Doom drops all pretense and shows you the guns

Doom's first-person "glory kills" let you tear apart freakish demons with your gloved hands, but you're still going to need a lot more firepower. Fortunately, your fallen marine counterparts and overreaching scientist employers have left a bounty of guns scattered around Mars and Hell alike.

Bethesda and id Software sent over some detailed renders of Doom's impressive arsenal, spanning familiar favorites such as the Combat Shotgun and BFG as well as new hardware like the Lightning gun. Each one even has a little commentary from their visual designers, if you want to know more about how they came to be.

Gauss Cannon Render by Cameron Kerby 

"Adding a new powerful weapon to DOOM’s arsenal was no small feat. The model required a lot of attention because of its large size and unique weapon mods. The concept artist, Bryan Flynn, figured out most of the mechanics early on, so bringing the gun to life was a smooth process."

Static Rifle by Bryan Flynn 

"The fiction of the Static Rifle is that it pulls energy from space around it when in motion and releases it in a concentrated beam when fired. My focus for this weapon was to have the player visually feel the weapon charging up. To do this, I built the weapon around how it would animate and what the effects would look like."

Vortex Rifle Render by Cameron Kerby

"The first sniper rifle in franchise history, the Vortex Rifle had to live up to the Doom legacy of over-the-top weaponry. The goal was to make the model feel sleek but powerful. Thanks to a great concept by Bryan Flynn, there were plenty of fun details to create."

Lightning Gun by Jon Lane

"This gun was originally designed as a weapon with two distinct firing states; using the weapon’s secondary fire causes the front-end of the weapon to unfold into a more aggressive stance. The look of the Lightning Gun is somewhat creature-like - the idea being that Hell’s influence might be more visible in some of the more advanced parts of UAC technology."

Plasma Rifle by Jon Lane

"The design of the Plasma Rifle is largely derived from the look of its ancestor. With this iteration, the intent was to modernize the previous design, making it sleeker and keeping it in tune with the overall look of the game."

Hellshot Render by Gregor Kopka

"The goal was to create a gun that looked experimental and got its energy from a hellish energy source. I like to start with some cool animation that drives my creative process. This was the final result."

Combat Shotgun by Jon Lane

"The Combat Shotgun was one of the earliest weapon designs completed for the game. The look of the weapon is based on the idea of a singular, continuous form - fully encased, using low frequency detail and sparse cut-lines."

Chaingun Turret Mod by Bryan Flynn

"The idea behind this gun mod was to get a normal Chaingun to open/deploy into a turret mode that significantly increased the rate of fire and damage. While firing this mod in standard mode, the gun fires from the outer three barrels. When deployed, it uses all nine barrels!"

Rocket Launcher Render by Timothee Yeramian

"Modeling the Rocket Launcher was interesting because we had initially intended the weapon to have multiple barrel and attachment mods. It took a bit of foresight to figure out exactly how all the pieces would detach and clip together. Even though this idea was cut for the final release, you can still see how the gun would be stripped in combat."

BFG by Bryan Flynn

"For this monstrous weapon, my main focus was to create something new that retained the presence and feel of the original BFG. Another goal was to clearly show the player all the components on the weapon as it fired. In first person, the player would see the central cylinder spin up as it charged and the side lightning units open with exposed energy. Then the round front end would kick back as it released the BFG’s green electrified orb of doom!"

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.