"Doom 2016's story was fantastic." If you never expected to say those words, you weren't alone.

Creative director Hugo Martin got his start working on Uncharted at Naughty Dog, went to Hollywood and created character designs for 2013's Pacific Rim, then returned to video games when he landed his job at id Software. His resume made him uniquely suited to recalibrate expectations for stories in big-budget games, to say nothing of id Software's long history of simple but effective "A portal to a bad place opened, kill everything that comes out of it" narratives.

In our talks, Martin touched on storytelling lessons he picked up from working in Hollywood, how comic books informed Doom's visuals and narrative, and why less is more in games and film.

A lot of producers talk about crafting a "cinematic experience" in a game. You've actually crafted cinematic experiences in cinema. Do you find that "cinematic experiences" so often boil down to watching two characters stand around and talk? I like when games make use of storytelling devices unique to the medium—that is, actually playing the game. I wondered what your take was as someone who's told stories in both formats.

Hugo Martin: Throughout my career I was bouncing back and forth, and I started in games, plus I'm a huge gamer. I definitely understand the medium... I mean, I like to think I do. [laughs] I find my film background and my passion for films to be very useful. We're going for feelings. That's basically it. In the film medium, you've got different limitations and different things you can do. And obviously in games you have a whole different set of limitations.

It's funny. I agree with you: I like games like Bloodborne so much because it doesn't really stop me. I don't necessarily want to be stopped if I don't have to be. It's got to be a pretty good story in a video game for me to want to sit there and watch people talk. And what's really funny about that is that's not really a good thing. How many times are you going to sit there and watch two people have a conversation? The main character of the film is going to watch people have a conversation? That's pretty rare.

In games, it's just because of the way the medium works. You tend to end up doing that a lot. I think what you see in film, and what we can learn from film, is you take a film like Michael Clayton—that movie uses the same type of efficiency that we tried to use in Doom. It's giving you so much information but does it in such an efficient way. I think the best kind of storytelling is when you don't even really realize you're being told a story. I think we all get pissed off in games and movies when you can feel it: "It's story time! I'm six years old again, and the teacher's got the book out and she's explaining everything to me. Oh my god. I'm so bored."

My favorite kind of storytelling is when I don't even notice it's happening. I think for the most part, that's what we tried to do with Doom. Whether or not we did that successfully, I'll leave that up to the fans. There is a tremendous amount of storytelling going on in Doom, and very little of it has to do with people telling you stuff. The story of Doom is: we want the player to feel like a badass. That's it. That's the story of Doom. It's a combination of progression in the game, the weapons, the few things people say to you, their reaction to you. There's even more stuff in the codecs if you choose to read or listen to it.

All of it has one goal in mind: Doom 2016 is doing its damnedest to make you feel strong. If we had 10 dollars, we'd spend eight of it on combat, a dollar on something else, and one dollar left for the story. All of that money would be spent on making you feel like a badass.

With my film background, you look at films that do well, and you pull out of it what you can and try to apply it to your game. One thing about my film background that I think helps me, and it's kind of an attitude that we have here, is: there's never enough time, there's never enough money, to do the thing you really want to do. There's this "Let's figure out a way to get it done" attitude in film that I love.

Think about all the making-of stories. Like Empire Strikes Back: it's a bunch of kids in a garage, and they're pulling off the best effects the world had ever seen. The matte paintings for the Hoth scenes are made by some kid who never even worked on a film before. They were some of the best Hoth paintings the world had ever seen. That's the kind of attitude that I really wanted the team to have: this roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-it-done. We love to make two dollars look like 20. Just being really smart about it.

Take James Cameron on Aliens. He wants 20 aliens in suits; the studio says, "You have a budget for seven or eight." The way he figures out to make seven or eight aliens look like 20 is, what they actually look like is total shit, but to the audience, they look amazing on film. He gets really clever: "Okay, that doesn't look as good as we want. Let's put some smoke here. Let's turn down the lights. Let's keep action going."

