Arch-vile

"One of the worst of a bad lot. You can't think of enough rotten things to say about him. He's fast, hard to kill, casts spells, and resurrects dead monsters! At least these suckers are rare."

- Doom II Manual description

The Arch-vile is an enemy who makes their first appearance in Doom II in MAP11: Circle of Death. They went on to be encountered in Doom 3, Doom RPG, and Doom Eternal. A female version also appears in Doom (2016) known as the Summoner. As described in Doom II's manual, the Arch-vile is a rare, but very dangerous enemy who is a force to be reckoned with for the unprepared.

Inspiration and development
The idea and name for the Arch-vile came from Sandy Petersen.

Bobby Prince said: "The Arch-vile is an evil healer. Anyone getting in his way is blasted with fire and disintegrated. This includes other demons. But, after he has wrought his destruction, he then goes around and reanimates all of the demons. Because of this interesting dual personality, I decided to give him a very evil laugh as an active sound. For his death sound, I recorded a young girl saying 'why,' pitch shifted it down and mixed it with other sounds. The Arch-vile just doesn't understand why anyone would want to kill him as he sees himself as only doing good for his fellow demon."

In the later games Doom 3 and Doom Eternal, the Arch-vile summons enemies rather than resurrecting dead corpses, because in these games enemies disappear when killed without leaving behind corpses. (Doom (2016)'s Summoner works this way too, being essentially a weaker version of the Doom Eternal Arch-vile.)