Last summer, Bethesda surprised everyone by dropping rereleases of Doom, Doom 2 and Doom 3 on Switch, Xbox One, PS4, Android and iOS. While this might seem like the calling card of a quick cash grab, it seems the company was in for the long haul and has just released a big patch for Doom 1 and 2 adding a whole bunch of new functionality.
First of all, both titles now run at 60fps across all platforms. In an age when plenty of console games hit that framerate, that may not seem like a big deal, except the original titles were locked to 35fps. You can now quick save, and there’s the ability to jump to any level without clearing the ones before it – both features that are entirely new for the game’s 27th year.
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But the more significant updates are less about adding new functionality and more about reaching parity with the original releases. To that end, Bethesda has introduced support for add-on WAD files on all platforms including the mobile ones.
There is a caveat though: on all platforms except PC and Android, add-ons have to be approved by Bethesda.
“Because of the age of these games and the fractured nature of the DOOM community, we’re taking a different approach than some of our past cross-platform titles,” the company explained. “Every Add-on we make available will be fully tested by our QA and verified to work on all platforms. That means you can’t upload them yourselves.
“But we’ve already begun tracking down members of the DOOM community to discuss releasing their Add-ons, and hope to release many more in the future.”
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The company says that these will be released on a “regular basis over the next few months,” but the selection available now includes the two Final Doom mods as well as John Romoro’s 2019 DLC Sigil.
The patches come in at between 343mb and 508mb depending on the platform – quite something for a game that originally fit on a handful of 1.44mb floppy disks…
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