That's really what working on a game or movie is like when it's at its best. That's the fun. The box is always too small. I think the attitude in film is, learn how to pack as much shit as you can into that box. I think some of the best work that Ridley Scott ever did was, he didn't have enough money to make the sets in Alien look the way he wanted to, so he started turning off lights and filling the room with smoke. He created a visual style that to this day is... I mean, come on. What looks better than Blade Runner or Aliens? And that was born out of him not having enough resources to do what he wanted to do.

The box was too small. Those restrictions that are put on creative people, that's where innovation comes through. Honestly, innovation is why we do this. It's so exciting to work with a team, and there's this camaraderie that comes out of it when you're figuring out a way to put something that's way too big into the box you have—and then you actually figure out a way to do it, and the audience is like, "Holy..." Their perception of the box is way bigger than it is. That's what gets me up in the morning.

That's a film attitude, but certainly they've been doing that in games for [decades]. The truth is, nobody has enough money. Everybody's box is too small. Even Apple's box is too small. I think we look at Apple products and think, Oh my god, they have unlimited resources. Everybody's got a schedule, everybody's got a deadline to meet, and that makes the box smaller than you want, but I think the best teams embrace the box.

I'm not as much of a film buff as you are, but I am interested in learning about how movies are made. I've found that I gravitate toward films that were made with practical effects. Take, as an example, the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequels. Whether someone loves the prequels or hates them, there are stark differences between the creative processes.

Hugo Martin: I think that James Cameron in Avatar pretty much showed you what he can do when his box is bigger, and it was pretty fucking spectacular. Some of my favorite things in art—art being film, games, fine art, illustrations, whatever—I think the best decisions you make, as a creative person, is the stuff that you leave out of the image.

Those are usually what make the parts that you left in even more powerful, because you're giving the audience an opportunity to participate in the image, or the game, or the story. I'll use Doom as an example. The game itself did not allow for us to expand on the story of the Doom Slayer and some of the lore as much as we... I wouldn't say "wanted to," but "could have." Not only did we have resource limitations, we had time limitations. We also had the fact that the race car [analogy] wasn't built for that. I don't think that's what people wanted from Doom.

So what we did was, we edited, edited, edited. We gave you Part A of the story, and Part C of the story, and we asked you to figure out Part B. In my opinion, that's the best way to go about it. You're basically making me, as an audience member, sit up in my chair and participate and figure it out. That's what I find to be the most engaging approach.

What happens when your box gets really big and you have CG... let's take visuals for example. My biggest problem with the [Star Wars] prequels is I can see everything. It's almost like I want to go in there and say, "Okay, I know we modeled all this shit. I know it was all designed and we spent a lot of money on the Jedi Temple, but for Christ's sake, can somebody turn off some lights and give this room some style?"

And I know why they did that. "That carpet? We paid a lot of money for that carpet. That stuff on the wall? That was really expensive. I want to see this creature fully lit from every angle because we spent two months making this thing in CG." And I'm like, dude, I don't want to see this whole thing. The analogy that I use—it's a concept I taught to my students—is when someone is telling you a story, and they're telling you every single detail. Hey, how was that movie? "Okay, so the credits started. Then it said, 'Directed by...' Jesus Christ, dude. You're killing me.

A really good storyteller edits and only hits the high points, and then you paint a picture in your mind to fill in the rest of the story. That's how you entertain people. That's true, in my opinion, for games, for painting, for film. And a lot of times, as in our case, that was a result of our box being too small to fit stuff in, so we let the audience fill in the blanks. Ultimately, that creates a higher level of audience participation. It's more engaging that way.

When we look back on Alien, for example, a lot of times [Ridley Scott] shut the lights off because stuff didn't look that good. But, my god, tell me you don't fill in the blanks on Blade Runner so much. It's just smoke and silhouettes with hints of detail, but that is the greatest depiction of a futuristic city to this day. Honestly. Maybe Fifth Element, but I'd like somebody to show me a better depiction of a futuristic city than Blade Runner.

