Complete listed story — includes the ending
Doom (2016)
Doom takes place on Mars in 2149, where the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) operates a facility to exploit an energy seeping from Hell, an alternate dimension populated by hostile lifeforms known as demons. To solve an energy crisis on Earth, the UAC constructed the Argent Tower to extract and refine raw Hell energy into Argent energy, which deteriorates the physical and mental health of the facility's staff, and allowed transit to and from Hell. After discovering that Argent energy had properties that defied their understanding of physics, the UAC began occult research into Argent energy and Hell, and the demons, who its staff began to worship and cybernetically modify.
The facility is run by Samuel Hayden, a UAC scientist who transferred his consciousness to an android body after being afflicted with terminal brain cancer during the construction of the Argent Tower. In addition to directing the energy extraction and refining process, Hayden organizes expeditions into Hell to retrieve captive demons and artifacts for study. Among them is a sarcophagus containing the player character, a being they call the Doom Slayer and fear immensely, along with his armor, the Praetor Suit. Assisting Hayden is VEGA, a self-aware artificial intelligence that controls and monitors the facility. Leading the UAC's research into biomechanics is Olivia Pierce, a protege of Hayden's who developed crippling scoliosis while working on Mars and makes a pact with the demons to open a portal between Mars and Hell and allow the demons to conquer humanity.
Plot
At an undetermined time, Pierce opens the portal for the demons, who overrun the facility and kill almost all of its staff. To repel them, Hayden awakens the Slayer, who recovers his armor and initially ignores Hayden's entreaties to work together. Denied information unless he agrees to help Hayden, the Slayer acquiesces and begins to be guided by VEGA. After clearing out the facility core and preventing a meltdown in its foundry, the Slayer pursues Pierce up the tower, along the way destroying infrastructure critical to the refinement of Argent energy despite Hayden's protests. At the top of the tower, Pierce opens an explosive rift into Hell using a device called an Argent accumulator, destroying the Tower and sending the Slayer back to Hell.
In Hell, the Slayer fights his way to the tomb in which he was imprisoned and reaches a teleporter back to Mars. The Slayer makes his way to Hayden's office, where Hayden installs a teleporting device in the Praetor Suit for more reliable teleportation. Hayden also tells the Slayer of the Helix Stone, an artifact used to study and harness Argent energy, which is being housed in Pierce's office in the Lazarus Labs. Entering the Lazarus Labs, the Slayer observes the Helix Stone and learns of the Well, where the portal is powered, and of the Crucible, a magical blade. To reach the Well, he makes another excursion into Hell with the Argent accumulator within the Cyberdemon, a massive and cybernetically modified demon. After killing the Cyberdemon, the Slayer fights through a labyrinthine gauntlet and three more powerful demons to recover the Crucible.
Hayden teleports the Slayer to a facility in the frozen north of Mars that houses VEGA's core, which he plans to use to trigger an explosion powerful enough to send the Slayer to the Well. The Slayer triggers a meltdown of the core, but makes a backup copy of VEGA before the explosion. Entering the Well, the Slayer uses the Crucible to destroy the portal's power source and confronts Pierce, who is betrayed and transformed by the demons into the Spider Mastermind. Upon killing the Spider Mastermind, the Slayer is teleported back to Mars by Hayden, who tells the Slayer he has won and stopped the invasion. Hayden confiscates the Crucible to continue his research into Argent energy. To keep the Slayer from interfering with his plans, Hayden teleports him to an undisclosed location.
Doom 64
Following the Doom Marine's success at thwarting Hell in Doom, Doom II: Hell on Earth, and in the Final Doom storyline, a quarantine is established on the U.A.C. research installations with apocalyptic levels of radiation. For years, the installations stood abandoned, until a barely-functioning satellite monitoring one of them sends a message back to Earth. This message indicates that a "single entity with vast rejuvenation powers" was masked by the radiation and escaped detection. The entity was able to resurrect the demons by altering "decaying dead carnage back into corrupted living tissue". As the only experienced survivor of the Doom episodes, the Marine is sent in alone to exterminate them.
However, the Marine realizes the demons have planned to lure him back into Hell. They are nonetheless unable to defeat him, and with the Unmaker, he eventually battles and kills the Mother Demon. The game ends with the Marine, no longer capable of having a normal life following his encounters with Hell's forces, deciding to remain in Hell forever to ensure no demon ever rises again.
In the Lost Levels from the 2020 remaster, the story continues as the Mother Demon was revealed to have a sister called the "Resurrector". It banishes the Marine back to a UAC base, forcing him to fight his way back to Hell to stop the Demons. It branches the storyline between the original games with the 2016 reboot of Doom and Doom Eternal.
