There is an ancient piece of video game trivia about the DOOM franchise, specifically Doom Guy (not Doomguy), that has been haunting me all week.
Earlier in the week, as so often happens, A Thing spread around social media. It was the kind of fun engagement thing you see from time to time, like “What’s your top 5 favourite games of all time” or “Name your favourite game for every letter in your name”. You know the drill.
This one was started by YouTube Gaming of all places. It was innocent enough:
Which gaming quote do you hold close to your heart?
— YouTube Gaming (@YouTubeGaming) February 13, 2021
Totally normal. Nothing wrong with this. People obviously quoted “all your base belong to us”, classic lines from Zelda, bits from Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, the Call of Duty series, Persona, Yakuza, and even nice quips from games like Dead Space 3.
Everything not saved will be lost. pic.twitter.com/iFDZvpWVtk
— Austin John Plays (@AustinJohnPlays) February 14, 2021
“All actions begin with a desire for self-satisfaction. …But once something gains others’ support, it grows beyond mere self-satisfaction. ”
-Jade Curtiss, Tales of the Abyss.I’m not sure why, but hearing that part always stuck with me.
— Summoner Elcrest (@ElcrestSummoner) February 14, 2021
My personal favorite quote pic.twitter.com/e1iZG9tRqb
— adien jasper (@jasper_adien) February 13, 2021
Clovis Bray’s speech during the space walk in Deep Stone Crypt. Love that raid so much pic.twitter.com/FqknMeWojG
— Pog Champion (@madladmcree) February 14, 2021
But the one that stuck in my mind was a quote, supposedly from an interview with legendary iD programmer John Carmack many moons ago. Conducted in the mid ’90s, Carmack had cracked the shits at people constantly wondering whether, uh, Doom Guy fucks.
https://t.co/iIdGPrnEgc pic.twitter.com/CS5Nn84yug
— dr. hazel (@HazelMonforton) February 15, 2021
The original quote said it was an interview from a British PC Gamer magazine, sometime in 1996. To try and hunt down the original source of the quote, I tried to find screenshots of every old PC Gamer UK magazine I could. There were plenty of mentions of id and Quake in the magazine that year — unsurprisingly given how anticipated Quake was.
I found a partial scan of a July PC Gamer UK magazine, which suggested there was a “major feature” on Quake the month prior. Scouring the Internet Archive and other sources, however, only returned scans of the American PC Gamer for that month, not the British version. There was a full scan of PCG UK’s March edition, but there was no such mention of the interview in there either.
Fortunately, a light at the end of the tunnel appeared. A follower helpfully suggested: If anyone on the internet is going to remember some weird, obscure fact, it’ll probably be the guy who does six hour reviews of Tokimeki Memorial.
And, would you believe it, Tim Rogers did have an answer.
april 96 (interview re: quake)
— tim rogers (@108) February 15, 2021
Tim, you absolute treasure.
Unfortunately, I hit a wall. While demo discs of PCG UK’s April edition were available, I couldn’t find a magazine with the original interview. The quote has done the rounds for a few years now, so it’s not new news per se.
However, that leaves a burning question. It’s been almost three decades?
Surely. Surely.
If Mario has nipples and Nintendo’s happily showing off the size of Luigi’s dong, then surely Doom Guy has gotten some by now.
Since I still can’t ask id or Bethesda directly, I figured I might go to the other great source of Doom wisdom, a figure who has happily shared many incredible treats about the franchise over recent years.
Hey @romero, do you know if this is still canon? https://t.co/tp3PRojBQl
— Alex Walker (@dippizuka) February 16, 2021
Romero has not confirmed or denied whether Doom Guy fucks at the time of writing.
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