Ah, Doom… Is there anything quite like it? Far and away one of the most venerated titles in gaming history, Doom’s name and iconic brand of demon demolition are like a soothing balm for any First-Person Shooter fan’s soul. I can’t be the only one who feels this way either, considering the 30+ year history of maps, mods, “WADs”, and other assorted goodies the dedicated Doom community have been cranking out for everyone to enjoy, like a mildly bloodthirsty Saint Nick. Doom is truly the closest thing we’ll ever get to the elusive “Forever Game”. With roughly 11 billion hours (give or take a few billion) of gameplay content ready and waiting on the ID games archive alone, it’s hard to imagine any one person has ever seen everything the community has to offer (and if you have, Wow! You must be tired!) So strap in as we take a look at some these blood-splattered battlegrounds, these crimson canvas’s of catastrophic carnage, and these delightful domains of Doom with this brief crash course into Doom fan-made WADS.
WAD? That's a Funny Name.
But first and foremost, what is a WAD and how do we play it? Well I’m glad you asked, my enterprising young Space Marine. Simply put, a WAD (an acronym meaning “Where’s All the Data?”) is the file format that Doom uses to, well, store data, fittingly enough.
WAD files come in two flavors. IWADs, which contain the core game data and are run by default, and PWADs (Usually what people mean when they use the term WAD), which are loaded after the IWAD and either replace or add data to the game engine, essentially like a mod. There are numerous ways to load WADs, but my preferred method and the recommended way is to use a source port.
Now when it comes to source ports for Doom, you won’t be starved for choice. There’s the commercial “Doom 1 + Doom II” source port that comes bundled with the game on digital storefronts. There’s “Zandronum” for those looking to relive the glory days of deathmatching. We have “Chocolate Doom” for the discerning purist who scoffs at anything deviating from the1993 retro experience. Then there’s “The Eternity Engine”, which we’ll touch on later (foreshadowing!). And finally, there’s the ubiquitous “GZDoom”. With it’s host of customization features, ease of use, and capacity to run (nearly) any WAD thrown at it, GZDoom serves as a good baseline and introduction to the Source Port world, and what we’ll be using for today. And wouldn’t you know it, loading a WAD in GZDoom is easy-peasy! Just drag and drop the WAD onto the GZDoom executable. GZDoom should auto-detect your IWADs, assuming they’re located on the same drive, select the IWAD of choice (which will be Doom 2 for all examples today), and let ‘er rip!First off, I’d like to lay some ground rules for today’s class on “Doomalogy”. First, I’m going to be focusing on what’s known as “Partial Conversions”, or WADs that change elements of presentation and gameplay without straying so far as to become different games, so no “Ashes 2063” or “Selaco”. Second, I’m going to try to go slightly off the beaten path from the most famous WADs, so no “My House”, “Eviternity”, “Ancient Aliens”, or “Back To Saturn X” here. Although I do highly recommend each of the WADs listed above, I feel they are, at this point, well covered and documented. This is not a hidden gems list, I just want to mix it up a little. Okay! Enough formalities! Let’s play some Doom already!
By Arch (Darch)
Avast, ye scurvy dogs!
And… He immediately broke his “let’s go off the beaten path” rule and chose something famous. Whelp, it’s my list, and I say let’s start with wind in our sails and a flagon of rum in our hooked hands with Pirate Doom! At the risk of stating the obvious, you’ll notice right away the shift in art style, which invokes a sense of “Monkey Island meats Outlaws”. Plucked straight from a timeline where Lucas-arts decided Monkey Island needed to cash in on the Doom craze, your arsenal is fairly familiar at first, if reskinned, aside from a buffed pistol (which will be a reoccurring theme today) and a quick melee option but quickly expands on twists such as akimbo pistols (another reoccurring theme today). Beyond the sprite changes, you’ll also notice a lovely use of lighting effects and creative Line-def usage to simulate scripting, giving Pirate Doom an added sense of verisimilitude.
The lighting effects and convincing locals make Pirate Doom quite the looker.
But let’s be honest here, you already know about Pirate Doom, don’t you? So why choose to highlight it here? Well, to put it bluntly, I think Pirate Doom represents one of the best introductions to the wider Doom modding community to a newcomer. It serves as a showcase of what wonderful and wacky things can be done with Doom, and it’s also not too rough an on-boarding experience for someone still a little wet behind the ears. In a sea of hardcore challenge Wads made for and by people with 25+ year's experience, Pirate Doom just wants you to have a good time, laugh along with its silliness, and tap your peg-leg to its jaunty tunes (borrowed from Banjo-Kazooie, Super Mario World, and of course, Monkey Island). It’s content to ease you in, let you get acclimated, and I think it makes a wonderful first time Wad for someone who has burned through ID’s work and wants more.
