The new NIKKE Elegg, the latest character coming to NIKKE: Goddess of Victory has been previewed all this week, with the character looking an awful lot like an homage to one of gaming’s oldest first-person shooters.
It doesn’t feel like the game is trying to hide it ever- in the character’s bio, it’s mentioned that she’s a fan of a classic shooter named BOOM.
Similarly, the event she’s tied to is called BOOMSDAY, in case you needed more convincing on the homage.
There’s also her weapon itself- while in-game it’s called Boomstick, it bears a striking resemblance to DOOM’s iconic BFG 9000.
Specifically it looks like DOOM 2016’s interpretation of the classic power weapon, though in NIKKE Elegg is classified as a machine gun unit so it’ll likely fire much faster than its console counterpart.
Finally, for those who are stubborn to all reason, there’s her idle animation which is about as DOOM as it gets, paying homage to the cover art for DOOM 2016.
NIKKE Elegg Isn’t Even The First Time DOOM has Gone Anime
Naturally, Shift Up themselves haven’t commented on whether it’s homage or multiple consecutive coincidences- but given the gamer-theme of the upcoming event it’s a fun way to celebrate one of the industry’s most iconic titles.
For those too young to have caught it the classic DOOM games were beasts of popularity in their time- with many players hosting LAN parties to host big deathmatches back when online lobbies weren’t a thing.
It’s not like the DOOM devs themselves are new to getting love from the anime side of things- DOOM Eternal originally included an homage to Hololive Vtuber Inugami Korone following her love for the game.
Unfortunately that easter egg was removed in a later update to the game with no clear explanation given, though the fan game Idol Showdown does also reference the two by having Korone’s moveset include a Chainsaw.
The BOOMSDAY event comes to NIKKE on February 22nd, after the game’s maintenance.
