Monster

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"Hellspawn" redirects here. For "Team Hellspawn", see Doom voxel project.

In the Doom franchise, a monster which is commonly known as demon, are the being that is not spawned if the -nomonsters parameter is used. In single player and cooperative games, much of a user's playing time is spent in combat with enemy monsters. Monsters are either placed in a level during its design, created by another monster (particularly, the Pain Elemental spawns Lost Souls), or spawned by the final boss.

Any monster placed in a level or created by the final boss is initially dormant and becomes active only when it sees a player, when it sustains a damaging attack, or when it hears a player attack, even if this is with the (otherwise silent) fist. When activated, a monster will advance on its target and attack, sensing the location of the thing they are after even if it is out of sight, and advancing toward that location even if it is on the other side of the level. If a monster hits an obstruction during its hunt for its target, it will attempt to walk around it or float around/over it (Cacodemon, Lost Soul and/or Pain Elemental). Monsters that have been alerted normally remain active indefinitely, even after respawning or being resurrected by an Arch-Vile. However, there is a bug which returns any active monsters to a dormant state if the user re-loads a saved game. In general, monsters of different types can accidentally hurt each other and will often turn against each other in such cases, engaging in monster infighting. If a monster defeats an aggressor without ever seeing or hearing a player, it will return to a dormant state.

Monsters can use some types of teleporters, although they do so accidentally or unintentionally, as their intelligence is very limited. Monsters can similarly activate lifts and open certain doors, although some monsters may not fit through doors and openings that are just large enough for the player. Monsters can be hurt and killed by crushing ceilings, but are unaffected by all forms of damaging floors.

The monsters can be classified into two groups: the former humans possessed by demonic forces, and the demonic monsters (demon or hellspawn) originating in hell or arriving from there.

Doom games

Doom

Doom and its retail extension, The Ultimate Doom, include the following monsters:

Baron of Hell: Two of these act as the boss in Knee-Deep in the Dead, resembling large pink Minotaurs or Satyrs. It can hurl streaming balls of green flame or energy and employs a powerful clawing attack at close range. They can take enormous punishment before being slain.
Cacodemon: A large flying head-like monster with red scales, horns, and one eye. It moves relatively slowly, but has strong jaws and spits out "lightning balls" from a distance.
Cyberdemon: The massive boss in The Shores of Hell, a monstrous humanoid cyborg as tall as two men that can absorb more damage than any other monster and moves at a relatively rapid rate for its size, pausing only to fire rockets from its mechanical arm at anything foolish enough to oppose it.
Demon: About the size of a gorilla, this muscular pink brute runs quickly on its two hind legs to bite opponents. While not an immediate threat on their own, when in groups they do have a tendency to try and outflank their targets.
Imp: A brown, human-sized humanoid demon that throws round fireballs and claws nearby opponents.
Lost soul: A floating, flaming skull that can rush quickly to gore an opponent.
Shotgun Guy: A bald, more durable zombie in black armor with a shotgun. A bit tougher than the former human (perhaps due to his rank), but still very easy to gun down.
Spectre: Identical to the Demon, except that it is partially invisible.
Spider Mastermind: The cybernetic boss in Inferno and Thy Flesh Consumed. It appears as an enormous brain with eyes, a mouth, and comparatively small arms, atop a four-legged metal chassis with an incorporated triple-strength chaingun which will mow down the unwary to bits within moments.
Zombieman: Once a marine or guard like the protagonist, now a green-haired, hell-possessed soldier carrying a rifle. The weakest of the enemies in Doom and therefore, the easiest to kill.

Doom II

Doom II (and thus also Final Doom) includes the same monsters as Doom in addition to the following monsters:

Arachnotron: Strongly resembles the spiderdemon, but is much smaller, and shoots greenish plasma instead of super-chaingun rounds.
Arch-vile: A peach-colored, emaciated humanoid demon who is quite tough for its size. It can summon fire, raise dead monsters and is the fastest monster in Doom II (almost one and a half times as fast as the cyberdemon).
Commander Keen: A hanged effigy of the cosmonaut from id Software's pioneering series of games only appearing in MAP32: Grosse. It neither moves nor attacks, although killing all four Keen figures is necessary to reveal the exit switch and finish the level.
Heavy weapon dude: A tough, corpulent zombie with a darker skin, red armor and carries a chaingun.
Hell Knight: Identical to the Baron of Hell but tanned in color, emits higher-pitched sounds and endures only half as much damage.
Icon of Sin: Though not technically a monster, it does still represent one of the protagonist's opponents. The principal one, to be exact, that must be defeated to win the game.
Mancubus: A grotesquely bloated humanoid with flamethrowers instead of forearms. It moves slowly, but takes a fair amount of ordinance to bring down.
Pain elemental: A large flying head resembling a brown cacodemon with small arms. It attacks by spitting lost souls at its target, and even creates a few more as it dies.
Revenant: A tall, skeletal demon wearing silver body armor that can launch ballistic or guided missiles, and punch opponents when at close quarters. These are the results of recycled demon combatants.
Wolfenstein SS: Populates the two Wolfenstein-themed secret levels and attacks with a medium-strength machine gun.

