The original Doom first came out 25 years ago, on December 10, 1993. To commemorate the cruel, unceasing passage of time, designer John Romero is revisiting his beloved demonspawn baby.
Today, Romero announced Sigil, a Doom “megawad” containing nine new single and multiplayer levels. It’s basically a big mod, but from one of the original game’s creators. The goal, Romero said on Sigil’s website, was to pick up where Doom’s original episodes left off in terms of both design and story.
“I wanted the levels to feel like they belong to the original game as if they were a true fifth episode,” he wrote. “There’s more detail in the levels than episodes 1-4, but not overly so. I believe that people playing Sigil will recognize my design style, but see new things I’m doing because this episode does not take place on a military base—it takes place in Hell, which is new to me within Doom’s design space. There’s a massive room in E5M6 that is the coolest room I’ve created in any map.”
Sigil is coming out in February and will be free to download. However, Romero is also offering two different “limited edition fan boxes” full of goodies like a floppy disk, a soundtrack, and, if you buy the deluxe edition, a pewter statue of his own head on a spike. Because no matter how many years pass, John Romero gonna John Romero.