Doom 3 reframes the series as horror, with the Mars City facility torn open by teleportation experiments that breach Hell. The darkness drives the dread, with the flashlight and the flickering corridors doing more work than any monster.
The weapon roster builds from the pistol to the BFG, with the punchy shotgun and the monstrous BFG charge shot standing out. The expansions add the super shotgun, which is a joy in close quarters, and the BFG Edition’s toggleable flashlight spares the original’s weapon-or-light choice.
The enemy roster is deep, from possessed marines and zombies to imps, pinkies, cacodemons, revenants, mancubi and hell knights, each with distinct behaviours. The ambush-heavy set-pieces, with collapse-able walls, summoning circles and the trip to Hell itself, keep the facility unpredictable.
The audio logs and video discs reconstruct the colony’s collapse, with the forbidden teleporter experiments at the centre of the story. The Soul Cube provides the goal, an ancient weapon that once banished the demons and now offers the only way to close the portal.
The latter half of the base campaign throws too much at once, with enemy placement that becomes a slog. The flashlight barely illuminates, and its recharge mechanic stops play while waiting.
The expansion content holds up better, with Resurrection of Evil’s pacing and the time-slowing Artifact, plus Lost Mission’s classic eight-level structure. The bruiser enemies hit brutally hard, and the Guardian boss fight is a recurring frustration.
Overall, atmosphere and the weapon roster make Doom 3 a strong, scary shooter. The late-game enemy spam and the weak flashlight are the main caveats.