Buy 6 Games Like Doom

Before Doom reclaimed its crown, MachineGames' reboot of Wolfenstein laid important groundwork. The New Order took BJ Blazkowicz, one of the FPS genre’s original action heroes, and placed him in a chilling alt-history where the Nazis won. Armed with dual-wielded assault rifles, futuristic weaponry, and a chip on his shoulder, BJ cuts through legions of enemies in a richly told narrative blending sci-fi absurdity with surprising emotional depth. The standalone prequel, The Old Blood, and sequel, The New Colossus, round out a trilogy that’s unmissable.

Like Doom, The New Order isn’t afraid to lean into excess. Gunplay is chunky, aggressive, and deeply satisfying, with an emphasis on pushing forward rather than playing it safe. The enemies are numerous, the weapons imaginative, and the tone flits effortlessly between pulpy violence and deadpan humour. It’s not quite as fluid as Doom Eternal’s ballet of blood, but it captures a similarly empowering tone, especially when you’re rampaging through Nazi fortresses with a laser cannon.

Where the two differ is in pacing and tone. Doom favors a lighter narrative in favour of raw momentum, while Wolfenstein often pulls you out of combat for cutscenes or slower stealth segments. There's a heavier focus on storytelling, with long dialogue exchanges and character moments. It’s more grounded (relatively speaking) and less about mastery of combat rhythm, but no less worth your time.

Metal: Hellsinger fuses first-person shooter chaos with rhythm game precision, delivering a headbanging descent into musical hell. You play as The Unknown, a vengeful demon slayer fighting her way through the infernal hierarchy to reclaim her voice. The twist? Every action, be it firing, dashing, or reloading, must be performed in time with a thundering metal soundtrack to maximize your damage and build your score multiplier.

It shares Doom’s heavy-metal DNA, both sonically and thematically. The pace is blistering, the arenas are built for momentum, and the soundtrack is an integral part of the experience, featuring vocal performances from the likes of Serj Tankian and Alissa White-Gluz. Like Doom, you’re rewarded for aggression, not passivity. Stand still and you die. Keep moving and the music rewards you with ever-increasing carnage.

But unlike Doom, your performance hinges on the beat. Rather than giving you freedom to improvise within its combat sandbox, Metal: Hellsinger demands strict timing. You can’t spam fire or randomly dash; it all has to be done to the beat. This adds a new kind of challenge that, for many Doom fans, is a euphoric fusion of music and murder.

Ultrakill doesn’t just evoke classic shooters, it wears its inspirations on its bloodied sleeve. Developed by Arsi "Hakita" Patala, this retro-inspired FPS blends Quake-era visuals with a combat system so frenetic it makes Doom Eternal feel tame. You play as V1, a machine fueled by blood, plunging through the layers of Hell in search of more carnage. It’s fast, unrelenting, and utterly chaotic.

Much like Doom, Ultrakill embraces momentum as its core principle. There’s no cover, no reloading, no downtime; just movement, mastery, and mayhem. Every arena is a playground, and every fight an opportunity to chain together kills with acrobatic flair. Style matters here, with a combo meter and scoring system that rewards creativity, just like a character action game dressed in boomer shooter clothing.

The key difference lies in presentation and polish. Doom is a AAA behemoth that’s precisely tuned, visually rich, and orchestrated like a blockbuster. Ultrakill is raw, twitchy, and purposefully lo-fi, echoing the low-poly charm of its '90s ancestors. It’s less cinematic and more arcade, favouring depth through mechanics rather than narrative or visual spectacle.

Boltgun is what happens when Doom's DNA gets spliced into the grimdark future of Warhammer 40K. You step into the armoured boots of a Space Marine, wielding a God-tier arsenal to cleanse Chaos cultists and daemons in pixelated fury. The aesthetic is pure retro, the action is dialled up to 11, and the sense of scale is as immense as the Emperor's will.

What makes Boltgun feel so akin to Doom is its unflinching commitment to forward momentum. It captures that same sense of blood-soaked rhythm, with large arenas filled with enemies, a powerful arsenal, and the sheer satisfaction of watching your enemies explode into red mist. There’s even a chainsword, because you wouldn’t truly be a Space Marine without one. It’s Doomguy with pauldrons, essentially.

But Boltgun differs in its handling. It deliberately embraces boomer shooter stiffness, with movement and aiming feeling more retro than responsive. While Doom Eternal feels like a Ferrari, Boltgun is more like a tank with nitrous - it’s powerful and weighty, but not nearly as agile. That suits the Warhammer fantasy perfectly, but don't expect the same degree of finesse. In fact, it’s the closest you’ll get to Doom: The Dark Ages without playing the new game.

If Doom is a power fantasy through a sci-fi lens, Forgive Me Father 2 is the same, but filtered through a pulp horror comic with heavy Lovecraftian influences. Set in a twisted world of cults, insanity, and eldritch horror, you step into the cloth, playing a priest who takes down otherworldly creatures. It’s stylish, macabre, and drenched in atmosphere.

Like Doom, it revels in relentless combat, with hordes of grotesque enemies swarming you in destructible environments. The weapons feel punchy, the health drops incentivise aggression, and the upgrade system lets you lean into mad power fantasy builds. Just don't lose your sanity as you delve deeper into the darkness.

The major divergence lies in its tone and pacing. Forgive Me Father is more deliberately paced, and its moving comic visual style gives it a slower, more methodical feel. While Doom is kinetic and high-tech, even The Dark Ages to an extent, this is eerie and hand-drawn. It scratches the same itch, but it also wants to unsettle you, not just empower you.

Cultic is a masterclass in modern retro-FPS design. Developed by a single dev, it throws you into a nightmare world of robed zealots, haunted towns, and dynamite-laced gunfights. Armed with classic weapons and a quickstep dodge, you fight your way through grimy pixelated environments with a satisfying blend of tactical positioning and explosive violence.

At its heart, Cultic taps into the same primal rush as Doom: tight gunplay, intense arenas, and a focus on player agency. Its levels encourage exploration and aggression in equal measure, and the combat is crunchy, responsive, and often gloriously messy. It feels like a spiritual cousin to Doom 64 with a fresh coat of blood-red paint.

That said, Cultic favours a slower, more deliberate approach. There's no double jump or grappling hook here; instead, movement is tight but grounded, making fights more about cover and clever use of explosives. Where Doom is about overwhelming speed and verticality, Cultic is about outsmarting and out-blasting enemies in claustrophobic hellholes.

Whether you’re chasing that aggressive mix of speed and violence with levels that are just as vertical as they are horizontal or just love the sensation of glory kills, these six games all deliver a flavour of Doom’s brutal brilliance. Each one carves its own path through the shooter landscape, but all share a common creed: never stop moving, never stop killing, and always make it look good.