They look so damn similar, from the style and color of their armor down to their behavioral traits. Seems like Bungie simply saw the success that Doom had over their Marathon series and thought to themselves “you know what our next game needs? A massively overpowered super soldier in green high tech armor who spouts sarcastic one liners in the face of an overwhelming alien invasion” and went to town with that concept. And it worked like a charm, they cranked out six massively successful games before id/Bethesda decided it was time to reboot the Doom franchise 2016.
Perhaps it was payback for them to give Doomguy the Crucible in the reboot games (which looks a lot like the energy sword from Halo), but I can’t help but think these two are essentially the same character.
They’re both “generic future soldier guy.”
They’re still distinct enough that no one would confuse them.
The current version of the Doomslayer came after Halo and does more ripping off Halo than Halo ever ripped of Doom.
About point 2: I would argue that you could convince any judge that these characters are sufficiently distinct in the legal sense. IRL, people might still confuse them, but that’s not the point here. Just look at some of the competing car designs to get a feel for what is legally distinct enough these days. You can come up with a cartoon character, car or a sci-fi warrior that copies over 90% from something else, and you can still get away with it.
I’ve only played the original doom, from the early 90s. In that gsme your only view of your character is a little head in the hud. This head does not have armor on. You only see a human face. The promo/box shows the armor, so I’m not saying he isn’t wearing it. I’m just saying you don’t see yourself in game wearing it.
I’ve never played halo.
All that being said, the photo in this post shows both master chief and doom guy. I have no idea which is which. 50/50 chance I get it right.
You never played multiplayer? You never saw the dead Marines in the first level? You didn’t see the box art for the game and the intro menu?
Never played multiplayer. I don’t remember any dead marines in the first level, but it HAS been 30+ years. So, maybe my memory is lacking.
And I SAID that he’s wearing armor on the promo/box art. I already.
The menu I remember was seeing first person perspective running through a level, while a bunch of menu choices fell from the top of the screen until you chose one.
Yeah I was going to point out #3.
I bet that halo took the original space marine doomguy armor and modernized it, then doom later realized but didn’t have a way out since halo had become so successful.
It wasn’t necessary for both to be green. Master Chief could’ve had a blue (or a red, or black, or silver) armor and he’d still be the same.
Green is the universal color of soldiers. The regular soldiers in Halo were wearing green. Master Chief’s armor was green because he was a soldier. It made perfect sense to me.
If I remember the Halo books correctly (it’s been a while) the Spartan armor started out a golden color but dulled to green hue due to hits from Covenant energy weapons over time. Not particularly relevant to this discussion but I thought it was an interesting bit of lore.
I need to go back and reread them. Great series and well written for the most part.
The protagonist in Halo: Reach wears gray armor with blue accents and he looks just as badass as Master Chief, if not moreso.
Sure, but they had to start somewhere. Reach is the 6th Halo game.
Halo reach came out way later, and doesn’t look half as good as master chief but that’s not due to the coloring and instead the worse looking armour