Super Nerd Appears To Hack His Porsche 911 To Play Doom As The Controller

Modding a Porsche 911 to serve as the controller while playing the original Doom game on the car's infotainment system sounds like a really bad idea. The same is true of modding any vehicle to be the controller for game, but it sounds especially dangerous for a sporty vehicle. That might be one reason why nobody's ever made such a mod, though if it were to exist at any point, YouTube user vexal shows what the experience might be like.

By all means, vexal (real name Matt Swarthout, according to his YouTube profile) is a smart dude who writes software, enjoys gaming, and plays piano. He is also a bit of a prankster, as evidenced by his latest video clip. His nearly 3 and a half minute video explains how to mod a Porsche 911's infotainment system to play Doom with the vehicle itself acting as the controller. Just like pressing A and D on a keyboard to move left or right, turning the steering wheel in either direction does the same thing. Accelerating moves the character forward, while honking the horn fires the gun.


Vexal then goes on to demonstrate the control scheme by driving his Porsche 911 while playing Doom. You seem him navigating what looks like a business road as he accelerates, shifts gears, turns, and honks the horn. As if that wouldn't be dangerous enough, a mist of rain appears on the windshield, suggesting that the roads are now slippery on top of the already challenging aspect of trying to drive and play a game at the same time.

To hilarious effect, at no point in the video does Vexal let on that this is fake. Perhaps it is possible to hack a Porsche 911 to play Doom, just not in the way Vexal described. The instructions he gives is to plug a USB key with a single file containing the vehicle's VIN into the infotainment system's USB port and start the car. That is supposed to put the vehicle into debug mode. He then inserts a Doom disc into the system's CD drive and is good to go.

It all looks convincing, it's just not real. For one, automobiles feature tighter security than ever, which runs counter to his claim that companies have been opening up infotainment systems to encourage modding. And secondly, the debug mode displayed in the video is not what it actually looks like in a Porsche 911. On top of that, there's no explanation as to why the car's various controls would already be mapped to play Doom without any configuration or setup.

The final clue is the appearance of a toaster on the passenger seat. This is an homage to earlier videos of Vexal purporting to hack toasters. Those are also fake, though entertaining as well.