QuakeCon 2024 brought the announcement and premiere of an all-new Doom and Doom II remaster. The recent, combined version of two classic, genre-defining first-person shooters, Doom + Doom II, also includes an all-new episode called Legacy of Rust, created in collaboration with id Software, Nightdive Studios, and MachineGames.
Doom + Doom II is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC – and of course, available via Game Pass. It’s a free update across all of these platforms for Doom or Doom II owners who can still access their previously owned versions of those games – the last remasters came in 2019.
Doom + Doom II has been remastered by Nightdive Studios using their powerful, cross-platform KEX engine. It has been the basis for the studio’s proliferation of classic game remasters and has been used for the Doom 64, Quake, and Quake II remasters over the past few years.
This improved version of these games features a newly optimized renderer that boosts resolution to 4K and 120fps, depending on platform and console. There are also recent accessibility options. Deathmatch and co-op for up to 16 players are cross-platform — suggest using room codes to join — with recent rules on level deletions and restarts. Oh, and there’s support for 4-player split-screen.
Like previous KEX Engine releases, this remaster aims to be a comprehensive collection, so it includes:
- MOOSE
- VILLAIN 2
- DOOM II Mastery Levels
- TNT: Evil
- Plutonia Experiment
- No rest for the living
- Stamp
- Legacy of Rust (recent episode created in collaboration with id Software, Nightdive Studios and MachineGames)
- New Deathmatch Map Pack featuring 25 recent maps
The Deathmatch Map Pack features community artwork from Luis “DX-Chain” Armacanqui, Luca Ciriaco, Ralph “Ralphis” Vickers, Matthew “RottKing” Cibulas, Colton “Arrowhead” Murchison, Andrew “Saar” Bouvé, and Joshua “tokyopunchout” Boyle. This recent pack adds to the existing 18, bringing the total number of Deathmatch levels to 43.
Overall, it’s great to see this remaster, considering there were some of the shortcomings that dogged the 2019 remasters – things like the 35fps cap, which was fixed a few months later, and the controversial Bethesda.net requirement, which has also been removed and has no impact on the recent version.
This isn’t the only Doom-y announcement to come out of QuakeCon 2024, though, and on the other end of the series timeline, Doom Eternal now has official modding tools via the PC Mods Beta. That should assist tide fans over until Doom: The Dark Ages launches.
Source: Bethesda
