The lady’s not for burning
E ven if you’d managed to miss the buzz around Doom mod Thatcher’s Techbase, within five minutes of play it’s clear why it has struck a chord. Following a brief pre-title and playable credits sequence comes a text introduction that cheekily references The Rise Of Skywalker, likening the surprise return of the former Conservative leader to the equally unwelcome reappearance of Emperor Palpatine. To defeat this deadly threat, it says, “you have no choice but to head to the tenth circle of Hell”. There’s a brief pause for a paragraph break that really sells the cathartic punchline: “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
“It’s funny,” the mod’s creator, Jim Purvis, says. “That was literally ten seconds – me and Richie, the guy who made the trailer, were like, ‘What’s a quick joke we could make here?’ ‘Let’s say that Britain is Hell’. And it seems to really have taken off. It’s the things you think about the least that sometimes seem to resonate with people.”