John Romero just released his first new DOOM level in 21 years

John Romero, legendary co-creator of the classic first-person shooter DOOM, has returned with his first new level for the game in 21 years.

Romero announced his latest creation via his Facebook and Twitter accounts (embedded below), offering it as a free download to anyone who wanted to install and play it via a public DropBox.

It’s been 21 years since I made a DOOM level. Here’s my version of E1M8 using DOOM1.WAD. https://t.co/ueKM7gBbXd pic.twitter.com/NlmA9aIALN

— John Romero (@romero) January 15, 2016

The download contains two files, E1M8.WAD, which is a modded version of the primary data file the game draws from and a readme that contains a short description of the level by Romero. The map is called E1M8, making it the last level in DOOM‘s first episode, “Knee-Deep in the Dead.” This same episode was originally released as shareware back in the 90’s.

If you’d like to play it but you aren’t sure how to go about it, here’s how:

1. Grab yourself a copy of DOOM. It can be any version you like. You can pick up a copy of The Ultimate DOOM on Steam right now for ten bucks if you’re so inclined.
2. Download the file from Romero’s Dropbox
3. Extract the zip file and copy E1M8.WAD into your main DOOM directory.
4. Go to http://zdoom.org/Download and grab the latest version of ZDoom for your operating system. Once downloaded, copy everything in its folder it to your DOOM directory as well.
5. Click and drag the E1M8.WAD over the ZDoom.exe. A modded version of DOOM will now launch.

From there, how you proceed is up to you. You can play through Knee-Deep in the Dead as normal and reach the new final level on your own or you can cheat and warp straight to it. If you’d prefer to get to it without the trip down memory lane, just enter the cheat idclev18 and you’ll drop straight in. If your DOOM skills are a bit rusty, you can also type in idfa to give yourself a full compliment of weapons and, if you’re feeling especially vulnerable, you can enable god mode by typing in iddqd to enable god mode.

I recited all of those cheats by memory, that’s how much DOOM I have played in my life. You’re welcome.

Bethesda is currently working on a reboot of Doom which is coming to PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One later this year, an alpha for which ran in December.

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