By Seongbae Park (antares031)
High Quality Doom, no struggle meal WADs here
If Pirate Doom is a familiar experience in a fresh coat of paint, then Struggle: Antaresian Legacy is something more uncanny. While the crispy digitized Glock and Spas-12 shotgun might initially queue you in that this isn’t your Daddy’s Doom, there’s quite a few more subtle changes under the hood here. Zombiemen now stand and shoot much like the Wolfenstein enemies from Doom 2’s secret map, Revenant’s fire a pair of staggered dummy rockets at alarming speed, specter Cacodemon’s are surprisingly adept at creeping up on you, and that’s not getting into the newcomers borrowed from Heretic and Hexen’s bestiary. You might also notice Doomguy seems to have holes in his pockets, as your ammo now caps at a lower amount and burns surprisingly quickly with the increased rate of fire of your bread-and-butter bullet and shell spitters. Ammo pickups are plentiful however and really highlight the brilliance of Struggle’s gameplay flow. Movement and aggressive play are highly incentivized, and both excellent signposting and shortcuts to previous areas regularly opening up ensure that you’re never out of the fray for too long.
A massive hoard of demons and a power drill, just another day in the life.
Let’s get one thing clear however, Struggle is an apt name for this one, as it quickly ramps up in difficultly. The first few classic techbase maps might put you at ease, but once you hit Map 11 “The Indomitable Mastermind” all bets are off. While the Arch-Vile has been nerfed slightly with a higher hitstun chance, and your new arsenal is overall much mightier, this is merely to even the playing field from the massive hordes this WAD has in store for you. Later maps delve deep into “Slaughter-map” style gameplay with monster counts ballooning past one thousand, however the fast gameplay pace and bopping midi soundtrack guarantees that Struggle never feels like a slog. Struggle: Antaresian Legacy is definitely not for the faint of heart, but for a hardened Doom veteran who’s looking for a new challenge to grind their teeth on, or someone looking for a new twist on classic flavored gameplay, I can’t recommend it enough.
By Tango
Your own little slice of demon slaying heaven
Moving on now to something vastly different, with Paradise. You’ll pretty immediately notice a massive shift in gameplay and presentation, thanks to the “Supercharge” gameplay mod being baked in here. A new, smooth arsenal of weaponry (the pump shotgun in particular being a standout, and we know how I feel about shotguns) and enhanced gore effects, combined with a foot-tapping song list borrowed from places such as “Armed Police Batrider” and “Mega Man X4” leads to an incredibly satisfactory flow as you bob and weave through the monster hoards. The inclusion of reloading might be a bridge too far for some Doom purists, but the core gameplay loop is still largely intact, this isn’t Brutal Doom here. Another big change is the complete absence of RNG on damage numbers, with no more sudden health deletion from a stray Revenant’s rocket, nor frustrating tankiness from a stubborn Mancubus or Archvile. You may recognize a familiar face or two as well, as the lesser “Green Cyberdemon” that was canonized in ID’s official “Legacy of Rust” makes an appearance here, alongside a few more new monster variants to keep you on your toes.
Awful lot of green goo for paradise
Paradise’s main campaign only consists of 7 maps, 5 standard and 2 secret, so it should make for a quick burst of fun for a lazy afternoon. However, this Wad features 25 bonus “Speedmaps”, disconnected from the main playthrough as an extra meaty encore for those that want more of Paradise’s supercharged gameplay loop. However, while the primary maps offer a hearty challenge to begin with, the bonus maps can often dive into the experimental and gimmicky side of map design. If you find that you crave more of the Supercharge brand of gameplay, there’s also other Wads purpose built around it, such as “Godless Night” and “Ante Mortem”. Not only this, but Tango was kind enough to offer Supercharge as a standalone gameplay mod, meaning you can apply it to any Wad or mapset of your choosing, talk about considerate! With it’s short, breezy length and frantic action, Paradise is easily among my favored coffee break Wads.
