The DOOM franchise got its latest, adrenaline-filled entry last year with Eternal. The game continues to get content, with brand new story-based expansions as well as content for its unique take on multiplayer. Eternal was largely acclaimed, though some fans were more lukewarm on the more story heavy title compared to its presentation in the 2016 entry. It sounds like, though, that another element of that story was at least thought about.
In a recent Twitch stream, Eternal‘s Creative Director Hugo Martin made some interesting comments. On the stream, he was asked if there had been any thought in giving an option to chose between a male or female Doom Slayer, he said there had been. While it obviously didn’t happen, he said he’d want it to be more than just a skin swap and would want the game to feel actively different with this theoretical female Slayer tearing through the hordes.
“I’ve thought about it. I think if we did it, I’d want it to be lethal. I think it’s interesting how it would impact the Glory Kills and the weapons that she would have. The fighting style [would] certainly be all aggression, absolutely, but a different type of aggression.
“I would really strive to have it impact the gameplay in a way that was meaningful. I’ve definitely put a lot of thought into that, actually.
“Tonally, when it comes to designing the action, you think about, ‘if The Slayer is a Ferrari, then what would a female Slayer be? What would a Medieval slayer be?’ How would that effect things and what sort of analogies would you draw from that to allow it to influence the experience? It definitely would be cool.”
Whether or not something like that would ever happen in the future of the franchise remains to be seen, but hardcore fans will actually know there was something of a female version of the Slayer years ago in Quake 3 in a space marine with a very similar look going by the name Crash that was in that game’s tutorial. In her bio, it was said she was the Doom marine’s instructor, though that was never brought over to DOOM titles in any canonical way.
DOOM Eternal is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC, with PS5 and Xbox Series X/S planned to come soon.
