Apocalypse #15: Doom II: Hell on Earth
More than just a map pack
Initial release: September 30, 1994
Platform: PC/many ports, sort of
Developer: id Software
On December 10th, 1993, id Software would change video gaming forever with the release of Doom, which, alongside Mortal Kombat, challenged traditional notions of what video games should be and who they were for. There’s been a lot of ink spilled about that venerable classic, as happens every year on the anniversary. More broadly, people tend to talk about “Classic Doom” (that is, Doom and its “2.5D” sequels) as a collective platform for modding, creativity, and just plain nostalgia. Somewhere lost in the shuffle is direct discussion of the original game’s immediate sequel: Doom II: Hell on Earth.
The original Doom was a product of the shareware era; Doom II is the franchise’s first genuine retail product, beating out both The Ultimate Doom and the quasi-official (but really just shovelware) Lost Episodes of Doom. More importantly, it’s the true basis for the last 30 years of modding. Final Doom started as a fan-made mod before getting a publication deal by id Software. Twenty years of Cacowards likely wouldn’t be possible without it.
While I was preparing to write this article I posted a thread on Doomworld asking how important Doom II was, both to the community and the gaming industry at large. The broad consensus seems to be: to the industry, not very/indirectly/in subtle ways, but to the community, life-changing. And that does seem to ring true with my own recollections; Doom II, being a retail product (and still coasting on a wave of hype from the original) was common in gamers’ libraries at the time, the spearhead of a wave of competitors of varying quality. While it used the same engine as the original game, it had more features, bringing a much more well-rounded gameplay experience that attracted modders. Many of the people who populated the community in the mid to late nineties would go on to work in the industry. And, for all the flak that the game’s level design gets, the more open layouts would lay the groundwork for everything from more interesting deathmatch design to the likes of Serious Sam.
So. Doom II had a pretty big impact; maybe it wasn’t as seismic as its predecessor, but it had a more subtle influence that wouldn’t be as immediately apparent for at least a few years. But what is it like as a game? Pretty decent, actually.
If you’ve played the original Doom, Doom II is, on its surface, more of the same, just bigger, meaner, faster. Gone is the episodic structure; instead, it’s 30 straight levels (plus two secret ones exactly halfway through) of mayhem. The plot is as straightforward as it gets: our hero, the Doomguy, has arrived on Earth after his ordeal in space, and the demonic invasion is already in progress. A mass evacuation is underway, but the starbase from which the population would make its exodus is currently under demonic control, and a desperate assault to retake the starbase has failed, leaving only the Doomguy to finish the job. Easy enough, right? Of course, that’s only a third of the game; though the episodic structure is gone, the game is still split into three themes, with the middle “episode” being urban warfare, and the third being one more venture into hell to stop the invasion for good.
Let’s talk monsters, shall we? All of the original cast return — the zombies, the imps, cacos, and so on — but the cast roll is doubled in size for the sequel. The zombies get a new third variety, armed with a chaingun, though he’s still only about as tough as an imp; the Baron of Hell now has a weaker cousin in the Hell Knight, about as equally dangerous but far less of a meat wall. The Cacodemon’s significantly more annoying cousin, the Pain Elemental, is here to ruin your day with a seemingly unending supply of Lost Souls. Even the Spiderdemon gets some babies with the Arachnotron, a cute l’il thing who spits green plasma balls at you.
And there’s some entirely new monstrosities too, from the Revenant, a giant screaming skeleton who fires homing missiles, to the Mancubus, a bloated, dual-flamethrower-packing douche whose corpse collapses under its own weight when you kill him. At the top of the mid-tier, and arguably significantly more dangerous than the rest of the monster roster put together, is the Arch-Vile, a freaky alien-looking bastard who can set you on fire with his mind so long as you’re in his line of sight, and when he’s not doing that he’s resurrecting all the bad guys you just killed. There’s also SS Nazi guys straight outta Wolfenstein 3D, though they only appear in the secret levels, which are themselves recreations of Wolfenstein 3D maps. And topping it all off is none other than the severed head of John Romero himself, the true final enemy… sort of. The actual final boss is a lot of different parts put together, consisting of several specialized wall textures that together form a giant demonic goat skull with a hole in its forehead, which your job is to pump rockets into, destroying the severed Romero head within, all the while it’s spitting out floating skull cubes that generate more monsters indefinitely.
