Narrative Style Mapsets

[P41R47]

One of the best things that Doom offered us since it was release in the 90's was the possibility to, with just a few resources, tell an interesting story.

Yeah, some may argue that the Doom storyline is there just to not be a pure non-sense shooting game.

But all of use suffer the rich atmosphere of dread and decay at E1M8: Phobos Anomaly, we all feel powerless at the feets of those Bruiser Brothers, and we all struggle to understand that enigmatic ending.

So, since the very first step into that teleporter and the following episodes, i was enthralled by how amazing is that, with only a few details, the game let our imagination fly, and made up a cohesive understanding of the surroundings and the story unfolded through the maps.

 

IWADs are the prime example of narrative styled mapsets.

Ultimate Doom and TNT: Evilution being on the atmospheric oriented side of the coin, and Doom 2 and The Plutonia Experiment being on the action oriented side coin.

 

When mappers started submitting their own mapset, they used to accompany the file with a .txt that told the story of what we were playing.

Beside those that were simple background stories like ''marine get into an infected area, go clean it'', there were some that were really elaborate pieces of fiction, and if we read them, the mapset offered us a totally different experience.

Not better, not funnier, simply different.

 

So after playing for long time, i realice that my favourite wads were those that has a proper and cohesive narrative that blended the action and the atmosphere to achieve a great an specific effect on the player. Some wads made it far better than others out there, so i will try to make a list of those that i think show undeniable signs of a pregressive fiction being told through all the mapset.

No matter if they are action packed or atmospherically creepy.

When the mapset delivers a cohesive narrative, i found it enthralling and entertaining.

Unfortunatelly, ZDoom base mapsets are outside of the focus of this list, as their heavy scripting made them easy to tell interesting stories.

So, without much to say, here we go:

 

-NJ Doom 2: The mapset that started all the idea of full map replacement campaings for Doom 2. Detailed, fun, and with some hints of progression. Quite amazing for a mapset made when Doom was still on diapers. 

 

-Aliens TC: probably the very first amazing wad that told us a rich story and let us be on the shoes of Ripley and the marines on Aliens. Most of us knew the story of the movies, but the mapset is soo well designed that we can't help but feel like we are inside the Aliens films.

-Cleimos: The orignal 9 map episode not only has a really detailed background story on the .TXT, it also has a dehacked that rounds up what was happening, if the details inside the maps weren't enough for it. Really cool for the time it was made. And nice Sci-Fi sketch.

 

-The Abyss: At first one may thought this mapset is just puzzley maps with no connection at all, but in truth, this is the nearest Doom come to be to an Indiana Jones film, searching hidden treasures on long forgotten ruins and discovering ancient civilizations. Amazing for the time, and really good.

 

-Dark Covenant: Outstanding 12 maps for the time it was released. Starting on a myhouse.wad kind of map, it delves into some really large and semi realistic designs. Great progression and quite exploratory for the time.

-Dystopia 3 - Re-Birth of Anarchy: Whacky at first, but far better as we get into it. A lot of details tells us the story of Dystopia 3, and the final map make one of the best endings on any wad.

-Army of Darkness Doom: Ash (Bruce Campbell) may be the epitome of we, ''action heroes''. Well versed on jokes and insults as the best scholars, and giving some of the best oneliners on history, this mapset recreates the final (¿?) episode of the saga. Awesome mapping and dehacking juice. Klatu Vedarra Nikto!!! Or something like that... :P

-Osiris Total Conversion: The level of detailing and new textures made for this little mapset is far beyond outstanding, achieving a great experience and giving us a sense of place like just a few achieve. Highlight is the music by Jeremy Doyle. Some of his best tracks are in there. Shame that they are only for that mapset :/

-All Hell is Breaking Loose!!!: No back story, but pretty much enough interesting details on the maps. Amazing dehacked work, good and fun maps, made for an awesome experience, even if a short one.

-Icarus: Alien Vanguard: Just a few hints at the end of each map let us kinda understand what is going on aboard that strange ship. Combine that with really cool effects and fun maps, and you have a really good experience that breaks the boundaries of the imagination.

-Memento Mori II: I don't know what happened to the Memento Mori Crew between releasing MM I and MM II, but the second one is a completely different beast than the first one. Both have a really huge and detailed background story on their .TXT but Memento Mori II, probably influenced by TNT: Evilution and Icarus: Alien Vanguard, added a lot of neat details on every map that make for an excellent story. The latter maps offer us some of the most titanic architectures of the time.

-Eternal Doom: Probably the megawad that changed what most people thought of what was the important on a Doom mapset. Even if it almost doesn't play like Doom anymore. Some of the most detailed and interesting maps of the time.

-STRAIN: An anger fueled rampage through enemy terrytory and a lot of details and interesting maps to tell a good story after the events of the original Doom 2.

