Before Barbenheimer there was Doom Crossing: Eternal Horizons

In case you've been living under a rock these past few months the cinema pairing dubbed 'Barbeheimer' has been sweeping the world. Greta Gerwig's bright and pink Barbie was released the same day as Christopher Nolan's dark and muted Oppenheimer. The strong contrast of the films quickly led to the public combining the pair, with many memes and jokes, eventually leading to many people planning to double bill the both of them. The studios and cast joined in on the hysteria, and in turn, both films have been a bona fide hit at the box office, and look likely to continue on that track. However, this isn't the first time this has happened, little over three years ago, in the gaming community, March 2020 brought about a similar phenomenon.

The world was just about to experience the COVID-19 lockdowns, and we were getting by ignoring the virus worries. After all, what's the worst that can happen from someone chomping on a bat? But the build-up to this release day was met with much anticipation, Nintendo's hugely popular social sim Animal Crossing New Horizon, a game about building relationships and decorating your island was releasing at the same time as id Software's hellish, gore-filled demon slayer, Doom Eternal. Much like Barbenheimer, the internet quickly took to two stars of the game, giving them one adorable friendship of fishing and unloading streams of bullets into a demon's face, the pair? Eternal's Doomguy and New Horizon's town assistant Isabelle.

Bethesda Acknowledge the friendship via Twitter "Happy New Horizons"

The games were as opposite to each other as could be, nevertheless, it led to the internet creating a beautiful friendship for the pair that captured the imagination of gamers and non-gamers alike. The games both went on to a slew of acclaim and were well respected within their communities. Somehow Doom Eternal even got ported to the Nintendo Switch later that year (December 8th to be exact), and amazingly it runs pretty damn well on the console.

So there you have it, Barbie and Oppenheimer weren't the first, but they're certainly one of, if not THE most profile case. Do you like the Barbenheimer phenomenon? or is it just a big load of nothing for you? Plus why not treat yourself to this amazing animated music video for 'Doom Crossing: Eternal Horizons' by The Chalkeaters below?