Total Chaos preview

The DOOM modding scene is insane, seeing what has come out over the last couple of decades. From Brutal DOOM, a remake of the original DOOM with the DOOM 3 engine, and TOOT! Yep, the tooting mod! And there have been full games, with one of the most famous being Total Chaos, a grimy, dark, industrialist survival horror that blends STALKER, DOOM, and Resident Evil vibes into one game that feels from another era, and refreshingly different for the horror scene.


What is Total Chaos?

Trigger Happy Interactive, the mad lads who brought us Turbo Overkill, have decided to slow things down and heighten the intensity with their latest game, Total Chaos, which has been making the rounds since as early as 2019 on the DOOM modding scene.

Turbo Overkill was a ferocious, mad scatter of throwing paint on a blank canvas, and then shooting said canvas with a submachine gun. Total Chaos is a slow burn, impressionistic blending of greys and gloom on a blank canvas and then hitting said canvas with a pick-axe.

Imagine DOOM Eternal, but the Doom Slayer was a middle-aged sailor exploring a bleak and depressing coastal region, battling his own inner demons, madness, and the forces of supernatural evil while snacking and drinking to starve off hunger, and also able to do a little dash for good measure. I could go on with the comparisons; I even had one which involved DOOM, Stalker, and Resident Evil having a ruddy good time, and 9 months late,r Total Chaos comes about… yes, I’ll stop there.

Total Chaos is a long, horrifying descent into madness that distorts that fine line between reality and madness. Playing as an unfortunate soul who washes up on the shores of Fort Oasis, a once thriving haven for coal miners, now a decaying Hell-hole, you will learn the true meaning of desolation and Godlessness. The creepy coastal region is home to nothing but silence, decay, the hollow remains of a society long passed, and plenty of creepy monsters who want to eat your face.

With only a cryptic voice guiding you further and deeper into the madness, you will force a path of blood, resource management and brain-altering pills to find the heart of darkness and the truth of the island and your placement there. 


Hey, that’s a mighty fine-looking DOOM Mod you got there!

So, what Trigger Happy Interactive are excelling at quite finely with their games is atmosphere. Turbo Overkill is bright, colourful, and similar to a rave on a next-gen console. Total Chaos is the grimy, gloomy aftermath of a bad music festival if it were running a supped Xbox 360 console. It nails oppressive, dank and bleak, forbidding nature so well that with every step I took, my heart filled with utter dread, and getting through each area as quickly as possible was the only true joy I found.

And I mean all of that in a good way!

Total Chaos looks like all colour has died of some horrible wasting disease, and all that is left is bloom and grey scaling., much like the opening of 2008’s Dark Sector. And it’s utterly glorious, nailing the vibe that “Hey, this game world is not going to be pleasant”, and it’s perfect for the grungy horror experience I haven’t had in quite some time.

What is most compelling about Total Chaos’ intended experience is that the pacing is a harsh push and pull, where you want to move as quickly as possible to avoid danger but must consider thirst, hunger, mental health, and dashing too much will make you hungry. It’s a weird and confusing notion that swept my brain throughout, but also so perfectly balanced that I became so invested that time flew by, and I had reached the horrifying end of the demo.

I had flashbacks of Penumbra, where I would be casually exploring a decaying, urban landscape but then be intensely scavenging for scraps to craft some form of makeshift weapon or tool to defend myself with or break boxes for even more scraps. I would judge if the rotten apples and salami I found on the piss-covered floor were okay to eat, just so I could dash a few more times like my favourite Rabbit-loving icon, Doom Slayer. Or wanting to flee through an area so quickly as I hated the notion that something might jump out and say boo, but also want to check some dirty corner of a backroom for a spare empty bottle, just to throw at an enemy for a good laugh.

All of what I saw and broke down mechanically shouldn’t work, but it does, and in Chaos, it worked so bloody well! I loved the atmosphere, the weird, surrealistic nightmare I was trapped in, and better still, the “insane” insanity-warping mechanic that would change the world around me, opening new paths and unleashing all manner of horror, but doing so meant I could find more empty bottles, or a tin of spam … or the exit, which was much more useful.

If the rest of the game handles these mechanics just as well or better, then damn, we have a breath of fresh air and a revolutionary survival horror game in the making.

But to be fair, there were a couple of things I felt could be better.

Now, the nature of level design in old DOOM games was finding keys and running around. And Total Chaos loves you running around and finding keys. There were four instances where I had to find keys, and I laughed so hard when I saw a locked gate and was told to go and find yet another key. It was a bit silly, but honestly, not a game-breaker for me as there were other things to do. Such as a set piece where I had to find and pull several levers in a locked-down area while being pursued by a monster. Or running through a maze while being chased by monsters, or finding a key in another locked-down area while a monster chases me.

Okay, there are similar themes here, but the same concept, while repeated, is varied and differs from time to time, making each one fresh and interesting. Plus, there were a couple of ResidentEvil-stylee puzzles, which I found very excellent, flexing my lateral muscles nicely while unnerving me with spooky background noises and moans …

And while I found the level design compelling, as it blended frightening speedrunning and maze-like traversal, I wasn’t a fan of the combat that was dotted about. To be fair, I was only able to engage with enemies with a couple of melee weapons, and I liked that impact and gore in Chaos, even if the core of melee combat was quite simple. Still, I am looking forward and hoping with more weapons, and even firearms, the combat can be spiced up. I might have missed maybe making something in the demo that would be more fun, so I will give Total Chaos a happy benefit of the doubt for when the full game releases. Plus, the monster designs are pretty sick and varied, meaning it would be fun to shoot some of them in the face.


Overall - So far?

Mods are amazing, bringing so much joy to us gamers in such fantastic ways. Be it by making Mr X in the RE2 remake a giant Goose or allowing me to play a recreation of the Spencer Mansion in Skyrim. But it is even better when an existing game can be the baseline of an ambitious project, forming a whole new experience and even getting to the point where what comes forth is different from the vanilla version.

Total Chaos is quite outstanding from what I played in the demo. It’s a rough, nasty, and gripping adventure that left me needing a deep bath while I listened to Barry Manilow, but it also left me wanting to dive back in and deeper into the grimy madness. The combination of survival and survival horror is masterful, the horror vibes intense and glorious, and while the combat left me wanting more in the demo, there is promise there, and surely, in the full game, that bloodthirsty itch of mine will be satisfied.   

Total Chaos is on my horror rada,r and it should be on yours, too.