Doom 3

Plot Summary

Doom 3 is set in the year 2145. Much of the game's story and dialogue was created by author Matthew J. Costello.[5] According to the game's backstory, the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) has grown to become the largest corporate entity in existence, and has set up a research facility on Mars. At this base, the UAC are able to conduct research into several scientific areas, including advanced weapons development, biological research, space exploration and teleportation. Due to the facility's position on Mars, the UAC can perform its operations outside of legal and moral boundaries.[18] As the player progresses through the game, they learn that the employees on the base are unsettled due to a large amount of incidents involving hearing voices, unexplained sightings and increasing cases of paranoia and insanity, often leading to fatal accidents with the facility's machinery. Rumors regarding the nature of experiments in the UAC's Delta Labs division are especially prevalent among the base's employees.

Characters
 
Master Sergeant Kelly gives the player objectives for the first half of the game. There are five main characters in Doom 3. The player assumes the role of an anonymous space marine corporal who has just arrived on the UAC's Mars base. The player's commanding officer is Master Sergeant Thomas Kelly, voiced by Neil Ross,[19] who gives the player objectives and advice over the player's radio for the first half of the game. Taking an antagonistic role in the story is Doctor Malcolm Betruger, head scientist of the UAC's enigmatic Delta Labs division, who is revealed to be working in collaboration with the forces of Hell to cause the subjugation of humanity. Betruger's demonic voice, provided by Philip L. Clarke,[19] frequently taunts the player as the game progresses. The final two principal characters are Elliott Swann and Jack Campbell. Swann, voiced by Charles Dennis,[19] is a representative of the UAC's board of directors, sent to check up on Betruger's research as well as investigate the rising number of accidents on the Mars base after a request for assistance from a whistleblower. He is almost always accompanied by Campbell, another space marine who acts as Swann's bodyguard and is armed with a BFG 9000. Campbell is voiced by Andy Chanley.[19] Swann and Campbell are often shown in the game to be a few steps ahead of the player, but cannot be reached and directly communicated with until late in the game.

Plot

The story of Doom 3 is conveyed through in-game dialogue and cut scenes, as well as e-mails, audio logs and video files found throughout the game. The game opens with Elliott Swann and Jack Campbell arriving at Mars City, the main access to the UAC's Mars base, disembarking from an Earth transport, with the player's anonymous marine just behind them. Swann and Campbell have a heated conference meeting with Malcolm Betruger as the first part of investigating the incidents and complaints about the facility,[20] while the marine heads to Master Sergeant Thomas Kelly for orders. Kelly gives the marine instructions to find a scientist from the Delta Labs who has gone missing.[21] The marine finds the scientist in a nearby decommissioned communications facility, where he is frantically trying to send a warning to the UAC on Earth about Betruger's teleportation experiments.[22] However, as he tries to explain the situation to the marine, another teleportation test takes place and loses containment, at which point the entire Mars base is swept with an unnatural shockwave, transforming most of the base's personnel into zombies as the forces of Hell invade through the teleporter's portal.

Now forced to fend off attacks from zombified base personnel and the demons from Hell, the marine returns to Mars City, where Kelly remotely gives the marine orders to link up with another squad of marines and get a transmission card containing a distress call to the main communications facility to call for reinforcements. As the marine progresses through the base, he learns that Swann and Campbell have survived, and are also en route to the communications facility to prevent any messages being sent in hope of containing the situation on Mars. The marine squad is ambushed by demons and slaughtered,[23] and although the marine recovers the transmission card, he is too late to prevent the bulk of equipment at the communications facility being destroyed by Campbell. Kelly, however, directs the marine to a backup system,[24] where the marine is given the choice of whether to obey Kelly's orders to send for reinforcements, or accept Swann's argument to keep Mars isolated until the exact nature of the invasion is understood, so not to endanger Earth.[25] The marine is told to go to the Delta Labs by Kelly or Swann, depending on whether the transmission is sent or not.

On the way to the Delta Labs, the marine is contacted by Betruger, who is now clearly shown to be working in cooperation with Hell in order to invade Earth. If the marine did not send the distress call to Earth, Betruger does so himself, hoping to use the ships bringing reinforcements to transport the demons to Earth.[26] Betruger then unsuccessfully attempts to kill the marine using the toxic gases in the base's recycling facilities. Upon arriving at the Delta Labs, the marine learns of the details behind the teleportation experiments, expeditions into Hell to retrieve specimens and Betruger's increasing obsession with the tests, as well as of an archaeological dig under the surface of Mars. The dig is excavating the ruins of an ancient civilization discovered on Mars, and has produced a relic known as the Soul Cube. According to a scientist the marine finds alive in the labs, the Soul Cube is a weapon created by the ancient civilization to defend against the forces of Hell. The scientist also reveals that the invasion began when Betruger took the Soul Cube into the portal at the beginning of the game, depositing it in Hell.[27] The marine pursues Betruger through the labs, but is pulled into the main teleportation portal after being lured into a trap by Betruger.

The portal takes the marine directly into Hell, where he proceeds to fight his way through the large number of demons to the Soul Cube, defeating its demonic guardian. The marine is then able to reinitialize the teleportation equipment left by research expeditions into Hell and return to the Delta Labs. Betruger, however, tells the marine that although the main UAC teleporter has been destroyed, Hell is opening a Hellmouth on Mars, capable of bringing millions of demons to Mars.[28] Further in the Delta Labs, the marine encounters an injured Swann. Swann informs the marine that Kelly has been working with Hell for the whole time, and has been transformed by the demons.[29] Telling the marine that Campbell has gone after Kelly, Swann gives the marine his PDA containing information on the location on the Hellmouth under the surface of Mars and assures him that he will try to make his way out of the base alone.

However, when the marine catches up with Campbell in the central computer processing sector of the base, Campbell is mortally wounded and only has enough strength to say that Kelly has taken Campbell's BFG 9000 weapon before expiring.[30] Kelly then begins to taunt the marine in a demonic voice.[31] The marine eventually faces off with Kelly in the central computer core, revealing Kelly as a mutated human grafted onto a large cybernetic machine. The marine is able to kill Kelly and takes the BFG 9000 before proceeding deeper under the Martian surface to Site 3, the archaeological dig site where the Soul Cube was unearthed. At the primary excavation site, the marine discovers the Hellmouth, defended by Hell's mightiest warrior, the cyberdemon. Using the Soul Cube, the marine defeats the cyberdemon in combat, and the Soul Cube then seals the Hellmouth. The ending cut scene shows the reinforcements from Earth arriving at the base to discover the carnage. They find the marine alive, but discover that Swann failed to get out of the base alive. They are, however, unable to locate Betruger, who in the final scene is shown in Hell, reincarnated as a large dragon-like demon.