Doom
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50 free Doom trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few games have left a mark like Doom. Released in 1993 by a small team at id Software, it made the first-person shooter the most talked-about genre in gaming, turned modding and networked play into everyday parts of PC life, and has since been ported to almost anything with a screen. This quiz covers the whole series: how the original was made and how it got its title, the marine fans call Doomguy, bosses such as the Cyberdemon, secret levels including the Fortress of Mystery, cheat codes, the sequels and the modern reboots up to The Dark Ages, plus the films, the music and the odd stories from behind the scenes. The opening questions are for anyone who has ever picked up a controller, while the later ones are hard enough for players who know every map by heart. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so the quiz works for a solo run, a games night or a pub round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which tech boss was digitally superimposed into Doom for a video promoting his new operating system?
Bill Gates
Bill Gates was dropped into the game to pitch Windows 95 as a home for games. By late 1995, Doom was estimated to be installed on more computers than that operating system.
Q 02Which name for a player-versus-player mode, now used across gaming, was coined during Doom's development?
Deathmatch
Deathmatch was what one designer called the team's four-player sessions once multiplayer was coded, a month before release. He said fighting games such as Street Fighter II inspired the mode.
Q 03Which cereal brand gave away a kid-friendly shooter, built on the Doom engine, as a prize inside its boxes?
Chex
Chex Quest is known as the first video game ever included as a cereal box prize. Its hero sends slimy Flemoids home with a zorcher instead of gunning them down, and the promotion won two advertising awards.
Q 04Doom Eternal shared its launch day with a game from which Nintendo series, inspiring friendly crossover fan art?
Animal Crossing
Animal Crossing: New Horizons arrived the same day, and fans drew its cheerful Isabelle as best friends with the Doom Slayer. The pairing trended online, and the director of New Horizons acknowledged it.
Q 05Which actor played Sarge, the marine squad leader who turns villain, in the 2005 Doom film?
Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson was first offered the hero's part but chose Sarge instead, drawn to the character's darker side. Vin Diesel had already turned the lead down.
Q 06In the original release of Doom 3, the marine could not hold a weapon at the same time as which item?
Flashlight
Flashlight or gun was a deliberate choice, since darkness was Doom 3's main horror tool. Fans answered with a duct tape mod that strapped the light to weapons, and the 2012 BFG Edition made it standard.
Q 07Doom's idea of fighting demons with technology came from its makers' campaign in which tabletop game?
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons left a long mark on the studio: the same campaign also influenced the design of Quake and Daikatana.
Q 08Which European country classed Doom as harmful to minors and restricted its sale until 2011?
Germany
Germany's youth-protection office listed Doom soon after release, so shops could not sell it to minors or even display it where they might see it.
Q 09Whose severed head, an in-joke by two id Software artists, is hidden inside the final boss of Doom II?
John Romero
John Romero found the joke while working on the level's sound, then topped it by recording a distorted, reversed message for the boss to growl at players. Damaging his hidden head is what wins the game.
Q 10Doom's makers, in an office they named Suite 666, drew inspiration from noises at which nearby business?
A dental practice
A dental practice sat beside the dark office building the five-person team moved into as work began in late 1992. They also cut ties with their old publisher there, choosing to release Doom themselves.
Q 11Doom was named after a line in which 1986 film starring Tom Cruise as a young pool hustler?
The Color of Money
The Color of Money gave John Carmack the title: in the film, the word is a character's one-word answer about what he is carrying in his case. It replaced a much ruder working title.
Q 12Under which sales model did only about 1% of Doom's downloaders pay, yet earn id Software $100,000 a day?
Shareware
Shareware meant the opening episode could be copied and passed on freely, while the other two were sold by mail order directly from id Software. The company was in profit within a day of release.
Q 13Which opening episode of Doom (1993) was given away free to tempt players into buying the full game?
Q 21The Cyberdemon, the giant boss of Doom's second episode, has which weapon grafted in place of its left arm?
Rocket launcher
Rocket launcher volleys come three at a time, and the Cyberdemon itself takes no splash damage from explosions. It went on to pose on the retail box of Doom II.
Q 22In Doom's secret level Fortress of Mystery, a room of Barons of Hell can be lured into fighting which monsters?