I've taken screen shots of every inch of that film to do film study, lighting—to really understand it. When you take a screen shot [of Blade Runner], it's amazing how little information is really on-screen. It's all implied. It's all silhouettes, and your mind is filling in the blanks. The story that you create in your head is always going to be better than the one I write down for you. No one's a better director than you, that's for sure.

Bloodborne: Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen.

If you allow your audience to participate in your game's story and your game's visual, it's going to be more compelling because what they fill in the blanks with is always going to be the coolest thing for them. Honestly, that was a bit of a debate for us on Doom 2016. The difference is in games, you have to see your objective. The reason why I came to games is because I love games, and I find making games to be extremely compelling. You just heard me rant about movies and art for 10 minutes, but I'm never going to put that stuff above gameplay. Gameplay rules the roost around here.

I might run the kitchen, and Marty runs the restaurant, but fun is the boss. Fun runs the show around here. [Doom] is a video game, so gameplay first. But when it came to visuals, I very much wanted to use that Ridley Scott approach of smoke and silhouettes when possible. Now, that became a challenge. On a film set—I worked at Blur for many years—some environment artist is going to model every detail of an environment, and it's very difficult to turn around and say to him, "Yeah, we're going to shut lights off and put a bunch of smoke in there, and they won't really see it." He's going to be like, "Then why am I here?"

That tends to be a bit of a struggle, so whenever possible we try to use that Ridley Scott approach to make [Doom] more suggestive. It's a bit of a balance in video games. I want to see my objectives. Gameplay first, art second. We're always going back and forth on that, but it's all about audience participation for me.

My favorite moment in video game storytelling over the last three years—and I won't talk about our game because that would be obnoxious—in Bloodborne, there's a woman in a white dress in one of the levels. I think it's in the last level before the last boss. She's standing there staring up at the boss arena you're going to enter, and she doesn't say anything, and she's bloody. The story I have in my head of who that girl is—I have a whole thing built up in my head that that's the wife of the boss you fight at the end, and the boss is all disfigured, and... It's a great story! I want to write it down. [laughs] But I love the fact that it's my story. Bloodborne, very similarly to Doom, is kind of like, don't tell me the whole story; let me figure it out.

Bloodborne is a good example. I love all of the SoulsBorne games, and what I like about their approach to lore is when you find a sword on a corpse, that sword wasn't placed arbitrarily. That corpse wasn't there by chance. But you don't have to care about that. You can read the weapon's description, or you can just equip it and go back to killing bad guys. Doom was like that. I read all the monuments about the Doom Slayer, but a friend didn't, and he never missed a beat.

Hugo Martin: And they felt like a badass. I think that's a story that you both got, but you have a little more context as to exactly what kind of badass you are. That's what I like. We said, "Let's give them the option." Personally, as a fanboy, I very much enjoy digging into that stuff. I want to read about every aspect of the stuff I'm into. We leave that open for the player. If you want more context, you can find it.

I gave a talk at a game lab conference in Barcelona about this. When it comes to audience participation, if you look at some of the great pieces of art in history and you think about those images, they're doing the same thing. Comic books are the obvious ones. How many comic books use heavy blacks? A lot of stuff falls into shadow, and you're just catching a little bit of information and [a glimpse] of characters standing there. Pretty much every cool Batman poster ever is like that.

I was actually thinking of Batman.

Hugo Martin: Completely, right? Some of the best Frank Miller images are like that, and some of the best Batman images are like that. My mind fills in the rest. I think that's why those images are so cool. I think it's a really powerful concept. I like experiencing art in that way, and I like making art like that.

My favorite depiction of Batman is from The Animated Series where he's just a shadow with glowing white eyes.

Hugo Martin: Totally! Or the Ninja Turtles when they do that. It's the coolest thing. I actually like the [Star Wars] prequels. I realize I'm in the minority, and I totally agree with people's issues with them. What I like about the prequels compared to the originals—obviously I like both—but I think George [Lucas] swung for the fences. There's a lot of really cool stuff. In a half-hour's worth of any of the prequels, there are new ships, new characters, new ideas that I really like.

