8 Weirdest DOOM Enemies (And What They Represent)

There's no way we can look at the Cacodemon and not come full circle all the way back to Dungeons and Dragons again, as there's nothing that screams 'beholder' quite like these giant floating heads from hell. Beholders are the staple of DnD monster manuals, defined by their one giant eye and a big old gaping maw, and have appeared in every edition of the game for over a quarter of a century.

So it makes sense that the devs wanted one for themselves, especially considering their inception point for creating the game in the first place. Interestingly however, as much as Cacodemons feel like this loving homage to beholders in particular, their Dungeons and Dragons origins are defined as much by another monster - the Astral Dreadnought.

Appearing on the front cover of the Manual of the Planes, Doom's Cacodemons are a cropped version of this behemoth down to just its head, clearly inspired by the giant monster's toothy grin and single eye.

Game designer John Romero has also said that the creature was inspired by HR Giger's Necronomicon, which was kept open on artist's desks to get that hellish mood just right across the board. All in all, it's a love letter to the sources that made the game possible in the first place.