s cumulative success. Of course, as with anything else, whenever you have two of something, even if they’re both incredibly important, you just can’t help but want to compare them.
Wolfenstein and Doom have had similar trajectories over the years, starting with prominence in the 90s, having weird adjustment periods in the 2000s, and making strong comebacks in the 2010s.
The million-dollar question is which series has done the best for itself over those long decades. In the name of science, let’s compare and contrast several different data points to find a winner.
8Graphics And Aesthetic
In terms of raw visual fidelity, both the old and new Wolfenstein and Doom games are more or less the same. They were both made by id, after all, so it makes sense that they’d have a similar level of mechanical presentation and graphical complexity.
Where Doom edges Wolfenstein out is in its overall aesthetic. In a vacuum, Wolfenstein consists mostly of shooting uniformed soldiers in either big, gothic castles or featureless steel corridors.
Doom also has its fair share of featureless steel corridors, but it also treads into the territory of Hell itself on a fairly regular basis, not to mention the orange sands of the surface of Mars.
Putting comparisons between B.J. and the Slayer aside for a moment, if you’re going to play an FPS where you’re a soldier shooting lots of dudes, I’d kind of rather be a soldier shooting demons on Mars than a soldier just shooting soldiers in a castle basement. Space and Hell rank higher than evil castles on the cool-o-meter. That’s just how it is.
7Story And Setting
Wolfenstein
Both the original Wolfenstein and Doom games didn’t have much in the way of stories beyond “you are in a bad place, shoot stuff.” In the years since, both games have done a lot more to flesh out their respective settings, though I’d think Wolfenstein has done a generally better job of it.
Doom’s story is, to put it nicely, a bit of a mess. Modern games have entire libraries of lore and backstory for every little thing, but you’re lying to yourself if you say you actually read it all.
There might as well be a gigantic concrete wall between the series’ story and gameplay. Also, while I adore the Slayer as an unstoppable force of nature, as a narrative protagonist, he doesn’t have much going for him beyond unending rage. He’s fun, but not compelling.
The Wolfenstein games do a much better job of fleshing out their alternative history where the Nazis won World War II with advanced science and tech and the ensuing reign of terror that swept across the world.
B.J. Blazkowicz has basically spent half his life as a soldier, and it’s absolutely ruined him. He’s always trying so hard to preserve his humanity in the face of overwhelming inhumanity, and it makes for a fascinating character arc.
6Locales And Setpieces
As I mentioned before, Doom’s overall aesthetic of Hell on Mars is generally more interesting than Wolfenstein’s gothic castles and conquered city streets. This edge carries over into locales that you visit in both series. Even in the newest Wolfenstein games, there’s still a lot of stone and metal walls and grimy battlefields.
There are some interesting spots, such as the conquered American cities in New Colossus, forcefully covered in Nazi iconography in a chilling display, and the big moment when you attack Frau Engel on a talk show is pretty great. The majority of Wolfenstein’s locales and setpieces, though, are rather forgettable aside from these few moments.
Doom, in both the old and new games, absolutely commits to its two dominant visual styles. The Martian areas feel appropriately sci-fi and otherworldly, while your frequent jaunts into Hell are jam-packed with blood fountains, skull walls, and other assorted heavy metal iconography.
As for setpieces, even the very beginning of Doom 2016 hits the ground running with the Slayer emerging from his coffin, and it only escalates from there.
5Combat And Weaponry
Even back in the early years, Doom had a solid lead over Wolfenstein in terms of weapon variety, and that gap has only grown. Wolfenstein’s weapons tend to be slightly more true-to-life, mostly based on firearms used by the actual Allied and Axis forces circa World War II.
There are exceptions to this, particularly in the newer games, but for the most part, it’s all stuff you could conceivably hold in your hands. Not bad, but not terribly interesting either.
Doom, on the other hand, has an arsenal that needs no introduction. Fromthe finely-crafted barrels of the Super Shotgunto the warm glow of the Plasma Gun, every one of the Slayer’s implements of death are iconic in their own right. Don’t even get us started on the BFG 9000.
DOOM: The Dark Ages: 10 Best Weapon Upgrades
You should prioritize these weapon upgrades to make ripping and tearing much easier.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, having a larger array of more distinctive weapons tends to mean more entertaining, engaging combat gameplay.