With Force Awakens, and I think that's a great film, but there aren't as many new ideas being introduced. But one thing is that when I close my eyes and think about the pros and cons of the prequels, it's too fucking bright. There's just too much information. I can see too much stuff. They don't leave enough to the imagination.

Doom's Ultra Nightmare mode is tough, but in game development, working long days and coming in on weekends is even tougher. A fun project and healthy camaraderie can make the experience more bearable.

Marty Stratton, Doom's executive producer and director, talked to me about the pressure he felt working on such a beloved brand, who among the development team succeeded in finishing Ultra Nightmare first, what his son's friends thought of their first Doom game, and his reaction to Doom's overwhelmingly positive reception.

Doom 3: Hell Knights close in on their prey.

Doom has been out almost a year. Now that you've had time to reflect, what did you enjoy most about the project?

Marty Stratton: There are so many things. My favorite part is actually the end product. I know that sounds like a cop-out, so I'll give you some others, but I'm so proud of where we ended up with it. Not just because it's been well-received and people feel like, hey, Doom is back. Doom is where it needs to be in terms of modern gaming conversations. But we really set out to create something that would appeal to people who, like you said, you've been playing id games a long time—a game that would appeal to you, and all of us who played Doom and loved it, and it became part of who we are as gamers. It has fond memories [associated with it]. Our Doom was true to that. It didn't necessarily replace it, but it became part of it. It was an augmentation to your Doom history.

At the same time, there's a lot of new people who have come to Doom. My son is 16, and he's got a bunch of friends who played it and loved it. They were excited about it, and Doom was a new thing to them. A lot of them are hardcore gamers, but they'd never gone back and played the original. Maybe they'd heard of Doom 3, but they'd at least heard of Doom, and they're not Doom fans, and not just because they know me. They're looking forward to whatever comes next from Doom.

So, ultimately the fact that we delivered on that promise that we'd make when we announced the game at QuakeCon in 2014—that's probably my favorite part. But the process of making the game was immensely hard but immensely fun. A lot of that comes from the fact that we were so flexible as we went. We played the game constantly, and I think that made all the difference in the world. The day-to-day decisions. Doom is such a crazy, fun, absurd, wild brand. When you're going through creative meetings, or reviewing art or animations, or whatever, it's anything but mundane. It's such a fun world to play in.

When you have conversations in meetings about how you're going to kill a demon in the most creative, bombastic way you've ever imagined, it's just fun. It's so fun to be at work and work with the people here who are just so passionate about it. I would hate to work on a game that doesn't have quite the impact or meaning [that Doom has], or the opportunity to make an impact. The fact that as you're going through the process, you know you're working on something that matters to people. That when it comes out, if you succeed or you fail, it will be a big thing. That pressure, just that purpose, is awesome.

I've worked at id and worked on id games a long time, and id games have kind of always had that, so I don't know what it's like to work on something that doesn't mean something. To be able to have that opportunity on Doom, and have it with these people, and ultimately have it turn out the way it did, and to know that it would. Going into launch, we all had a lot of confidence that we had done a good job. We really liked it even after a few years of development and playing it for hundreds of hours. We were still having competitions on Ultra Nightmare [difficulty] literally up until it shipped, trying to see who could get furthest.

That's kind of a long-winded answer, but I'd say that combination of things was my favorite part of it.

Who won the competition?

Marty Stratton: There were a bunch of people from QA, and a bunch of devs. We have a multiplayer testing pit, and different guys were trying different tactics. It's funny because when the game comes out and you have Ultra Nightmare, we didn't know how long it would take people to beat [that difficulty]. I honestly thought it would take months, and I think it took two days. It was crazy. When you look at the skill of the players out there, it's just insane.

One of our younger designers, Adam Bideau, he was the closest. There were some other guys in QA that came close as well, but he was the closest throughout. We had said in an interview that nobody internally at id had beaten Ultra Nightmare yet. It was his mission to beat it before [the game] shipped, and I think the night before it shipped, he beat it. He would basically practice, and then go back to his game once he knew [strategies].

