Monday, August 12th 2024
The Original DOOM and DOOM II See Relaunch on Windows with Crossplay and 4K 120 FPS Support
The original DOOM and DOOM II were relaunched as a package deal by ZeniMax late last week. This sees the two games wrapped around a new Windows executable that includes high resolution texture remasters (though it still looks quite blocky), along with online multiplayer, Crossplay support, and a 16:9 viewport that supports 4K resolution with 120 frames per second. This wouldn't be the first such "re-launch" by Bethesda, the parent publisher of ZeniMax, the company re-launched DOOM and DOOM II as separate games on Steam and Microsoft Store in 2019, with a modern Windows executable with WASD controls, a 16:9 viewport, "HD" textures, and the original MIDI background score pre-rendered as PCM. Both the 2019 and this new 2024 re-releases are fully compatible with the latest Windows 11, and don't need any emulators.
The 2024 re-launch includes all episodes of DOOM, DOOM II, all public mods, and a new first-party DOOM episode called "Legacy of Rust," created by community members who worked at id Software. This episode also includes some new weapons, such as a flamethrower. You also get a new Remixed background score. You can select between this, a pre-rendered original soundtrack, a pre-rendered Yamaha OPL3 FM synth soundtrack, or get the game to use a MIDI device. The DOOM + DOOM II 2024 release is available on GOG, Steam, EGS, and Microsoft Store for $9.99.
The 2024 re-launch includes all episodes of DOOM, DOOM II, all public mods, and a new first-party DOOM episode called "Legacy of Rust," created by community members who worked at id Software. This episode also includes some new weapons, such as a flamethrower. You also get a new Remixed background score. You can select between this, a pre-rendered original soundtrack, a pre-rendered Yamaha OPL3 FM synth soundtrack, or get the game to use a MIDI device. The DOOM + DOOM II 2024 release is available on GOG, Steam, EGS, and Microsoft Store for $9.99.
30 Comments on The Original DOOM and DOOM II See Relaunch on Windows with Crossplay and 4K 120 FPS Support
Blatant and shameless cash grab, dust that old copy of Doom you've got somewhere because we all do and load it on gzdoom, it'll play better than this "port".
github.com/ZDoom/gzdoom
The only other game that got exploited this bad is Duke Nukem 3D (which is not even the best Duke game, that'd be Zero Hour). First there was Megaton on Steam which was a decent port, then that got pulled from circulation due to "licensing expiry" and was replaced by a "World Tour" cash grab, basically Microsoft/Bethesda is pulling the same stunt here.
Don't bother, even if you're a massive fan of Doom.
www.youtube.com/shorts/O2UogvuQpR4
So you have Bethesda Game Studios as the flagship (this is Todd Howard and gang's studio), BGS's offices in Austin, Dallas and Montréal (which work on miscellaneous works related to BGS's primary franchises), ZeniMax Online Studios (which develop Elder Scrolls Online). id Software. Arkane Lyon and MachineGames, the other studios like Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, Roundhouse and Alpha Dog have folded and are now defunct. Andrew Hulshult's DOOM and Rise of the Triad soundtracks are pretty much the finalized deal for me. I like the pre-rendered Yamaha option, if it sounds faithful to the original, but it only reminds me we had competent MIDI support before Vista and WASAPI, and Microsoft never brought that back. I still have a copy of S-YXG50 for Windows XP here... beats any MIDI engine ever made since.
Also you can just grab the WADs from the game's archive and run them with any source port. The new Lagacy of Rust works just fine in GZDoom.
gzDoom is the way to play Doom. "120fps support"? Lol gzDoom already runs at 1000fps engine cap.
For owners on Doom 1 or 2 anyways which shouldn't everyone own these at this point loo.
I've posted these screenshots in another thread, but this is how E1M1 looks in GZDoom with a 2K texture pack made by a single guy:
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of OG Doom. I consider it one of the most influential games in the history of the medium. And its gameplay holds up well even 31 years later. But so much more can be achieved here using free content made by Doom's passionate fans.
This feels like an update squarely aimed at console gamers and people who already own the originals on steam. It doesn't really stop anyone from still using the originals or continuing to play the various mods out there.
A proper remaster might be cool so I get your sentiment but I'd prefer a RTX remix varient over that.
Found this interesting but too rough around the edges.
tl;dr: DSDA-Doom with Portmidi FTW, especially with the 'new' Indexed OpenGL renderer, which looks daaaarn close to the original software mode, just more responsive and can have massively better frame rate due to the GPU acceleration. If you don't play Boom, MBF or MBF21 WADs at all, then Crispy Doom is a cool cat too. Or Chocolate Doom, if you want a vanilla-like experience, and you don't care about limit-removing stuff either. : >
Btw let them cash grab (at least there's a new episode), the more people get to know the game, the better it is for it in the long run. And as mentioned above, it's free if you already have the Steam version. Dude, you do realize that this game in its meaningful core is not for the 'modern' audiences, right?
Uber-high resolution textures and similar stuff just feels alien and completely out of place, totally ruining the atmosphere imo (same with looking up/down and jumping/crouching). Well, Voxel Doom is cool, but that's a different breed, and still wouldn't even want it on all the time.
And this is precisely how I first completed both games! Seriously though, I doubt even Doom veterans would like to play it that way nowadays. The original release lacked many features we take for granted in an fps.
Doom is still playable today with a few tweaks, the core gameplay is there. I beat Sigil on Ultra-Violence and had a ton of fun doing it. Yet I think people who have never played the original game won't be buying the re-pack because of how terribly dated it looks, even with these slight improvements.
Incidentally, I just checked my GOG account where I had purchased the games previously. Indeed, I received the current suite for free, so no complaints there. But as a standalone commercial product published by the world's richest company, this re-release of a re-release is still disappointing. Doom deserves much better than this.