While both games were similar in how they operated in the 90s, Doom was always a little bit faster-paced, and in the modern games, that’s translated into high-speed, high-flying movement.
Where Wolfenstein has more of an emphasis on seeking cover and guerilla tactics, Doom wants you to bounce from enemy to enemy like a blood-soaked pinball.
4Secondary Abilities
Doom may have the edge in primary implements of death, but when it comes to secondary abilities, Wolfenstein steps up its game a little.
The Slayer doesn’t really bother with anything that doesn’t directly involve murdering demons, and that’s stayed fairly consistent throughout the Doom series. More recent entries have added things like the Doomblade and Equipment Launcher, but these are just a fancy knife and grenade thrower, respectively.
The modern Wolfenstein games, particularly New Colossus, give you a little more than just combat stuff, primarily in the form of Contraptions like the Ram Shackles, Constrictor Harness, and Battle Walkers.
These not only change how you fight, but how you move, sneak, and explore, and knowing when to use them can open up interesting new opportunities in and out of combat.
As an additional small point, I’d like to highlight the fact that, as an awkward teenager of a game it may have been, the 2009 Wolfenstein introduced a cool secondary ability in the form of Veil Power. This lets you walk through walls, create shields, and slow down time, to give a few examples. By contrast, Doom 3 didn’t introduce much of anything in the ability department.
3Customization And Builds
Like old-school FPSes, both Wolfenstein and Doom generally place a greater emphasis on on-the-fly combat grit over building and kitting out your character, with bigger and better weapons gradually given to you over the course of the game.
That said, in the newer entries, there is a greater degree of customization potential, moreso in Wolfenstein than in Doom. Doom and Doom Eternal tie your character upgrades to uncovered collectibles like weapon mods, suit tokens, and Argent Cells.
It was less about demonstrating skill in the game, and more about just sweeping around levels until you found stuff like an angry Roomba. It’s more about sequential improvements rather than building up a Slayer for your personal use.
Wolfenstein, starting with New Order, introduced a perks system, with new perks awarded to you for achieving in-game milestones like getting headshots orstealth takedowns.
In other words, you get more perks that better reflect your particular playstyle the more you play in that way. New Colossus used the same system, albeit simplified slightly into three perk trees.
2Enemy Variety
One of the most iconic elements of any FPS, arguably even more so than the protagonist or your weapons, are the dudes you’re shooting at. They’re what you see the most of, after all, not to mention the focal point of the primary gameplay loop.
Nazis are fun to shoot in any video game, but one of their primary defining factors is also one of their shortcomings as antagonists, that being uniformity.
In the Wolfenstein games, the vast majority of enemies you fight are just rank-and-file Nazi soldiers, some in regular uniforms and some in heavier armor. The newer games definitely have some wilder, more inhuman foes like the Panzerhunds, but these are far fewer than the regular cannon fodder.
Where some Nazi troops in a Wolfenstein game can be difficult to discern at a glance, the many demons of Doom are all incredibly distinct in both appearance and gameplay.
From the minor menaces of Imps and Zombie Soldiers to the beefy bodies of Pinkies and Cacodemons, all the way up to the towering beasts like Barons of Hell and Cyberdemons, every single demon throughout Doom is both fun to fight and would look great on a poster.
I have a lot of respect and love for Wolfenstein as a franchise. It was the true progenitor of first-person shooters, and an excellent series of games besides. But where Wolfenstein invented the genre, Doom perfected it.
Yes, Doom isn’t exactly top of its class in narrative composition or secondary abilities, but it still remains one of the quintessential FPS experiences thanks to its relentless pursuit of action-packed fun. Playing as the Slayer and running around, pounding heads into fine mist never stops being fun.
To put it another way, if someone wanted an FPS recommendation with no particular frame of reference, I could recommend a Doom game fairly easily.
Wolfenstein, however, has a slightly more niche appeal due to its slower combat and heavier story, and might not be for everyone. Wolfenstein demands to be experienced where Doom can just be played, and for a video game, play is almost always paramount.
Every DOOM Game, Ranked
With the looming approach of DOOM: Dark Ages, we’re excited to rank every game that came before it.
