Sigil, the unofficial 5th episode of the original Doom by series co-creator John Romero, is now available online as a free download.
Doom Eternal, which is set to be released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, will follow 2016’s Doom reboot in bringing the game to the modern age. However, the original game, released in 1993, remains popular among hardcore fans.
Sigil, which may be downloaded through the Romero Games website, is made up of nine distinct levels that are playable in single-player, cooperative, and deathmatch modes. The 5th episode comes in the form of a megawad, which is a collection of wads that are the default file format for the first two games in the series. It stands for “where’s all the data?”
Romero said that in Sigil, players will fight through a “stygian pocket of evil to confront the ultimate harbingers of Satan,” after Baphomet sends the player to “even darker shores of Hell.” The episode was created with Doom Builder 2, which is a Windows 10 program that allows players to create their own levels.
Sigil was initially planned for release in celebration of Doom‘s 25th anniversary. Romero worked on the mod part time over 2017 and 2018, creating levels that felt like they belong to the original game as a true continuation of the story. However, delays in the production of the physical items that will come along with Sigil pushed back its release.
The Sigil megawad is free, but players who would like to get the episode with a metal soundtrack from guitarist Buckethead may shell out €6.66, or roughly $7.50. The limited edition physical copies of Sigil, which includes a “beautiful demonic” box and a floppy disk-themed USB that contains the megawad, are already sold out since pre-orders were submitted back in December. Players may still get their hands on Sigil shirts featuring none other than Baphomet himself.
Players who still can not get enough of the original Doom after Sigil may want to look into Doomba, which is the result of loading a Roomba’s mapping data of the home that it cleans into software that will generate custom Doom levels.