Doom takes place on Mars in 2149, where the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) operates a facility to exploit an energy seeping from Hell, an alternate dimension populated by hostile lifeforms known as demons. To solve an energy crisis on Earth, the UAC constructed the Argent Tower to extract and refine raw Hell energy into Argent energy, which deteriorates the physical and mental health of the facility's staff, and allowed transit to and from Hell. After discovering that Argent energy had properties that defied their understanding of physics, the UAC began occult research into Argent energy and Hell, and the demons, who its staff began to worship and cybernetically modify.
The facility is run by Samuel Hayden, a UAC scientist who transferred his consciousness to an android body after being afflicted with terminal brain cancer during the construction of the Argent Tower. In addition to directing the energy extraction and refining process, Hayden organizes expeditions into Hell to retrieve captive demons and artifacts for study. Among them is a sarcophagus containing the player character, a being they call the Doom Slayer and fear immensely, along with his armor, the Praetor Suit. Assisting Hayden is VEGA, a self-aware artificial intelligence that controls and monitors the facility. Leading the UAC's research into biomechanics is Olivia Pierce, a protege of Hayden's who developed crippling scoliosis while working on Mars and makes a pact with the demons to open a portal between Mars and Hell and allow the demons to conquer humanity.
Plot
At an undetermined time, Pierce opens the portal for the demons, who overrun the facility and kill almost all of its staff. To repel them, Hayden awakens the Slayer, who recovers his armor and initially ignores Hayden's entreaties to work together. Denied information unless he agrees to help Hayden, the Slayer acquiesces and begins to be guided by VEGA. After clearing out the facility core and preventing a meltdown in its foundry, the Slayer pursues Pierce up the tower, along the way destroying infrastructure critical to the refinement of Argent energy despite Hayden's protests. At the top of the tower, Pierce opens an explosive rift into Hell using a device called an Argent accumulator, destroying the Tower and sending the Slayer back to Hell.
In Hell, the Slayer fights his way to the tomb in which he was imprisoned and reaches a teleporter back to Mars. The Slayer makes his way to Hayden's office, where Hayden installs a teleporting device in the Praetor Suit for more reliable teleportation. Hayden also tells the Slayer of the Helix Stone, an artifact used to study and harness Argent energy, which is being housed in Pierce's office in the Lazarus Labs. Entering the Lazarus Labs, the Slayer observes the Helix Stone and learns of the Well, where the portal is powered, and of the Crucible, a magical blade. To reach the Well, he makes another excursion into Hell with the Argent accumulator within the Cyberdemon, a massive and cybernetically modified demon. After killing the Cyberdemon, the Slayer fights through a labyrinthine gauntlet and three more powerful demons to recover the Crucible.
Hayden teleports the Slayer to a facility in the frozen north of Mars that houses VEGA's core, which he plans to use to trigger an explosion powerful enough to send the Slayer to the Well. The Slayer triggers a meltdown of the core, but makes a backup copy of VEGA before the explosion. Entering the Well, the Slayer uses the Crucible to destroy the portal's power source and confronts Pierce, who is betrayed and transformed by the demons into the Spider Mastermind. Upon killing the Spider Mastermind, the Slayer is teleported back to Mars by Hayden, who tells the Slayer he has won and stopped the invasion. Hayden confiscates the Crucible to continue his research into Argent energy. To keep the Slayer from interfering with his plans, Hayden teleports him to an undisclosed location.
Doom 64
Following the Doom Marine's success at thwarting Hell in Doom, Doom II: Hell on Earth, and in the Final Doom storyline, a quarantine is established on the U.A.C. research installations with apocalyptic levels of radiation. For years, the installations stood abandoned, until a barely-functioning satellite monitoring one of them sends a message back to Earth. This message indicates that a "single entity with vast rejuvenation powers" was masked by the radiation and escaped detection. The entity was able to resurrect the demons by altering "decaying dead carnage back into corrupted living tissue". As the only experienced survivor of the Doom episodes, the Marine is sent in alone to exterminate them.
However, the Marine realizes the demons have planned to lure him back into Hell. They are nonetheless unable to defeat him, and with the Unmaker, he eventually battles and kills the Mother Demon. The game ends with the Marine, no longer capable of having a normal life following his encounters with Hell's forces, deciding to remain in Hell forever to ensure no demon ever rises again.
In the Lost Levels from the 2020 remaster, the story continues as the Mother Demon was revealed to have a sister called the "Resurrector". It banishes the Marine back to a UAC base, forcing him to fight his way back to Hell to stop the Demons. It branches the storyline between the original games with the 2016 reboot of Doom and Doom Eternal.
Sources and content license
Source and revision history ↗ · Exact listed stories combined in catalog order. Sources retain their stated license; formatting and headings adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Doom (2016 video game). HTML and reference formatting removed; headings adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Doom 64. HTML and reference formatting removed; headings adjusted. · Content license