Mother Demon

The Mother Demon, Resurrector or Mother of all Demons, is the final boss of Doom 64 and is found on MAP28: The Absolution.

Physical Appearance

A monstrosity in her own right, the Mother Demon appears as a large demonic larva with dead black eyes with red irises, four arms, a skull-like face and smallish mouth filled with many long, sharp teeth. It has no wings, yet moves by floating around. She makes a soul-chilling cry of discovery upon being roused, a ghastly snarl when moving about and a frightful shriek like a Banshee when she is damaged.

Combat Characteristics

The Mother Demon's attack consists of powerful flame trails, followed by a set of 4 homing fireballs which split up when they hit something.

In the backstory, the Mother Demon appeared in an old relay satellite, battered by neutrons and quarantined by massive levels of radiation. When her presence was made, the satellite activated and sent a message to Earth. Her presence came with many demons and though their energy signatures were caught, the Mother Demon used the radiation levels to escape detection. She has rejuvenation powers and whenever she walked by a corpse of a demon, it was systematically brought back to life. It also made them stronger than before.

After she is killed, the Marine decides to remain in Hell to ensure no demon ever rises again.

Tactical Analysis

MAP28: The Absolution:

The Mother Demon will kill the player quickly if coming in battle unprepared. Her flame trail, when hit, launches the player into the air, making it harder for the player to control their movements. At the same time, she will launch four homing rockets at the player, being the only monster to perform two attacks at the same time. Even though one homing missile is not as strong as one rocket, getting hit by one of them will bounce the player back pretty far and getting hit by all four of them at once can be fatal regardless of the player's health and armor levels. Dodging the rockets can be a hassle (though the player can still hide on the walls like how the player fight a Revenant), especially when hit by the flame trail or the first rocket. Beware of the homing rockets though, as once they explode, they will send out a barrage of smaller fireballs in all directions.

She is the fastest demon in Doom 64, moving just as fast as the player, and can catch up to the player in seconds, unless the player is using the neutral position reset which makes the player run extremely fast.

The most effective way to defeat the Mother Demon is to use the fully-equipped Unmaker. Not only will the Unmaker do a lot of damage at rapid-firing speeds, but will also stun her to prevent her from using her four homing missiles. She will still attack with the flame trails as the only attack to avoid. Under suppressed fire from the weapon, she will die very quickly.

However, if the player did not receive all three of the Demon Keys needed to fully equip the Unmaker, the battle against the Mother Demon is very difficult. To make matters worse, varying upon how many keys the player collected if they did not collect all three, their previous battle before facing her may have consumed a lot of ammunition. The player's only real choice is to use the BFG 9000, but it requires precise timing and a lot of Plasma Cells conserved from the previous battle against the horde of enemies. The Rocket Launcher is the next best alternative, but defeating the Mother Demon with it takes longer and is more difficult; surprisingly enough, the Mother Demon is not immune to blast damage, taking around 25 rockets to kill.

It is also possible to kill her with the Super Shotgun, by running up to it and shooting the player will stun her, she will then use her flame trail that can be easily avoided by side stepping a little, by this time the player will be able to shoot her again and stun her again, by doing this the player can prevent her from launching her homing rockets and killing her without much problem, it is recommended that this tactic be used by experienced players, since the timing to close up to her and fire without giving her the chance to fire the homing rockets is very small, and the sequence of shooting and side stepping takes a little practice to master, but once the sequence starts, killing the Mother Demon is extremely easy, it takes 42 super shotgun shots to kill the Mother Demon.

MAP39: Final Judgment

Similar to the above, but a much easier fight. The level's layout has a lot of walls, which can block the Mother Demon's homing missiles. In order to fight the Mother Demon, you have to actually unlock all 3 doors with the Demon Keys, meaning that your Unmaker is fully powered up before fighting her by mandatory means rather than optional. There are plenty of Invulnerability power-ups throughout the level; there is even one close to the final Demon key.

Data

ID #	Hit points	Speed	Width	Height	Reaction time	Pain chance	Mass	Bits
5000 (decimal) 1388 (hex)	5300	32	80	110	8	20 (7.84%)	1000	4194310

1:	2:	22:
Obstacle	Shootable	Affects Kill %

Sprite name	Alert sound	Pain sound	Death sound	Action sound
RECT (MOTH in the TC)	DSMTHSIT	DSMTHPAI	DSMTHDTH	DSMTHACT

Type	Damage	Sprite name	Sound
Multiple projectiles	10-80 (main fireballs) 5-40 (secondary fireballs) 6-48 (fire trail)	MBAL (main fireball) BAL2 (secondary fireballs) Fire (fire trail)	DSMTHATK (fire/fireball attack) DSBAREXP (main fireball explode) DSFIRXPL (secondary fireball explode)

Other Games

There is a possible reference to the Mother Demon in Doom 3. When the player opens the PDA after obtaining an audio log in the Dig Site, there is a mention of a demon that is said to have given birth to all other demons, though the demon is actually never seen in the game.

In the Doom reboot in the main room with the tanks filled with demons and in the room behind Dr. Olivia Pierce's office where you can find the Soul Cube (which is unusable) and the hologram of the Doom Slayer's tomb along with his suit, you can find a fetus version of what looks similar to the Mother Demon. These creatures are located in the tank closest to the Soul Cube but does not move or attack as she is not fully grown. These appear to be immature versions of the gremlin or the abaddon pilot seen in the Art of Doom, but those creatures especially one form of the Abaddon Pilot look to be inspired by Doom 64 Demon Queen.

While this thing doesn't look exactly like the Mother Demon, slightly different head. It does appear to have evidence of multiple arms in development possibly four.

The final boss of Half-Life, Nihilanth, somewhat resembles Mother Demon. Like Mother Demon, Nihilanth has multiple arms, vestigial legs and an oversized head, and attacks with volleys of homing projectiles.