For years, readers have acknowledged that DOOM invented deathmatch, and that it changed multiplayer gaming forever. But recently, DOOM level designer Sandy Petersen alleged on social media platform X that the mode's success came as quite a surprise to the team.

John Romero, DOOM's co-creator, was surprised to learn about that surprise, and took to X to dispute Petersen's summary of those events.

"We all agreed at id that it was unlikely anyone would ever play Deathmatch, except in very small numbers," Petersen recalled, in the tweet that intrigued Romero. "After all zero games had a robust head-to-head experience, and my personal time with Command HQ just hammered home the point."

Romero had some trouble with Petersen's summary of his views in the early 90s, when DOOM broke into gaming scene with all the subtlety of a belching hippo.

"Are you well?" Romero asked Petersen in a follow-up tweet. "This is wrong. On January 1, 1993, we sent a press release saying that multiplayer would be in DOOM, a full 8 months before you joined the company. We knew deathmatch would be huge."

Romero reiterated that the team needed no convincing.

"I understand you are proud of your work on DOOM," he added, "and you should be, but please also respect the accuracy of your statements, particularly around game history."

Petersen quickly rejected Romero's recollection of events, while admitting that he had no first-hand knowledge of what was done before he joined the company. However, he insisted that he and Romero had a conversation after he joined, during which Romero shared a lack of confidence in the mode.

The tweet ended with a statement sharing his hope that Romero is well.

In a subsequent post, Romero assured his former colleague that he is well, reiterated much of what he had already said, and disengaged from further discussion:

Game history matters to me, and getting it right matters too. We remember that conversation differently. I've shared the contemporary documentation and my recollection. I respect your work on DOOM, but I don't think more back-and-forth will help. I'll leave it here.

A little digging around the internet backs up Romero's version of events. Petersen appears to be making more of decades-old reservations Romero may have expressed than is warranted, or a lot of what the two men felt at the time never made it to public messaging.

Whatever the case, the public disagreement between two prominent developers is a reminder (as if one was needed) that DOOM was and remains an important release. It continues to resonate with players even decades later, and its impact on multiplayer shooters cannot be overstated.

Attempts to diminish DOOM's importance will not be tolerated... even when they come from the inner circle.