Is Halo originally a Doom Rip off?

09philj

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Masterchief is space marine so is Doom guy as he was original.
Not really, no. The idea of heavily armed and armoured sci-fi soldiers has been around in various forms for a long time, but it was definitely well established in nerd culture by 1993 by things like the Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000, who incidentally also tended to have a lot of bother with demons.
 

wings012

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I would say the Praetor Armour from Doom 2016 ripped off the Mjolnir more than anything.
 

Thaluikhain

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There wont be a Halo without Doom.
In that Doom was massively influential and (together with Wolf3d) basically invented FPS, I guess. You can say that both have broadly similar stories because FPS often do, but you could argue that's also due to Doom.

But rip-off seems a bit too much.
 

Mister Mumbler

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Well, if we're going to disparage the Halo grunts, might as well go all in.
halo1grunt.jpg
And to be honest, I kinda see his point on at least this enemy.
 

SckizoBoy

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No-one going to bring up the Doomguy = Link from Legend of Zelda conspiracy? No?

OK, you're all wrong, Doomguy is Link from the Legend of Zelda. No bearing on where Master Chief came from or how he came to be whatsoever, meta or otherwise.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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No-one going to bring up the Doomguy = Link from Legend of Zelda conspiracy? No?

OK, you're all wrong, Doomguy is Link from the Legend of Zelda. No bearing on where Master Chief came from or how he came to be whatsoever, meta or otherwise.
I can't believe no one has ever seen it before. It's so obvious, I mean THEY BOTH WEAR GREEN!
 

Chimpzy

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Not really, no. The idea of heavily armed and armoured sci-fi soldiers has been around in various forms for a long time, but it was definitely well established in nerd culture by 1993 by things like the Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000, who incidentally also tended to have a lot of bother with demons.
Fun fact, Doom was originally intended to become an Aliens game, but they couldn't obtain the rights, so it was retooled into the game we know. There's still some Aliens dna in there, mostly in the story and setting. Tho the guys at id Software are known for being big into tabletop games at the time, so the 40K inspiration angle seems a likely one too.
 

Gordon_4

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Fun fact, Doom was originally intended to become an Aliens game, but they couldn't obtain the rights, so it was retooled into the game we know. There's still some Aliens dna in there, mostly in the story and setting. Tho the guys at id Software are known for being big into tabletop games at the time, so the 40K inspiration angle seems a likely one too.
And if they were into WH40k and Aliens, ten gets you one hundred some of them had read the Space Marine Ur-text, Starship Troopers.
 
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Chimpzy

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And if they were into WH40k and Aliens, ten gets you one hundred some of them had read the Space Marine Ur-text, Starship Troopers.
Yeh, probably. Their games tended to be grabbags of whatever pop culture and/or nerdy hobby the team happened to be binging on during development, and they wore those influences on their sleeve. Up until about Quake, when most of that original team had left or would leave soon.
 

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Honestly, a lot of Halo's 'stuff' can be traced back to a specific series of 90's FPS, Marathon, and its sequels Marathon Durandal and Marathon Infinity.

Being guided around by various AI, one of which is a bit crazy and has its own agender.

Being a power armoured and enhanced superhuman who is the only one to save the day.

A strong narrative focus.

Enemies who are an alliance of races being forced into cooperation by a single overlord race.

Created for Mac's by a little developer named Bungie. Maybe you've heard of them?
 

Fieldy409

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I thought green was a camoflague colour associated with the military. That might be why they both have green armour they're drawing inspiration from the same real world source.


Doom is the grandfather of ALL fps but the Halo formula is very different, it's slower, cover is a thing thanks to recharging health and choosing what weapons to bring is an issue since chief can only carry two.
 

Hawki

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Originally? No. Halo takes inspiration from Marathon more than anything, which took inspriation from Doom. Marathon vs. Doom would be a more accurate comparison.

But to get into specific points:

They both are hailed as some kind of messiah in thier games
Not really. Doomguy didn't have the messiah thing going until Doom 2016. And John's never been treated as a messiah. The Spatan-IIs were given a certain amount of reverence, but John never got more than any of the others outside the program, even if he was their de facto leader.

as they save humans from Demons/Aliens.
You've just described 90% of FPS sci-fi.

