Context
So… yeah gonna start this one off with a content warning. While mostly this will pertain to the Recent map released by John Romero, it was released within the context of the currently unfolding situation in Ukraine.
I just like playing doom, and the history of these games, their development, and their developers. We are going to keep this light and mostly focus on the map itself, but do know that this may get heavy at times
One Humanity
John Romero, best known for having the best hair in the industry and also once threatening to make gamers his bitch, has just released a Doom level. The now 54 year old game dev started out in the industry as a founding member of ID software, and together with Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack and the Far future AI weaning Human skinsuit known as John Carmack, they made Wolfenstein and, today’s topic, DOOM. Recently, John Romero has released a new map for DOOM 2, titled “one humanity” as part of a fundraiser for the Red cross and the UN Central Emergency Response to help the people of Ukraine
Now this is Romeros’ first *doom 2* map since 1994, however this is not his first doom map. Back in 2016, Romero released remakes of doom 1’s maps E1M4 and E1M8, which were the only maps in Doom Episode 1 not designed by Romero originally. Later on, Romero would release SIGIL, the “official Unofficial 5th episode” in 2019, either for free with a midi soundtrack by James “Jimmy” Paddock, or a Second non-midi soundtrack by Buckethead that cost €6.66. So its not like this is Romeros’ first map in 38 years… but it is the first one for Doom 2, meaning we have all of the new Doom 2 stuff that that entails.
The gameplay
This Map replaces MAP01: entryway from the original doom 2 (although it replaces nothing else so upon completion you are sent to the original MAP02: Underhalls). The Map also requires you to have an original copy of DOOM2.wad and a modern source port (I used GZDoom because I am a fake gamer, the real gamers probably use Chocolate doom or Crispy doom IDK).
This map takes *heavily* from SIGIL, by the way… which is to say it is aggressively cruel and tough and it will kick your ass. I stopped playing to write this article and I made it a *decent* way through on Ultra Violence but to be clear, we are talking “locks the player in a room with an archvile with nearly no-where to hide” cruel. We are talking “spawns 2 Cyber demons who will bombard the player for the rest of the level” cruel. But even then its so good and its so tightly designed.
There are a couple of things I want to note for those planning on playing this Level
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- It uses SIGILs Mechanic of shootable switches. There are these red and green eye-like sprites that are from vanilla doom that, when shot in this map, will open, close, raise of lower floors
- The water at the bottom of the pit doesnt hurt you. Jump off the starting platform immediately, there is a rocket launcher down there that will be hard to grab later as that area is filled by 2 cyberdemons who you dont really have the space to fight
- There is a hidden BFG. it’s a secret within a secret, so if you find any of those, wall hump.
The future
As of right now, Romero is working on a sequel to SIGIL, which will be a “megawad” to completely replace DOOM 2’s maps. As of right now we don’t have a release date, although if we take “one humanity” as a teaser for the map pack, then we may see it before too long.
As for modern id software themselves, they have been hiring recently, suggesting there may be plans for a new game. Now, personally I don’t expect to see a new entry in the doom series for a while, but I would not be opposed to a new Quake game in the universe of QUAKE 1 rather than its sequel.
You can grab “One Humanity” here
You can pick up some entries in the doom franchise from go2games.com
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