There are few purer pleasures in video games than sprinting through the halls of hell clutching a super shotgun and dispatching waves of imps, pinkies and cacodemons. Whether you’re playing the original 90s masterpiece or the thoroughly amazing DOOM reboot from 2016, there’s a purity and simplicity to the gameplay that you just don’t see very often. Nearly all of the above was missing in the 2005 cinematic flop of the same name, but now Universal’s having another bite at the apple with DOOM: ANNIHILATION (and yes, the title is in all caps).
The project has been in production for about a year now, with the release reportedly delayed in order to spruce up the CGI and make the scenes set in hell more terrifying. Now, the film has surfaced with an official title and a couple of pictures to give us an idea of where they’re going with this, and you can check them out down below,
As a huge fan of the franchise, I have to say that these are some seriously underwhelming photos to show off the movie with. The sets look like they’ve taken the classic budget technique of filming in an unused industrial area, the costumes look cheap and the one monster we see could be from any number of monster movies. Perhaps most worryingly of all, despite this being unconnected to the 2005 film, it sure looks an awful lot like it.
At least the official synopsis is a little more promising, as it reads as follows:
“DOOM: ANNIHILATION follows a group of space marines as they respond to a distress call from a base on a Martian moon, only to discover it’s been overrun by demonic creatures who threaten to create Hell on Earth.“
The 2005 effort was criticized for going out of its way to explain that the monsters didn’t originate in hell, and while this synopsis doesn’t explicitly say they’re following the game’s plot more closely, the promise of “hell on Earth” at least sounds like a step in the right direction.
But with the terrible pedigree of video game movies, I’m going to reserve judgment on this until I see a trailer. Right now, this looks incredibly generic and bears very little resemblance to the games we know and love. Still, at least we’ve got the brilliant looking DOOM: Eternal hitting consoles and PC later this year.