DOOM co-creator John Romero has denied the idea that the game is set in March 2022 and that the game was never meant to take place at any specific point in time. The idea of DOOM being set in March 2022 started circulating on social media over the past few weeks, as someone pointed out a piece of lore that seemed to point towards that time period.

DOOM has been ported many times to various systems since the game first launched in the early ’90s. Console makers rushed to make a DOOM port, with varying levels of success. A SNES port of DOOM was released in ’95 but it took a major hit in graphical quality and framerate, as well as being difficult to play using a SNES controller. Nowadays, there are dedicated ports of DOOM for all modern platforms and they have been optimized to run near-flawlessly.

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Despite its issues, the SNES version of DOOM is notable for its manual, which has been scanned and can easily be found online. The DOOM manual is done in the style of a military guide and it features information about the weapons, items, and monsters that the player will encounter. The front cover of the manual claims that it was issued on March 15, 2022, suggesting DOOM is set in the current era. DOOM co-creator John Romero has since debunked this idea on Twitter.

Romero claims that the information doesn’t come from anyone at id Software because DOOM ports were handled by many different companies back in the day. The SNES version was developed by Sculptured Software and was published by Williams Entertainment in North America. The DOOM manual with the March 2022 date was produced by Williams Entertainment, with the authors being Debbie Austin, Steve High, and Shawn Murphy, none of which are associated with id Software. Nowadays, DOOM has been ported to pregnancy tests among other things, which shows just how many people have had their hands on their series over the years.

The fact that DOOM launched in the early ’90s means that a thirty-year gap must have seemed pretty futuristic. Unfortunately, mankind has yet to create teleporters or colonize Mars. DOOM itself has managed to live on through the ages and it’s still just as fun now as it was in the ’90s, which is a testament to how amazing its basic gameplay loop is. March 2032 might have the PlayStation 6, the Nintendo Switch’s upcoming successor, and whatever confusing name the next Xbox will have, and these systems will almost certainly have their own ports of DOOM.

Source: John Romero/Twitter

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Scott Baird
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Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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