When Doomguy Shoot Demons, Haloguy Shoot pokemon looking aliens.
Um...

both have thier own signature weapon like shotgun and assault rifle.
That's a stretch. The shotgun didn't become a signature weapon until Doom 2016 at the earliest. meanwhile, John's never had a signature weapon. Yeah, he has an assault rifle on most covers, but that's a stretch.

when we look at games, the concept is similar. Alien invasion/Demonic invasion, saving humans from threats.
Again, that's an insanely broad plot point.

I feel like Halo either is heavily inspired by Doom or just rip off.
Again, see Marathon. And Doom was already ripping off Aliens.

Doom series basically evolved yet Halo is combat devolved now with infinite looking very outdated.
The Doom series did evolve, I'll grant you that. I'll also grant that Infinite looks outdated. But this isn't to say one ripped off the other.

Masterchief and Doomguy are exact same characters imo.
Except they're not. Sure, they've got some generic similarities (supersoldiers), but look up their bios, there's a tonne of differences.

I feel like Halo either is heavily inspired by Doom or just rip off.

Doom series basically evolved yet Halo is combat devolved now with infinite looking very outdated.
Masterchief is space marine so is Doom guy as he was original.
The space marine archtype goes at least as far back as Starship Troopers. Again, this is so broad a trope it's meaningless.

Doomguy lable as the choosen one who destroy demons. so is masterchief although he fought with other marines.
Doomguy didn't become a "chosen one" until Doom 2016. And again, John's never been given any religious reverence - certainly nowhere approaching the same scale.

There wont be a Halo without Doom.
That's technically true, if we assume that if Doom never existed, no other game like it would have been created. But again, that's broad. Doom would never exist without Wolfenstein. Wolfenstein would never exist without the PC. The PC would never exist without...well, so on and so forth.

There wont be Masterchief without Doomguy since masterchief is inspired by Doomguy.
Again, that's a stretch. The space marine archtype predates Doomguy. And John owes more to Mjolnir Recon 54 than Doomguy.

If this was a Marathon vs. Doom comparison, this would be different, but it isn't.

Anyway....No B-Cell not a chance. Halo is worse than doom in every single way.
Better characters, better story, better setting, better themes, basically anything related to the Five Pillars of Story for starters.

If we're talking about gameplay, that's a different matter. I'd still say Halo's better overall, but at this point in time, I'll concede that Doom is better. The last Doom game was Doom Eternal, which was awesome. Infinite, on the other hand, looks lacklustre. And as much as I enjoyed Halo 5 (and to a lesser extent, Halo Wars 2), I'd still put Eternal above them.

Honestly, a lot of Halo's 'stuff' can be traced back to a specific series of 90's FPS, Marathon, and its sequels Marathon Durandal and Marathon Infinity.

Being guided around by various AI, one of which is a bit crazy and has its own agender.

Being a power armoured and enhanced superhuman who is the only one to save the day.

A strong narrative focus.

Enemies who are an alliance of races being forced into cooperation by a single overlord race.

Created for Mac's by a little developer named Bungie. Maybe you've heard of them?
Thank you!

Look, I can't claim to be some kind of retro fan or anything (I only learnt about Marathon through Halo, and I've only played through M1 and some of Durandal), but Marathon's a far more important evolutionary link to Halo than Doom, even if Marathon stems from Doom in a gameplay sense.
 
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SckizoBoy

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That's technically true, if we assume that if Doom never existed, no other game like it would have been created. But again, that's broad. Doom would never exist without Wolfenstein. Wolfenstein would never exist without the PC. The PC would never exist without...well, so on and so forth.
Firstly, I applaud your perseverance in addressing all points. Good luck getting itemised responses more than ten words long.

That said, I'll pick up on this. If we were to go back to 'without this, no that', it's really a matter of creative drives, so we really can't say. Without Doom/Wolfenstein or the creative minds behind them, it's perfectly possible (indeed probable and perhaps even certain) that some maverick programmer would have done something similar or even the same under a different name and this discussion would be about those games instead and the games they inspired/spawned a genre for. As a broad strokes example, killing Nazis was almost always a thing in media with war films that only went out of fashion in the late 70's early 80's, so a medium jump was bound to happen. No Wolfenstein? Fine, here's Assault on the Wolf's Lair or some derivative idea that essentially does the same thing: kill Nazis. It might look different and play different, but the groundwork is there for something to start and the technology was only ever going to accelerate.