Doom is a first-person shooter developed and self-published by id Software for MS-DOS on 10 December 1993; the first episode went online at midnight. John Carmack wrote the 3D engine, John Romero co-designed the game and programmed features such as switches and moving platforms, and Sandy Petersen designed many of the later levels.
Doom was sold as shareware. Only about 1% of players bought the full game, yet that brought in about $100,000 on the first day, and by late 1995 Doom was estimated to be installed on more computers than Windows 95. The 1995 retail edition, The Ultimate Doom, added a fourth episode, Thy Flesh Consumed. Ports followed on 32X, Atari Jaguar, Super NES, PlayStation, 3DO, Saturn and many later systems.
Its WAD file format sparked a huge modding scene, and Doom is credited with popularizing deathmatch and creating the speedrunning community. id released the source code in 1997 and under the GNU GPL in 1999. In 2007 the Library of Congress picked Doom as one of the first ten games for preservation.12
Names and releases
| Region | Title on the box | Platform | Date | Publisher | Src |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NA | DoomShareware: the first episode free, the full game sold directly by id. | MS-DOS | Dec 10, 1993 | id Software | 1 |
| NA | DoomOnly about two-thirds of the levels. | 32X | Nov 21, 1994 | — | 1 |
| NA | DoomAtari Jaguar. | Other | Nov 28, 1994 | — | 1 |
| NA | DoomEurope 26 October 1995, Japan 1 March 1996. | SNES | September 1995 | — | 1 |
| NA | DoomIncludes The Ultimate Doom and Doom II content. | PlayStation | Nov 16, 1995 | — | 1 |
| NA | Doom3DO. | Other | Apr 26, 1996 | — | 1 |
| NA | Doom | Saturn | Mar 26, 1997 | — | 1 |
| NA | Doom | Game Boy Advance | Oct 24, 2001 | — | 1 |
| JP | DoomPC-9801/9821 version; date from English Wikipedia, publisher from Japanese Wikipedia. | PC-98 | Dec 9, 1994 | Imagineer | 1 |
| WW | The Ultimate DoomRetail edition adding episode 4, Thy Flesh Consumed. | MS-DOS | 1995 | GT Interactive | 1 |
| JP | DoomSuper Famicom; date from English Wikipedia, publisher from Japanese Wikipedia and the English list of SNES games. | SNES | Mar 1, 1996 | Imagineer | 3 |
| WW | Doom | Xbox 360 | Sep 27, 2006 | — | 1 |
| WW | DoomSame day on Android, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. | Switch | Jul 26, 2019 | — | 1 |
| WW | Doom + Doom IIExpanded KEX Engine release together with Doom II; also on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. | Windows | Aug 8, 2024 | — | 1 |
Also known as: The Ultimate Doom WW1
Box art by region
NA Doom
Box art © its publishers, shown to identify each release. Scans: Wikipedia.
Version differences
-
Content32X
John Carmack's 32X port shipped with only about two-thirds of the levels so that it could make the console's launch date.1
-
ContentPlayStation
The PlayStation version combines content from The Ultimate Doom and Doom II.1
-
AudioPlayStationSaturn
On PlayStation and Saturn, the PC music is replaced with a new ambient score by Aubrey Hodges.1
Reception
Doom sold 3.5 million copies by the end of 1999, and an estimated 10–20 million people played it within two years of launch. PC Gamer US called it the best computer game of all time in August 1994, and a 2001 GameSpy poll voted it the greatest game of all time.1
Sources
Checked: 2026-10-13Text reviewed: 2026-10-13
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