Of course, with this vast expansion of the demonic threat, you’ll need a little extra help, and you get that in the form of the Super Shotgun, a simple double-barreled death device that pumps out three regular shotgun blasts’ worth of pellets. It’s loud, it’s slow, and it’s lethal, and god if it ain’t fun. It will absolutely carry the game for you in a way even the original shotgun never did in Doom 1. And rounding out the powerups is the Megasphere, a strange grey-white artifact that maxes out your health and armor.
Doom II doesn’t really bother with the kind of maze-like level design of its predecessor. With so many new monsters to play with, the fights are bigger, monster counts are frequently in triple digits, and the maps are significantly more open to account for it. This is, after all, a war for Earth, and you are a one-Doomguy army tearing up the battlefield. In terms of the design team, despite the presence of John Romero and American McGee (with a little bit of Tom Hall’s leftovers and a single level from Shawn Green,) it’s pretty much Sandy Petersen’s show, and as such it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes you’ll come across some room or setpiece that kinda looks like something or other but for the most part it’s the same old abstract design that so defines most Doom maps, then and now. The starbase levels are straightforward techbase, with little in the way of any sort of defining features to make it look like a place people might want to be. The one exception is MAP10, “Refueling Base,” which was a rejected map from the first game and has Tom Hall’s touch with little attempts at realism here and there, such as the large dormitory. McGee’s levels do have a few touches of realism here and there, which sets them apart both from John Romero, who has begun to indulge in his fetish for deep chasms (ironically the infamous level actually titled “The Chasm” is Sandy’s) and Sandy’s, whose levels grow increasingly abstract, culminating in the outright puzzle-centric MAP23, “Barrels O’ Fun.” (For his part, Shawn Green’s sole level, MAP25, “Bloodfalls,” is pretty straightforward with a central blood gimmick that remains consistent throughout.)
While some of these levels are just weird, or confusing, or outright bad, a few stick out. A lot of the middle levels rank among my favorites, for example MAP13, “Downtown,” is a multi-tiered urban romp with a lot going on. You’ll get to explore most of the buildings and it’s always fun. It may not look like a city, but who cares? Use your imagination. And believe it or not, I actually quite enjoy MAP24, “The Chasm” these days — though I suspect having decent mouselook (something the old doom2.exe did not offer) plays a role in that. Just makes it easier to navigate those narrow paths, you know?
Okay, so, sure, on its surface Doom II isn’t much different from its older brother. It’s the same engine, same kinda bodged-together art design, Bobby Prince returns to do music but it only covers about half the game before it starts repeating itself. But it might be the more important game, not because it broke new ground but instead laid the foundation for the future. A lot of famous names grew up in the post-Doom II community, like Iikka Keränen, who now does level design at Valve, and the Casali brothers, one of whom also worked at Valve until 2022, and the other has done some design work for Ubisoft. And those are just a couple of the big names! Doom II has for almost 30 years been the basis for a mountain of creativity. The vast majority of projects are for Doom II. Ultimate Doom Builder uses Doom II as the asset framework — if you want to map for the original game it requires a little extra work. And of course, the Super Shotgun is the iconic Doom weapon — not even the BFG gets top billing!
Should you play Doom II? I’d have to say yes. Obviously, compared to the many, many, many mods being made for it since, Doom II doesn’t always compare, but sometimes it can be fun to just shoot your way through the original 32 levels to get back in touch with your roots. As a game it might be more important than anyone could ever have known back then; as a mapset, I think it’s a decent romp still.
-june❤
Doom II is available (with Final Doom and Master Levels included) on Steam and gog.com.
This review has also been crossposted, along with a level-by-level breakdown, to my new blog dedicated to retro and classic shooters.
