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id Software reveals retro Easter eggs in New Doom

Warning: May be considered spoiler-y if you prefer to uncover secrets yourself.

David Craddock

April 28, 2016 12:53 PM

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Yesterday, id Software hosted a livestream to showcase single-player elements. Later on, the Doom developer partnered with IGN to reveal a series of Easter eggs that will be instantly recognizable to fans of the series who fragging Imps and friends since 1993.

Warning: while these Easter eggs won't spoil any story details, learning about them now might take the fun out of discovering them yourself. We'll put specifics below, after a generic screenshot from Doom, just to protect your virgin eyes.

You've been warned!

During a demonstration, id executive producer Marty Stratton and creative director Hugo Martin revealed an "uber secret"—or rather, a set of secrets scattered across the game. According to Stratton and Martin, every mission in the game contains chunks of classic Doom maps, such as a wing of E1M2. You'll find them in a variety of ways, often by pulling levers that open secret passages elsewhere in the level.

Poke around, enter the passage, and see how far the rabbit hole goes: you'll walk out of Doom 2016's smooth, beautifully rendered 3D geometry, and step into shards of levels that appear lifted straight out of Doom's tech, pixels and all. Doom 2016's enemies stand in place of their pixelated counterparts, but keen observers will note that enemies are in the same place they were 22 years ago.

These "stubs," as the id crew described them to IGN, vary in size. Sometimes you'll get to run around in a larger stretch of an old level, other times you'll get to explore no more than a single room. Here's the kicker: "When you find these, you unlock the full version of the map, and you get to play from the menu," according to the id guys.

This is a really cool way for id's new team to tip their collective hat to the game that put deathmatch and 2.5D level design on the map (pun intended).

Source: IGN (click the link to see the video demonstration)

David Craddock

Long Reads Editor

David L. Craddock writes fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. He is the author of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and the Gairden Chronicles series of fantasy novels for young adults. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing Mario, Zelda, and Dark Souls games, and will be happy to discuss at length the myriad reasons why Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock.