Doom Eternal director has 'put a lot of thought' into adding a female Slayer
Hugo Martin says he'd want to ensure the character is more than a skin, and impacts gameplay in a 'meaningful' way.
The Doomslayer can take on many guises in Doom Eternal. There's the Classic Doomguy, the Mullet Slayer, the Doomicorn, the Night-mare, even the Purple Pony. One thing the Doomslayer has not been, however, is a woman.
That may change someday. During a recent stream, game director Hugo Martin said that he's actually thought about how to best incorporate a female Slayer into the series, because he'd want the character to be more than just another skin.
"I've thought about it, actually. I think if we did it, I'd want it to be lethal," Martin said. "I think it's interesting how it would impact the glory kills, the kind of weapons that she would have, the fighting style—certainly all aggression, absolutely, but a different type of aggression. I would really strive to allow it to impact the gameplay in a way that was meaningful. I've definitely put a lot of thought into that.
"When it comes to designing the action, you think about, like, if the Slayer is a Ferrari, then what would a female Slayer be? What would a medieval Slayer be? How would that affect things? What sort of analogies could you draw from that, allow that to influence the experience? So I don't know. It definitely would be cool."
That automotive analogy might seem a little odd on the surface, but it's one that Martin has made previously: He described the Doomslayer in supercar terms in a 2018 interview with PCGamesN, saying, "You can drive a Ferrari 70 mph down a freeway and it’s fun. Drive it 200 mph round a track and it's also very fun."
We used a similar metaphor in our review of Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods—Part One, describing the experience as "akin to waking up at the wheel of a Ferrari screaming down the track at 200 mph. It's precisely as alarming and exhilarating as that sounds." That's a good thing, in case there's any doubt: We scored it 89%, calling it "virtuosic display from id Software."
The addition of a new Slayer isn't something that's likely to happen anytime soon, then, but the idea is at least on the radar. And it's not like it'd be too much of a narrative stretch to make it happen, either: I'm not a big adherent to the concept of canonical authenticity in my Doom games, but perhaps it's notable that, in the fiction of Quake 3: Arena, the Doomslayer's trainer during his time in the Marines was Crash, a woman.
Thanks, VGC.