Original artwork, not a still
Doom's (1993) middle difficulty setting
Hurt me plenty.
— Doom ‧ 1993
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Doom turned the difficulty menu into a joke about machismo: each rung is a line of dialogue you say to the game, and the middle one is the swaggering default. Hurt me plenty promises a fair fight with an appetite for punishment, which is why it became shorthand for facing something tough without flinching. The series has kept the title for thirty years.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for DoomShow the scene
Hurt me plenty is the third of Doom's five skill levels, one of the options on the skill menu when a new game begins. The menu names run I'm too young to die, Hey not too rough, Hurt me plenty, Ultra-Violence and Nightmare!. In the code it is the medium setting: the default number and strength of monsters, and the level the game uses unless the player chooses otherwise. Console ports for PlayStation and Saturn kept the name, and Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal carry it forward as the standard difficulty.
Sources (1)
- Doom Wiki: Skill levelDoom, Doom II and Final Doom skill levels table; Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn table; Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal tableReference checked
Context reviewed