I'm not saying that was at all a cheat, because he beat it fair and square. But, again, when you look at some of the [consumers] who did it right after it launched, they were just basically like, "Yeah, I'm going to take on Ultra Nightmare," and it would take them a couple of tries and then they were through.

Did you take that as a testament to the quality of the game's design? Kind of like saying, "Yes, this may look impossible, but it is possible."

Marty Stratton: Yeah, I think so. I give the designers, the leads and our AI team just tons of credit for that. But it's tough. [laughs] It's really hard to do. I think some of the first players to beat it did so on PC. It's definitely a faster and snappier experience on PC, the way you can manipulate the mouse and keyboard. It was fun to watch.

It was the first time we'd released a game with Twitch as a big thing, and streaming [in general]. It was just awesome to be able to watch people. We spent most of the first week after launch just watching people play on Twitch. It was such a cool window into people's first reactions and experiences with the game. You can learn a lot, and it's just fun.

I liked to talk to developers about how they felt after a game released, especially one that went through as many development twists and turns as Doom. How did you feel last May when the game finally launched? That must have been surreal.

Marty Stratton: Yeah, it was a little surreal. At first, it was just a relief. That's the hardest I've ever worked in my career, the last year of Doom. The last six months alone, I didn't take a day off, even on weekends. We worked 16 to 18 hours a day, just trying to squeeze every ounce of juice from it. Just because, again, it's a combination of pressure, pride, respect, and love. It's all these things and you're just like, "This has to be great. If I have slept one second more than I needed to and this doesn't turn out great, then I'm going to look back and really be disappointed."

We had a lot of confidence. We really felt like it was going to be great, but you never know. You've always got a little pit in your stomach. When it first goes out and people are playing it like that, it's definitely a relief. It's a few years of really hard work, and you're so happy that people like it. It's hard to explain because you put everything possible into it. You sacrifice. And this isn't just me. The entire team sacrificed their weekends, dinners, time with family. All kinds of stuff. The fact that [Doom] came out and peopled liked it, and not just liked it: You have a lot of conversations with yourself when you're making something when you ask, "Are people going to get this? Are they going to understand that we're giving them a little wink?" Particularly when you try to do things that are subtle. "Are they going to understand what we're trying to say with this? That we're trying to call back to the original Doom in some way?"

Battling a Cyberdemon in Doom E2M8, 'Tower of Babble'...

... and facing the boss's 2016 counterpart.

That's where the Twitch experience was really awesome. People would walk into a space and recognize the fact that it was kind of based on a level from the original Doom, and they'd be like, "Oh, I see what you did here." And you're like, "Yes! Oh my god!" Or at the beginning, when Samuel's talking and you grab the monitor and throw it to the side, even that was like, "Man, this feels risky. This is the right thing to do, but are people going to be upset?" Because we basically took the one piece of information about what you're supposed to do and chucked it. Are they going to understand that that's a statement we're making? Or are they going to be pissed off that we took control away from them for a fraction of a moment and just chucked their main source of information to the side?

When people react to it [positively] in real time and you see that, it's like: Yes. Thank you. Oh my god. They got it.

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A huge thank-you to all the individuals who helped make this feature possible: Erin Losi, assistant director of public relations at Bethesda Softworks, and Liz Roland, senior account executive at Fortyseven Communications, for coordinating interviews with the folks at id Software; Hugo Martin and Marty Stratton, creative director and game director/executive producer on Doom 2016, respectively, for taking time out of their busy GDC schedules and even more time afterwards to ansnwer my questions; John Romero, who has graciously allowed me to pick his brain about Doom and assorted other projects on multiple occasions; Marcos 'Sergeant Mark IV' Abenante, 'viggles,' 'skillsaw,' 'scwiba,' and Andrew 'Linguica' Stine, for opening up about their passion for Doom and its community; Shacknews video producer Greg Burke for lending his deft touch to the video interviews that accompany this piece; and last but not least, Shacknews CEO Asif Khan and editor-in-chief Steve Watts for giving me a ridiculous but much-appreciated span of time to get this project just right.