Here's John Romero playing and commentating his recent Doom level

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Romero explains why he made it, and why it was designed to replace E1's boss level.

When John Romero surprised us with the release of a new Doom level in January, it was like a gift from some shotgun-touting, demon-stomping god. Designed to replace Sandy Peterson's E1M8 – the boss level in the first episode of vanilla Doom – Romero's Tech Gone Bad is more sprawling, and much more difficult, than the original. 

More than six months later, Romero has uploaded a walkthrough for the level. In the video, he explains his motives for returning to Doom (a way to ease back into FPS level design), and explains why he wanted to recreate E1M8 in particular (it followed a thread of increasing design complexity he had created earlier in the episode). 

Shaun Prescott
Shaun Prescott
Australian Editor

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.