Ranking All the Doom Games: From Monster Closets to Ripping and Tearing ‘Until It’s Done’

John Carmack and John Romero's Doom is arguably one of the most important games ever released, and it would serve as the definitive beginning of the modern first-person shooter as we know it. There were other first-person shooters before Doom (many of which were developed by Carmack during the early days of id Software), but Doom was revolutionary by comparison, kicking off an era in which every single first-person shooter that followed in its wake was referred to as a "Doom clone". Despite the series' slight evolutions throughout the years, Doom would find its way back to a more refined and modernized version of the core gameplay that helped define the original, and the recent release of Doom: The Dark Ages presents a perfect opportunity for a new definitive ranking of all the Doom games.

• Release Date — August 3, 2004
• Developer — id Software
• Publisher — Activision
• Review Aggregate Score — 87% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC, PS3, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One

Let's go ahead and make one thing clear: Doom 3 is a great game, but it's not a great Doom game. For the series' first new mainline entry in 10 years, id Software took big swings and transformed Doom 3 to be something closer to a survival horror game than the adrenaline-pumping first-person shooter that the first two entries in the series were. It's an experiment that only somewhat works, as the slower pace and more horror-leaning atmosphere are interesting enough, but they make Doom 3 feel like an outlier in the series (which it definitely is). Still, Doom 3 has some great moments, and there's nothing quite like the tension of having to balance using a flashlight and a weapon, swapping visibility for defense in a scenario where the UAC marine is hopelessly outmatched and outnumbered.

• Release Date — June 17, 1996
• Developer — TeamTNT
• Publisher — id Software
• Review Aggregate Score — 81% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation, PS3

More than being just an important foundational step in the evolution of the first-person shooter genre, Doom was a major contributor to the PC game modding community, with the game's mods having just as much popularity as the full retail releases from id Software. These collections of player-made Doom levels, referred to as "Megawads", were widely circulated and free, and some of the best were so good as to draw the attention of id Software and get a full retail release. TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment would end up becoming the only fan-made Doom levels to get official licensing from id Software and their own release as Final Doom, and they stand as some of the best content for Doom and Doom II, not to mention some of the most difficult.

• Release Date — April 4, 1997
• Developer — Midway Studios San Diego
• Publisher — Midway Games
• Review Aggregate Score — 75% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — Nintendo 64, PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

Funnily enough, Doom 3 wouldn't be the first game in the Doom series to more definitively flirt with horror elements. Since the original Doom, the series has always mixed adrenaline-pumping action with more unsettling, horror-adjacent moments, but the first real game in the series to more fully lean into the scary side of the franchise is Doom 64. At the time of its release, Doom 64 was incorrectly assumed to be just a Nintendo 64 port of the original Doom, when it's actually its own separate, unique campaign that takes place between the events of Doom and Doom II. Doom 64 is incredibly dark (which is by design), and its new enemy and weapon models give the game a unique visual flair that acts as the perfect accompaniment to the game's frightening atmosphere and music.

• Release Date — May 15, 2025
• Developer — id Software
• Publisher — Bethesda Softworks
• Review Aggregate Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

It almost feels wrong to place a game as great as Doom: The Dark Ages so far down in a ranking of the Doom games, but such is the strength of the rest of the series that it's hard to not see The Dark Ages as a bit of a stumble in the series' continued evolution. While the new shield weapon and parry mechanic do a great job at making Doom: The Dark Ages' combat feel unique in comparison to Doom and Doom Eternal, they also place some arbitrary restrictions on the player in terms of the level of expression and creativity in how you approach encounters, making it feel like a bit of a step backward from the frenetic ability-juggling of Doom Eternal.

Still, Doom: The Dark Ages has an incredible setting, some great setpiece moments (including some fantastic spectacle from the dragon and mech missions), and it's still one of 2025's best FPS games, even if it can't quite match the rest of the modern Doom trilogy.

• Release Date — October 10, 1994
• Developer — id Software
• Publisher — id Software
• Review Aggregate Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — Android, Game Boy Advance, iOS, PC, PlayStation, PS3, PS4, PS5, Sega Saturn, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Just a year after completely revolutionizing the first-person shooter with the original Doom, Carmack and Romero would release the sequel, Doom II: Hell on Earth. Development on Doom II started almost concurrently with the release of its predecessor, and as a result, Doom II is basically "Doom, but more". While the same general gameplay from the original Doom remains in Doom II, it does introduce larger, more labyrinthine levels, new enemy types, and one of the all-time greatest FPS weapons in the Super Shotgun. Essentially, Doom II takes everything that made the original great and just dials it up a notch, and it's precisely what players wanted at the time of its release. And for further evidence of Doom and Doom II being two sides of the same coin, look no further than the fact that the two are now packaged together as a single title.

• Release Date — March 20, 2020
• Developer — id Software
• Publisher — Bethesda Softworks
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Speaking of taking what worked in a predecessor and turning it up to 11, Doom Eternal builds upon the "push forward", momentum-based combat of 2016's Doom to deliver what many consider to be the series' peak. Doom Eternal introduces so many new abilities and places an even greater emphasis on constant movement that it almost verges on being too much in each encounter, but that constant juggling of abilities and using the right tool in the Doom Slayer's vast toolkit for the right scenario is part of what makes the game's combat shine. But some of the game's best content is in the Ancient Gods expansions, which are arguably the ultimate pinnacle of challenging, first-person combat.

• Release Date — May 13, 2016
• Developer — id Software
• Publisher — Bethesda Softworks
• Review Aggregate Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

After a cancelled Doom 4 that never saw the light of day, id Software went back to the drawing board and ended up delivering one of the best games in the series with its choice to reboot the franchise. The aptly named Doom takes things back to the basics of the 1993 original, all while taking advantage of both modern technology and modern FPS design to deliver a perfectly balanced and finely tuned FPS experience that is almost without peer. The core of Doom's 2016 reboot is its "push-forward" combat that encourages pressing the enemy and completing brutal "Glory Kill" executions that result in a shower of health and armor pick ups, and the need to stay constantly on the move and on the offensive give Doom a sense of momentum that is almost without equal from any other FPS.

• Release Date — December 10, 1993
• Developer — id Software
• Publisher — id Software
• Review Aggregate Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — 32X, 3DO, Android, Game Boy Advance, iOS, Atari Jaguar, PC, PlayStation, PS3, PS4, PS5, Sega Saturn, SNES, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

After all these years, the pinnacle of the Doom franchise is still the 1993 original game in the series, which somehow remains as fun today as it was 32 years ago. So many of the elements and mechanics in the original Doom are easy to take for granted (especially because we've seen them become staples of the FPS genre), but the fact that they were both new and incredibly intuitive is testament to how foundational a game Doom is. Anyone can pick up and play Doom and immediately acclimate to the action, and it's as timeless and iconic as Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda.