Gore also tends to fly off enemies you’ve hit. Confirmed hits turn your reticle red, helping you zero in on your targets. Demons glow or cast a shadowy figure against the sparse lighting. There are often clear visual cues showing where to aim. It’s not the Halo magnum, but it gets the job done while still making you feel wildly out of your depth when you’re fighting demons in dark hallways.

The developers expected you to heavily rely on the pistol given its deep ammo pool, relative precision, and fast reload speed. Doom 3: BFG Edition gives you constant access to your flashlight, while Doom 3 originally limited it to when you held your pistol, so I played like that was still the case. Going into the main campaign of Doom 3, I embraced the original gameplay style. Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil would do much to correct this. It’s just a slower-paced one with a heavier emphasis on lighting. Despite some genuine attempts at scares, it’s still an arena shooter. I find Doom 3 ’s notorious status more than a little ironic.

Doom 3 has been seen as either a misunderstood work of genius or a sign that id Software lost sight of why people loved its games once co-founder John Romero left the studio.