-Mordeth: We are still waiting for you, dear @Mordeth. We are still waiting for the full experience you let us have a glimpse long ago. Detailed as hell, awesome maps, awesome dehacked work. 6 Maps to rule over all.

-The Talosian Incident - A Requiem for Doom: Huge back story, one of the best atmospheric soundtrack, along a world full of mysteries. The Black Star Coven were geniuses of atmosphere and details.

-The Invasion: This is kinda what Ultimate Doom would be if it was made by Team TNT (Paul Fleschute was a member of Team TNT :). Awesome maps, but start to run out of gas on the last part of Ep.3 and on all Ep.4. Fun, challenging and with really good details and story.

-Mars War: A hidden gem non less. A one man megawad. Whats this? Well, take all the bad mapping design desicions and make something good with that. Not only good, satirical, political, historical, and atmospheric as hell.

 

-Batman Doom: It may not be the good old Doomguy against demonic entities, but Batman surely pack a punch on this awesome mapset, full of detailed and realistic areas, a lot of dehacked trickery and a really good story.

-Demonfear: A detailed overview of every map made a really interesting story. Accompany that with semi realistic maps with tons of sense of place, short and punchy and hell of fun, and you have a killer combination. One of the most fun mapsets that, even to these days, continue influencing people around the world. Even without my own MidiPack, it offer an excellent experience.

-Equinox: No backstory at all, no map names, no info. But one can't simply deny the inmersive story this mapset offers. Outstanding without words!

-Revolution!: When this mapset was release, a lot of people feel that it wasn't just a good detailed mapset, no. There is a really intresting story behind it. And when the MidiPack was released, Thomas van der Velden added a dehacked story that told us one of the better ones out there.

-Fragport: The UltimateDoomer was an excellent mapper even before winning two cacowards. But this mapset still remains as just an ugly hidden gem. Ugly because there are not much texture variety and a lot of monotexturing. But that made a cohesive look throught all the mapset. And hidden gem because its an awesome and challenging mapset with a great story and neat details on every map. A gem is a gem, no matter how dirty or ugly it may look.

 

-Alien Vendetta: Combine the awe inspiring maps of Eternal Doom with the monster dense challenging maps of Hell Revealed and you come to something near of what Alien Vendetta is, just near, because no matter how we look at it, Alien Vendetta is far more of what we can grasp at first. A total adventure like no other, atmospheric heavily detailed and with threats that cast away also the most veteran Doomers.

-2002: A Doom Odyssey: Combine the abstract design of the original IWADs, sprinkle it with just a few realistic areas, make a killer soundtrack, add a good simple backstory and you have an instant classic. More in line with the Orphic myth than with the Odyssey, but well, the similarities are there ;)

-System Vices: Quircky and cheesey, but new textures and sprites take us into a new world. Really interesting, even when it may feel unfinished.

-Vile Flesh: Gwynn Williams loved Eternal Doom, and Vile Flesh shows that. Gigantic maps, awesome details, interesting story, and the most wonderful music.

-Suspended in Dusk: Four maps of sheer atmosphere, realistic enivonment and awesome design. Espi was a mapping god!

-Armadosia - The Mad Corridor: Even after the 10th years anniversary update it still feels unfinished. There is no map names, no new music, just a few (in french) new textures. But that doesn't stope the maps from being some of the most atmospheric and massive out there.

-Scientist 2: Don't be confuse by the title, this is the full Scientist experience as Scientis 1 just have the first 11 maps. This expanded (kinda) sequel add 9 maps of awesome details and amazing must-be-seen-to-believe vanilla effects. A mix between Revolution! well looking areas and Fragport sheer massive and detailed maps.

-EPIC: Eternal hold his influences on his nickname, but he take it further adding his outstanding hand draw art and making some of the most realistic and well looking maps of the time. On 5 maps, Eternal give us just a glimpse of what would be his future endeauvors.

-Hell Ground: Another boom mapset by Eternal, but this time oozying mystery and creepyness as no other. 7 maps of massive detailed areas and oniric realms.

-Whispers of Satan: Paul Cofiatis and Kristian Aro are a match made in heaven as their maps complement each other like brea and butter. Abstract semi realistic and all in between with good details, interesting progression, good looking areas and fun challenge without being harsh on the players.

-UAC Ultra: detailed, atmospheric, good looking and interesting story. Only 11 maps, but damn good for sure!

-Speed of Doom: short punchy and really challenging maps. Cheesy story, but great sense of preogression on every map.

-EPIC 2: Eternal magnum opus. Mix the awesome sightseeing maps of Eternal Doom with the sheer awesome and challenging maps of Alien Vendetta and you have something to what Eternal achieved with this mapset.

-Doom 2 Reloaded: This is what Doom 2 would be if Team TNT had done it and had the time to make almost a full set of textures. Linear? And hell of fun! Some awesome ideas on mapping here, I never seen anywhere else.

