Every Doom game has been a friend to modders, which is part of the reason that the franchise remains so enduringly popular. The modding scenes for Doom and Doom 2 are still active decades down the line, ensuring that fans of the demonic shooter will never run out of maps to massacre hellspawn in. Doom 3, like its counterparts, is no stranger to modding, but it's also one of the more controversial entries in the franchise, which has lead modders to take the game in a number of wildly different directions.
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From total conversions,wild texture replacements, weapons and balance tweaks, to soundtrack adjustments, the modding scene for Doom 3 has produced such an array of content over the years that it can be difficult to identify which ones are actually worth installing. Luckily, there's a little something for everyone out there when it comes to Doom 3, so players should feel encouraged to try out whatever they can get their hands on.
OpenCoop
Doom 3 aims for a darker, spookier tone than other entries in the franchise, but that doesn't mean that running through the desolate UAC facility with some friends wouldn't be a ton of fun too. Thankfully, there's OpenCoop, a mod that allows up to four players to fight their way through the original Doom 3 campaign, as well as custom levels and expansions.
Charging through hell with some backup certainly might make things a bit less scary, but the mod does its best to ensure that the difficulty of the game doesn't suffer by tweaking enemy AI and spawn rates to ensure that everyone in the squad has something to shoot.
Duct Tape
Doom 3 was a major departure from the rest of the series, primarily because it opted for a more tense, survival-horror-esque tone than its counterparts. Rather than running around gleefully blasting demons in the face, the player would be creeping through dark corridors with only a flashlight to light the way. To add to the tension, the original release of Doom 3 made it so that the player could not hold a weapon and the flashlight at the same time, meaning they had to choose between lighting the way or defending themselves.
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This didn't go over well with some players, leading to the rapid creation of the "duct tape" mod. The premise is simple: the flashlight is now attached to the player's weapon, meaning that they can illuminate their target and shoot it at the same time.
Overthinked DooM^3
OverthinkedDooM^3 is a mod designed to double down on the survival horror elements that the vanilla game seemed to be aiming for. In Overthinked, ammo is more scarce, enemies more deadly, and certain luxuries like weapon crosshairs have been removed to facilitate a more realistic experience.
The aim is to force the player to strategize around the limits that the mod imposes on them, amping up the tension and the scares in the process. Gone are the days of running at high speeds chainsawing zombies in half without a care in the world; Overthinked likes to keep the player disempowered and on their toes.
Trent Reznor Soundpack
Trent Reznor's collaboration with Id Software was frequent and successful, with his work on soundtracks like that of the original Quake being essential to the game experience. While he was brought on again to contribute to the sound design for Doom 3, he left the project before completion, meaning that the work he did on weapon sounds, monster roars, and ambiance didn't make it into the final game.
That is until the Trent Reznor Soundpack is installed. This simple modification patches in the recovered soundbites that Reznor worked on during the game's development, almost all of which are agreed to be direct improvements over their counterparts in the base game.
Classic Doom 3
Sometimes a player just wants to play episode 1 of the first Doom game without actually playing episode 1 of the first Doom game, and to answer this tendency there's Classic Doom 3 -- a total conversion mod that recreates the entirety of the classic Knee Deep in the Dead experience with Doom 3's engine and graphics.
It feels both nostalgic and fresh at the same time, and the authors of the mod have done a great job capturing the essence of the original Doom's best assortment of levels in a new light; leveraging the technological capabilities of Doom 3's engine to expand on the vision of the original game.
Nitro's Gore Mod
Who doesn't want to up the level of blood and gore in a Doom game? This is a franchise known for its brutal, gratuitous violence, so there's certainly nothing wrong with cranking that up to 11 via one of the game's pre-eminent gore mods. Enemies (and the player) bleed more copiously with this one installed, amping up the violence to an appropriate level.
Furthermore, in vanilla Doom 3, enemy corpses would disintegrate into thin air, presumably to keep the game running smoothly on the hardware of the time. Nitro Gore does away with this limitation and keeps bodies around indefinitely, meaning that the player has the luxury of waiting through the viscera of their opponents after an intense firefight.
Alpha Shotgun Mod
One of the major complaints that Doom 3 faced at launch (and one that still plagues the game) is that the shotgun isn't good, both in terms of gameplay functionality and looks. The shotgun is supposed to be the player's workhorse weapon in any Doom title, so firing at enemies has to be meaty and satisfying, and it helps if it looks good in the process.
Although the Alpha Shotgun mod is purely cosmetic, it goes a long way towards making the shotgun feel like the reliable tool it ought to be by replacing the vanilla version with one that was shown in an alpha version at an E3 show long ago. The alpha version looks a lot more intimidating than the indistinct tube the player has to mess around with in the vanilla version.
Shrek mod for doom 3
Without a doubt, the absolute apex of mods for Doom 3 is the aptly titled "Shrek mod for doom 3" (a.k.a. the Sherk mod). What does the Shrek mod do? It's simple: Shrek in Doom. The mod features an enhanced main menu, easily improving on the original Doom title screen by slapping more Shrek on it, as well as a new weapon: Shrek's frying pan.
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Changing the player's hands from their default skin tone to green also adds to the immersion. This is an experience that really makes the player feel like Shrek as they bash zombies in the face with his ogre strength. The mod was unfortunately never completed, but the creative vision of the author shines through, making this one for the ages.
Perfected Doom 3
One of the most popular total conversion mods for Doom 3 is without a doubt Perfected Doom 3, overhauling nearly every aspect of the game by introducing new monsters, weapons, features, and dozens of minor gameplay tweaks aimed at making Doom 3 the best version of itself.
Aside from graphical overhauls, Perfected makes the game far more punishing than its original iteration. Enemies attack the player with lethal damage and precision, ready to exploit any and all mistakes that they might make. This faster and more deadly gameplay experience went over well with Doom players, making it a popular conversion mod even today.
Absolute HD
The fantasticAbsolute HD is one of those mods that does exactly what it says it's going to do, and in this case, that means overhauling almost every element of Doom 3's presentation. Absolute HD is a compilation project of Doom 3's most popular graphical overhauls, drawing on the best from each to put together a rather hefty package.
This one has Doom 3 looking brand-new after installation, the lighting is sharper and more vibrant, textures are amped up to high-definition levels, and the picture quality of the entire game feels more defined and detailed. It's also available for the BFG Edition!
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