The Doom soundtrack is finally out

For reasons I will never fully understand, it took roughly four months for Doom, the game that pioneered deathmatch combat in its original iteration, to get its own deathmatch multiplayer mode. And it took even longer than that for the new soundtrack to be released. But it has very quietly slipped out, and you can listen to it for free right here. 

What's really unusual about this is that the release of the soundtrack wasn't announced by Bethesda, or id, or on the Doom website, Facebook page, or Twitter account. The only word of it as far as I've seen came from soundtrack composer and producer Mick Gordon, who posted the second track, Rip & Tear, on Twitter, and shared the rest of it on his YouTube channel.   

There are 31 tracks in all, threading through hard rock, synth rock, some up-and-down ambient and more: It's all quite reminiscent of the original Doom soundtrack, alternating between bang-your-head and creep-you-out, and very much listenable entirely on its own. Rip & Tear is probably the most obvious stand-in for E1M1, but I think Rust, Dust & Guts is more representative of the soundtrack as a whole. 

The Doom soundtrack is available from iTunes for $10 or Google Play for 50 cents more than that, and if you want to try before you buy, Spotify has you covered. 

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.