Ad Mortem
By Various members of the /vr/ boards
It's spooooky
Alright, enough seriousness. Let’s get silly again with the orange and purple splattered Halloween charm of Ad Mortem! Ad Mortem is what’s known as a “Community Megawad”, meaning that each of the maps present were made by different authors, which leads to a scattershot of interpretations to Doom mapping philosophy. The theme remains consistent however, with a goofy, irreverent “Spooktober” theme. More “Boo! Haunted House” then “Friday The 13th”, the expanded enemy roster consists of such gems as “Skellingtons”, “Rockets with Legs”, and “King Boner the Stiff” (Yes, that’s really his name). This, along with a smooth weaponry reskin, adds up to something fresh yet familiar, with Ad Mortem’s moment to moment gameplay not straying too far from the Doom standard. Some incredibly inventive level design in places, such as Map 12 “Every Damn Night”, keep this one from being too formulaic, however.
Nothing says Halloween like orange skies and skeletons
Don’t let the goofy spookfest fool you however, this one had fangs. Right out of the gate you’ll be dogged by nearly every creature of the night Ad Mortem has to throw at you, and with every non-energy weapon available in Map 1, it wholeheartedly expects you to take full advantage of them. Beginning at a difficulty level comparable to Final Doom’s “The Plutonia Experiment”, it only gets rougher from there, with later maps throwing more bones at you then a Paris catacomb. Slaughter’s the name of the game here, with certain map monster counts bordering on the absurd. Don’t go looking for an amped-up arsenal here either, it’s all vanilla under those fancy reskins. At least you’ll have an eclectic assortment of tunes to slay to, ranging from pulls from places like Clock Tower and Rondo of Blood, to Midi renditions of Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, and Avenged Seven-fold (Midi licensed rock, how very Bobby Prince) to keep you company as you brave these cobweb coated halls. Ad Mortem serves as one of the finer Community Megawads the Doom scene has to offer, and while Doomguy may be no Simon Belmont, he’ll do in a pinch!
By Paul DeBruyne (skillsaw)
How very foreboding...
How very foreboding...
Heartland, my secret reason for making this list to begin with. This one will require a little more setup, as it’s something of a Killer App for the Eternity Engine source port and will not run in GZDoom or any other port. Fortunately, the same drag and drop method works here. It’s well worth the extra hassle, however, as Heartland is one of the best playthroughs any Doomer could ever ask for.
Actual wizardry
What’s this!? A moving train? Breakable windows? Room over room hackery? Did I accidentally fire up EDuke by mistake? Heartland is a bit like a hypothetical Doom sequel running in Ken Silverman’s Build Engine instead of the ID Tech 1 engine, and it is glorious! An expanded Doom 2 arsenal and bestiary, combined with a very Build-like environmental design, leads to a fantastic playthrough. Gone are the liminal mazes and corridors of traditional Doom, replaced instead with the grungy, monster-infested streets of an industrial heartland corrupted. Fighting your way through a subway, into a construction yard, and up an unfinished building feels so “Duke Nukem”, you almost expect Doomguy to start spouting one-liners. The new dual pistols, SMGs, and flamethrower (incredibly similar to the one from Legacy of Rust, appearing here earlier) also have that silky-smooth and powerful feel you’d hope for in a partial conversion of this caliber. Your new foes are no slouches either, however, with rocket launcher Zombiemen, Cyber Baron of Hell’s ,and Self-Destructing zombie bombers (complete with a certain familiar Serious Sam sound effect) just to name a few. Combine this with an original soundtrack from well-known Doom Midi composer Stuart “stewboy” Rynn, and you’ve got yourself one damn fine piece of Doom on your hands.
Believable locals in Doom
Heartland only contains 7 main maps, but this is by no means a short and breezy playthrough. Each level is large and detailed, with Map 1 containing over 400 monsters, and the endgame packing over 1000. Don’t let the numbers scare you away, however. While certainly a hearty step up in difficulty from ID’s stock work, Heartland is not an insurmountable mega-challenge, but rather hits a good sweet spot of toughness with play-ability. I cannot recommend Heartland enough, for both fans of Doom and the Duke Nukem, Blood, and Shadow Warrior trifecta. If you only play one WAD on this entire list, make it this one, you won’t regret it!
This was just a small glance at all the Doom modding community has to offer. I could write fifty more articles like this and not even come remotely close to running out of Doom WADs. So whatare you waiting for? Put on your green space armor, load up your shotgun, warm up that BFG, and hop right in. You’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and Hell ain’t getting any smaller!