Cacodemons
Cacodemons fill the second room, and herding the two groups together lets them wear each other down. Survive, and the level hands over every weapon available at that point in the game.
Q 23Fortress of Mystery is the secret level of The Shores of Hell, the Doom episode set on which moon?
Deimos
Knee-Deep in the Dead
Knee-Deep in the Dead takes its name from a phrase in id Software's first press release about the game, issued at the start of 1993. The episode ends with a fight against a pair of Barons of Hell.
Q 14What is the subtitle of Doom II, the first game in the Doom series to launch on shop shelves?
Hell on Earth
Hell on Earth sends the marine home to find the planet overrun by demons. It became the best-selling software product in the United States in 1994.
Q 15In Doom (2016), which melee finishing move on a stunned demon restores the player's health?
Glory Kill
Glory Kill finishers returned in Doom Eternal, where stringing them together also recharges a heavy melee strike called the Blood Punch.
Q 16Which Australian composer wrote the score of Doom (2016), which won a Game Award for music and sound design?
Mick Gordon
Mick Gordon also scored Doom Eternal, but a dispute over that game's soundtrack release led to a public falling-out with id Software and a parting of ways.
Q 17Which publisher released the 2016 Doom reboot after its parent company ZeniMax bought id Software?
Bethesda
Bethesda took over from Activision, which had published Doom 3 in 2004. The reboot was first announced as Doom 4 in 2008, then restarted in 2011 before being re-revealed under the plain title.
Q 18In Doom (2016), which classic weapon makes any demon it kills drop a shower of ammunition?
Chainsaw
Chainsaw kills are instant as long as the weapon holds enough fuel, which turns the series' famous melee tool into a way to restock in the middle of a fight.
Q 19Which American institution chose Doom in 2007 as one of ten games in a canon worth preserving?
Library of Congress
Library of Congress recognition came again in 2026, when the game's soundtrack entered the National Recording Registry. In 2015 Doom also joined the first class of the World Video Game Hall of Fame.
Q 20Doom's designers have confirmed that Doomguy is a descendant of which hero of the Wolfenstein games?
B.J. Blazkowicz
B.J. Blazkowicz is the soldier players guide through Wolfenstein 3D, the Nazi-fighting shooter id Software released the year before Doom.
Deimos vanishes at the start of the story and turns out to be hanging above Hell itself, which the marine learns only after beating the episode's boss.
Q 24Which boss, armed with a rapid-fire chaingun, waits at the end of Inferno, the original Doom's third episode?
Spider Mastermind
Spider Mastermind returned as the last boss of the 2016 reboot. Its original sprites were photographed from a metal and latex model built by sculptor Gregor Punchatz.
Q 25Which fast-moving Doom II monster can raise slain demons back to life and sets the player ablaze from afar?
Arch-vile
Arch-vile revivals can push a level's kill tally past 100%, because the player gets credit for every monster killed a second time.
Q 26Which weapon, still in the Slayer's hands in Doom: The Dark Ages, was the only new gun added in Doom II?
Super shotgun
Super shotgun is a very powerful double-barrelled take on the first game's weapon. The sequel's other addition was a new power-up, the Megasphere.
Q 27In the 2005 Doom film, the initials of the BFG are said to stand for what?
Bio Force Gun
Bio Force Gun is a cleaned-up reading of initials that the original design document and the Doom II manual spell out with a swear word. Quake II's manual softened the name in its own way.
Q 28In Doom 3, the marine defeats the Cyberdemon guarding the Hellmouth with which artifact unearthed on Mars?
Soul Cube
Soul Cube in hand, the marine fells Hell's mightiest warrior, and the relic then seals the Hellmouth. He first had to fight through Hell itself to retrieve it.
Q 29Which Doom power-up, which looks like a dark medikit, makes the marine's punches ten times stronger?
Berserk
Berserk packs also restore health to 100% and wash the screen in a red haze for about 20 seconds, while the stronger fists usually last until the level ends.
Q 30Which hero of an earlier id Software platform series is found hanged in a secret level of Doom II?
Commander Keen
Commander Keen figures hang around the exit switch, and all four must be destroyed to reach it. The grim joke came from artist Adrian Carmack, who preferred gory themes to the cute character.