Newer Doom franchise games

The newer games of the Doom franchise generally include a set of monsters from the PC Doom games or inspired on them and possibly a number of new creations. Various ports include the same sprites as their predecessors, although some change their appearances either to achieve a new style (such as in Doom 64) and the newer games (such as Doom 3) provide polygonal versions that suit their more advanced technology and rendering capabilities.

Doom RPG

Doom RPG features almost all of the monsters from Doom II, with the exception of the shotgun guy, spectre, arachnotron, Wolfenstein SS, Commander Keen and spiderdemon (as well as the final boss). It includes the following unique monsters:

Non-boss enemies in Doom RPG are organized into classes. For example, there are three types of imps, while the knight and baron of hell both belong to the "baron" class. Monsters in the same class use the same sprites, but are somewhat differently colored and vary in difficulty.

Doom II RPG

The Doom RPG sequel Doom II RPG has almost the same enemy entity set as Doom RPG, but adds a few of its own, even adding a few boss entities. The game adds the following new enemy types:

Chainsaw Goblins (Lesser Sawcubus, Greater Sawcubus, Chainstrosity)
Sentinels (Brier, Watcher, Sentinel )
Zombie Civilians (Zombie Civilian, Zombie Worker, Zombie Tech)
Sentry Bots (Red only)

In addition to the new classes of enemies, the game has two new boss class entities; the Pinkinator and VIOS. All the sprite artwork used for the enemies was hand-drawn specifically for this game--even for "classic" monsters returning from previous games in the series--in order to allow for higher-resolution sprites than what was used in the original Doom games (though the higher-resolution sprites are only used on higher-end devices).

Sony PlayStation

The official port of Doom to this platform removes the Arch-Vile but includes an additional monster over the PC versions.

Nightmare spectre

Doom 64

Doom 64 includes newly illustrated versions of the Doom and Doom II monsters, created from high-poly rendered models rather than sculptures or hand-drawings. The revenant, heavy weapon dude, arch-vile, spiderdemon, Wolfenstein SS, Commander Keen and final boss are not present, but instead it features some new monsters:

Doom 3

Doom 3 includes its own versions of many monsters from the original games. Some of these, such as the demon and the hell knight, are considerably different from their predecessors.

Additionally, the following new monsters are encountered:

Some concepts of monsters, one of which resembles the spider-like monsters from Doom and Doom II, were shown by id Software during development of the game but did not make it to the finished product.

Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil

All the monsters in Doom 3 appear in Resurrection of Evil, except the sabaoth, vagary, cyberdemon, guardian, seeker, and lost soul. Additionally, some new monsters are included:

Bio-Suit Zombie
Bruiser
Forgotten One (which resembles the classic lost soul more than does its namesake)
Hell Hunter
Maledict
Vulgar

Doom (2016)

The Doom reboot features a lot of returning monsters from the previous three games.

Baron of Hell - Are larger than more agile than previous appearances, easily capable of outrunning the player.
Cacodemon - Their attacks now blurs the players vision.
Cyberdemon - A boss, with several new abilities, including a laser attack and a flame wall.
Hell Knight - Resemble their Doom 3 incarnation, but can no longer throw fireballs. Instead they have increased speed and agility to chase and pummel the player.
Imp - Far more agile, capable of climbing up walls and leaping over large gaps. Can also charge their fireballs into more powerful versions.
Lost Soul - Now explode upon impact.
Mancubus - Now covered in armour plating that protects their chests, and can launch their flames in streams rather than just fireballs.
Pinky - Covered in thick armour on their faces and have a charging attack, making players have to dodge and attack their vulnerable tails.
- Spectre
Possessed - Essentially renamed zombies.
- Possessed Engineer - Killing them causes them to explode.
- Possessed Security - The only hitscan enemies of the game. Equipped with a highly resilient energy shield.
- Possessed Soldier - Equipped with plasma guns.
- Possessed Scientist - Common zombies.
- Possessed Worker - Different skin for common zombies.
- Unwilling - Different skin for common zombies that appear in hell.
Revenant - Now equipped with jetpacks and can unleash much larger barrages of rockets.
Spiderdemon - Final boss, equipped with a plasma cannon, lasers, an electric attack and telekinesis.
Summoners - Essentially renamed Arch-viles; they have similar abilities to their Doom 3 counterparts, but now float, can travel at untouchable speeds, and have a revamped appearance.

It also includes some new monsters.

Cyber-Mancubus - Mancubi with heavier armour, and shoot toxic slime rather than fire, at greater ranges.
Gore Nest - Not technically demons, but an important part of fighting them. Gore nests appear as objects to be destroyed to remove "demonic presence" from areas. Destroying them summons a wave of demons.
Hell Guard - A trio of bosses, biomechanical suits inhabited by Parasites. They have various flame and energy-shield based attacks.
Hell Razer - Similar to an upgraded Possessed Soldier, Hell Razers are demons with an arm cannon that fires a beam of hell energy.

Multiplayer includes two new demons for players to play as.

Harvester - A demon that absorbs life energy to fuel its attacks.
Prowler - Demons similar to imp, but stronger and without the fireballs.

Other games based on the Doom engine

Games powered by a modification of the Doom engine include a particular set of monsters suiting their setting, style and game behavior. These monsters share various basic characteristics of the Doom game monsters but may show some differences, such as being capable of multiple types of ranged attacks or being subject to the additional possibilities of game scripting (namely ACS in Hexen).

Heretic

Hexen

Strife

HacX

Technical

Background

Models