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"Maybe cybernetics wasn't such a great idea after all. Look what the demons have done with it. It seems unfair somehow you're not the only guy in Hell with a plasma gun."
― Description in the Doom II manual
"They are the small offspring of the Spider Demon that was the final boss in the original Doom. They are nastier offensively, slinging green plasma bolts like pissed off Barons of Hell. But they can't stand the same level of damage as their daddy before going legs up."
― Description in the Doom II Official Strategy Guide

The Arachnotron is a spider-like cyborg monster introduced in Doom II. It is similar in appearance to the Spiderdemon, but smaller and with large eyes that change color depending on the monster's current state (moving, hurt, or attacking). It is supported by a metal chassis and a body that consists primarily of a large brain, along with two small arms. Instead of a chaingun, it wields a powerful plasma gun that fires bursts of yellow and green energy.

Doom 3[]

Untitled

Doom 3 concept art.

The designers considered reintroducing the Arachnotron for this sequel, but cut the enemy for unconfirmed reasons. No code or 3D model are known to exist.

Notes[]

  • As with the Spider Mastermind, the term Arachnotron (roughly translatable as "spider instrument") is not absolutely literal, as arachnids (spiders and such) have always eight limbs. In Doom II, however, these monsters have only six limbs: two organic arms and four mechanical legs; curiously, while the Doom 64 version increases their mechanic leg count to six, they lack the organic arms.
  • In the Doom source code the internal name for the arachnotron is MT_BABY, and the root of its sprite name in the IWAD is BSPI, so the monster was arguably called (or nicknamed) baby spider during the development of Doom II.
  • In a ZDoom-based source port, if the player is killed by an Arachnotron (monster is credited with delivering the blow that reduces player's health to 0%), an obituary message is displayed at the top of the screen: "[player name] let an Arachnotron get [gender]".
  • The projectile sprite APLS is actually a re-colored version of the Imp's projectile sprite in beta versions of Doom.
  • The Arachnotron was supposed to have a Chaingun instead of a Plasma gun in the early beta of Doom II. This was eventually given to the Spiderdemon.
  • In Brutal Doom, Arachnotrons are larger, near the size of Hell Knights or a Baron of Hell, move faster and fire the same blue plasma bolts from the player's plasma gun.
  • The Arachnotron could possibly be the inspiration for the Singing Monster Reebro.

See also[]

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