Id Software pitches new alternate Doom box art

By Mike Epstein March 3, 2016

doom multiplayer dlc packs first person shooter bethesda

Doom will have a reversible cover with an alternate box art image, developer Id Software announced Thursday, following complaints from fans and pundits that the game’s official box art was too generic.

Bethesda published the official box art, which is still what customers will see when they find the game box at retailer or see the cover online, during a media push last month. The cover features an armor-clad soldier carrying a shotgun, face covered by a visor, standing in front of yellow smoke. Pundits such as Polygon’s Ben Kuchera criticized the company for turning one of gaming’s legendary franchises into something that “perfectly content to blend into a wall of boring, mechanical protagonists.”

Related Videos

doomboxart

“The Doom cover looks like the front of a fake game someone mocked up for a television show to keep from paying to use any official art,” Kuchera said. “It looks like someone turned Bud Light into a video game.”

Developers, such as Bioshock Infinite creator Ken Levine, have said market research suggests putting a stoic man with a gun is the best way to shooters to people judging games by their covers, which explains why so many games rely on the trope.

The developer is currently holding a poll on Twitter to help decide between two potential designs that will serve as the alternate cover. One cover, a clear iteration on the original Doom box art, shows an armored soldier standing on a pile of skeletons, surrounded by demons.

Doom alternate cover 1

The second is black, with a red-eyed skull with long horns on the front, and a vaguely satanic-looking red seal on the back.

doom alternate cover 2

You can vote for Doom‘s alternate box art on the game’s Twitter account. The poll will remain open until 11 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 6.

Doom will be available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC May 13.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Gaming

10 best Elden Ring mods

Multiple players look out over a landscape with the Elden Ring co-op mod.

It was thanks to modders that the original PC port of Dark Souls reached a stable and respectable state. Once the technical wrinkles were ironed out, modders turned to expanding and improving the game in numerous ways to keep the game feeling fresh. Years later, those same talented modders have moved on to the latest and largest FromSoftware title, Elden Ring. With plenty of time to learn the game, there are tons of mods out there that can not only fix nagging issues in the game but add entirely new ways to play. Here are some of the best mods out there for Elden Ring.
How to mod Elden Ring
Since Elden Ring is available on PC, that's where modding scene is most popular. However, if this is your first time modding a game, it might sound a little confusing. Thankfully, the process is very simple, and even this tutorial video can show you the basics of modding your game in under three minutes.
Seamless Co-op

Elden Ring uses a more advanced form of the summoning systems from the Dark Souls series, but still has limitations, most notably being partners being forced out of your game after every boss or death. The Seamless Co-op mod aims to make the entire game playable with a partner without any interruptions when players die, bosses are beaten, and no fog walls. It is still being worked on, but already works very well.
Elden Ring Ultimate Cheat Engine Table
Once you've beaten Elden Ring for your second, third, or eighth time, you may just want to see what you can do to break the game. The Elden Ring Ultimate Cheat Engine Table gives you the keys to the castle and lets you basically mod the game yourself to do things like create your own spells, spawn bosses, edit stats, use freecam, and tons more.
Elden Ring Item and Enemy Randomizer

Gaming

Starfield: release date, trailers, gameplay, and more

Spaceship on planet in Starfield.

Bethesda is a studio that has found great success with its massive single-player RPG games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. While the company's recent fumbles with games like Fallout 76 (and to a lesser extent, Fallout 4) have disappointed gamers, the studio is pushing forward and has some ambitious projects on the horizon. One such project is Starfield, a game that was first announced during Bethesda's 2018 E3 presentation.

Following Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda, rumors about Starfield's release have ramped up, and now that we've gotten a look at its gameplay, there's a lot more we know about the project. Even after a delay of about six months, excitement for Starfield doesn't seem to have waned. We've gathered as much information as we could to bring you everything we know about Bethesda's upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield.

Gaming

These 9 ‘podcast games’ are perfect for multitaskers

Space travelers posing in front of colorful planet in No Man's Sky.

Just because you play a lot of games doesn’t mean you can’t also enjoy and engage in other forms of media. There’s a lot to do, see, watch, and listen to -- especially in 2023, where virtually every form of media is saturated with more content than has ever existed before -- so sometimes it’s nice to sit back and watch a Twitch stream or catch up on an audiobook series while playing an equally relaxing game.

Plenty of games do want to capture the sum total of your attention, especially brain-twisters like 2022’s fantastic Immortality and RPGs and strategy games that reward you for the brainpower you spend on the experience. Still, it’s worth looking at the best games that allow you to sit back and disengage while your brain idles over a podcast or something similar. Here are our top picks for the best games to play while listening to podcasts in 2023.
Vampire Survivors