It is a safe assumption that most people who play Doom are not playing it for the story, but Id Software's most recent release, Doom Eternal drastically raised the narrative stakes with a complex narrative that accounts for most (if not all) of the series' history. The central figure in this saga is the Doom Slayer, a nameless marine who, through exploits of slaughter and carnage, has become a supernatural hero at the heart of the Doom mythos.
The canonicity of certain facts about the Doom Slayer, like his supposed ancestry to Commander Keen and B.J. Blazkowicz (protagonist of the Wolfenstein series), or his participation in the Quake franchise are ambiguous, due to the incredibly convoluted nature of Doom's lore. The "official" chronology of the Doom series is also challenging to parse, as the combination of reboots and sequels (along with the existence of multiple dimensions) results in a timeline viewed through a funhouse mirror rather than a history book.
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Admittedly, Doom is a series that has never taken itself too seriously, as demonstrated by frequent use of the rule of cool, and logic-defying mechanics. The series' latest reset point, Doom (2016), serves as the trailhead for this temporal triangle, but to get the full picture, it is necessary to go all the way back to the beginning: Doom (1993).
In the original game, a marine is punitively shipped to a Martian science facility for disobeying an order from a superior officer calling him to fire on civilians. After the nameless marine arrives, the station is overrun by demons from a portal opened by the evil Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC). The marine kills demons on Mars, Deimos, and Phobos, before going back to Hell to try and prevent demons from invading Earth, only to fail. In Doom 2, the marine (now affectionately dubbed "Doomguy" by the community) begins his bloody campaign anew on Earth, before once again returning to Hell to fight demons at their source. This same framework—demons invade, Doomguy kills the invasion, and then goes back to Hell to keep on killin'—repeats again in Doom 64.
It is unclear if Doom 3, itself a remake/reboot of Doom substitutes the events of Doom, or fits into this timeline at all. Aspects of Doom (2016) make reference to its events, however, suggesting a timeline to the effect of Doom 3, Doom 2, Doom 64. But after those titles, and perhaps some diversions into the Quake-verse—or maybe even the candy-colored world of Fall Guys—the Doom Marine finds himself stranded outside of Hell in a place called Argent D'Nur.
Doomguy is quite insane when he is yanked out of Hell by the Argenta—the human-looking race that inhabits Argent D'nur. Even though he is an iconic silent protagonist, the Slayer supposedly does nothing but rave about demons and how much he hates them upon arrival. Being a warrior culture, the Argenta's priests, the Order of the Deag, decide to put the "outlander" into the arena of Sentinel Prime to see if he is worthy of freedom. To nobody's surprise, he slaughters the competition and is enrolled in the Argenta military by their humanoid leader, King Novik, and the alien overlord in charge of the Argenta race, the Khan Maykr.
Shortly thereafter, Demons overrun Sentinel Prime. Doomguy, and the rest of the Argenta military, begin battling them. Over time, Doomguy is accepted into the ranks of the Argenta special forces, the Night Sentinels. Together, they do battle with an enormous demon known as the Dreadnought and are nearly overrun. In a desperate bid for survival, a Maykr known as Seraphim takes Doomguy to the Temple of Purity and submits him to the Divinity Machine, which essentially gives him supernatural powers. There, he also gains access to the Demonic Crucible weapon, which he uses to kill the Dreadnought by stabbing it in the heart. For this glorious deed, he gains the sobriquet "The Doom Slayer."
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At this point, the Doomslayer leads a contingent of Night Sentinels in a successful campaign against the demons, gaining ground for the Maykr Empire. Unfortunately, Khan Maykr secretly establishes installations to harvest Hell Essence and combines it with the power of Argenta's elemental wraiths—another group of god-like aliens—to create Argent Energy. When the night sentinels discover their overlord is using Hell Essence (which is generated by tormenting souls), a civil war breaks out. Late in the war, the Order of Deag tricks the Doom Slayer and his sentinels by trapping them in hell, and after untold years of slaughter, the forces of Hell finally manage to trap the Doom Slayer in a stasis sarcophagus.
Back in our dimension, Dr. Samuel Hayden is in charge of the UAC's Martian science facility that is now leading expeditions into Hell. He uncovers the Doom Slayer's sarcophagus, and when he discovers his protégé, Olivia Pierce, has made a pact with the demons, Hayden releases the Slayer as a fail-safe to try and regain control of the situation, kicking off the events of Doom (2016). It is at this point that the Doom Slayer partners up with the UAC-created AI, Vega, and when he is forced to destroy Vega's core to frustrate Pierce's machinations, the Doom Slayer makes a back up of the AI.
Ultimately, the Doom Slayer manages to kill Pierce, but he is betrayed by Samuel Hayden, who steals the crucible and refuses to close the portal to hell, claiming humanity needs Argent Energy if it is to survive. Rather than killing the Doom Slayer, Hayden banishes him to an unknown location. The remaining story leading up to the events of Eternal is a black box, though the gap is easy enough to fill in. At some point, the Doom Slayer and/or Vega create the orbital Fortress of Doom, which monitors the multiverse for distortions in reality and has a teleporter allowing the Doom Slayer to fight a war on almost every front imaginable. So begins Doom Eternal's incredible opening level.
Doom Eternal is available now for Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X & S.