Last month Bethesda announced that DOOM and DOOM II would be getting massive updates that included plenty of reworked and new content. It seems that those updates are now upon us, and are available to download. As mentioned before, the biggest addition is user maps. Bethesda is launching the service with four maps. Both DOOM and DOOM II owners can grab TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment which, when combined, make up the official release Final DOOM. Owners of DOOM can also get John Romero‘s Sigil, the quite well-received 2018 mod by the original DOOM creator himself, while DOOM II owners will get No Rest for the Living, a 2010 expansion made by Nerve Software as a bonus for the Xbox 360 port of the game.
While the user maps are probably the biggest addition, there’s are still a bunch of other features for this update. The games now run at 60fps rather than 35fps. Quick save and load options have been added, offering up a quick way to fix your mistakes. A weapon wheel lets you pick which weapon you want without cycling through every weapon in the game, though some of the weapons have also been added to a brand new quick select feature on the game’s d-pad. If you play the game splitscreen, the HUD has been changed so that both players can get the same information while less room is being taken up from the screen, especially for the bottom player.
There are a number of other small fixes and adjustments with this update, making it one of the most feature-rich the games have received since launch. You can read the full patch notes below.
DOOM and DOOM II patch notes
Patch Highlights
Add-on Support: Add-ons can now be downloaded and played from the main menu. We will continue to add content that is a mixture of official DOOM and DOOM 2 add-ons, as well as some of the best community episodes and megawads released for the original DOOM games. We’ve curated the initial list and will be asking you guys for your picks for best community made wads soon! Check out the FAQ below for more info!
60 FPS Support: For the first time, DOOM and DOOM II now run at 60 FPS on all platforms, instead of 35 FPS as in the original releases.
Added Aspect Ratio Option: Stretches the display vertically to match the original 4:3 aspect ratio that the game was intended to be played in.
Added Quick Save and Load: Pause the game, and press R/R1/RB to immediately save where you are, and unpause the game. Load your quick save by pausing the game and then pressing L/L1/LB.
Added Level Select: Pick an episode, map, and difficulty of your choosing, and immediately play on it without having to clear the previous levels first.
Added Weapon Carousel: You no longer need to cycle through every weapon to get to the one you want. Press Previous or Next Weapon to highlight the weapon you want, and it will swap immediately to the selected gun.
Added Quick Weapon Select: The Directional Pad can now be used to quickly swap between weapons.
- Up: Shotgun and Super Shotgun
- Right: Chaingun
- Down: Rocket Launcher
- Left: Plasma Gun
Added Overall Brightness and Level Brightness: Turn up Overall Brightness to make the colors brighter, but if that isn’t enough, you can also raise Level Brightness to change the brightness of the lights in the world.
Added Random SFX Pitch Toggle: Turn off randomized sound pitches during playback, which was a feature present in early versions of the original DOOM release.
New split screen HUD: A minimal HUD will be used when playing split screen multiplayer. The bottom status bar is removed, allowing more room for the game to be displayed in.
Changes
Changed Health Graphics: The pill has been changed into a green plus, making the graphics closer to their original appearance.
Changed Wolfenstein Secret Level: Enemies in the Wolfenstein level have been restored to the original DOS release. The original textures and enemy audio have been re-added to the level, but with [censored] references removed.
Performance Optimization
- Several optimizations to DOOM’s software renderer have been made in order to better support 60 FPS and increase battery life.
- Game rendering resolution on Nintendo Switch version now displays at 640×400 to support 60 FPS and improved battery life.
- Improved behavior when starting the game out of sleep mode. There still may be cases that cause the game to lock up after awakening.
- Sped up various UI animations to make navigating through menus quicker.
Fixes
- Fixed an issue from the original DOS release where map objects would not correctly track the player after loading a saved game. This also fixes an occasional crash with loading a save game with an active BFG projectile.
- Fixed an issue where the game would skip ahead several tics after unpausing.
- Fixed an issue where attract mode demos would desync, causing demo playback to deviate from the original DOS release.
- The trophy for “When I’m With You” for beating every level on Nightmare in co-operative mode has been fixed and will now be awarded properly.
[Source: Bethesda]