-Doom Core: Undeniably influenced by Team TNT and old mapsets, Valkiriforce give us the first entry of a trilogy to come. Big and semirealistic maps with neat details, and good backstory. There is a 10th annyversary edition in the name of Doom Core Delta that overhauls some maps and add several new ones along a new status bar and a dehacked patch.

-Reverie: Second entry on Valkiriforce trilogy of old school influenced mapsets. This one tells a really good story and has an awesome gameplay full of detailed and interesting maps. And the music, oh the music. Primeval kicked some awesome tunes!

-Jenesis: Influenced, on Jimmy words by Scientist 2 and the mapsets that defined the adventure and challenge of the old days like Alien Vendetta and Scythe 2, this mapset shows an awesome progression full of details and brilliant design of challenging maps.

-Doom 2 Redux: Good design and atmospheric take on Doom 2 vanilla maps using Boom features to enhance the experience..

-Sacrament: First serious endeavour of the Clan [B0S], they offered us not only a mind bending experience with glimpses of what they will make later, they showed us an ultra realistic environment as almost no other mapset ever done. Oozying atmosphere on every map, Sacrament is a mapset to play again and again for sure.

-Eternally Yours: last entry on the old school trilogy by Valkiriforce.

-A.L.T.: We may never know what was the original story Azamael intended for this megawad, but Lainos and Beewen transformed it onto the most mind fucking experience out there to this day. Massive maps that may represent a spiritual journey, or just second before thy flesh gets consumed.

-Back To Saturn X - Ep.1: Get out of my Station: Techbase is never enough may have though Esselfortium while being in awe looking at Suspended in Dusk by Espi. So she started to make new textures, thousand of them. And then, she made awesome maps, but that not enough, she made perfect music, and some awesome mappers joined her and make and awesome, challenging, atmospheric and nostalgic hell of a megawad.

-Unholy Realms: Simple story, awesome maps, outstanding details, sheer awesome music.

-Interception: Heavily influenced by Team TNT, Moustachio made a community project that becomes and awesome vanilla mapset full of interesting and detailed maps and cool progression.

-Hadephobia: Take a bunch of fiction writers, and made them wrote a good and inmersive story for Doom, then map that story. Progressive Fiction on it name, Hadephobia plays good and offers masterfully creepy and detailed maps (bonus lost song for those who want it)

-Hellbound: A reimagining of Doom 2, on the same style of Doom 2 Reloaded but going full blown to the realistic side. Some impressive sights and creepy areas here.

-ConC.E.R.Ned: A really cool and awesome mapset full of neat ideas and interesting details mixing the abstract and the semirealistic. This get kinda a remake on the Return to Hadron Serie, and then Thy Flesh turned into a Draft-Excluder come to complete them all.

-Going Down: Oh Mouldy, your obsession with repetition and fragmentation becomes such an amazing and joke-ish mapset at the same time. Only true geniuses could blend the laugh and the fear the way you did. Chaotic Evil alignements mapsets are just a few and scarce, hope more mappers take your torch, Mouldy.

-Back to Saturn X - Ep.2: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks: Starting just where the first ep. ended, this take the vanilla experience far beyond of what we all expected, adding more locales to visit making for a more varied look full of rich designs, compelling story, and amazing details.

-Bloody Steel: Modern settings are not something seen much around, and so, the particular and atonishing visuals this mapset achieve are far beyond awesome. A really industrial and rusty feel that goes deep down into decay and depression. Awesome and mesmerizing experience.

-Whitemare 2: While the first Whitemare had a loose storyline, this winter/christmas speedmapping session from the Russian community take it seriously and take us into a journey through ice lands, snowy mountain ranges, and buried ancient civilizations. Awesome atmosphere, and really good challenge.

-Doom 2 In Name Only: A completely community dividing mapset. Some find it awe inspiring, some find it nothing like Doom 2. The truth is that this reimagination of what the maps would look like by trying to conceive the name of the map on them, is far more fitting as a story driven mapset than the original game. Detailed, atmospheric, those maps are of mindbending nature, properly adapting the Sandy's surreal take of Doom 2.

-NOVA: The Birth: One amateur mapper made a succeful community project. Thats not only a great achievement, is a great proof of what passion can achieve. Full of first timers and a few veterans, this maps take us through different locales full of details and interesting visuals. Like a time gate to the first years of mapping.

-Doom: Flashback To Hell: Interesting mapset with neat details, but a bit linear and repetitive, even tho, it offers a good challenge with hints of pregression on it. The backstory is huge, but there not much of that on the mapset, still it offers a really satisfying experience.

 

-Countdown to Extinction: Short and really challenging speedmapset. But they are also gimmicky, with some neat details for speedmaps of just one hour and with an interesting backstory.

-Swift Death: Compact and deadly, being the puppet, the toy for the amusement of an evil god doesn't feel good at all. Another Chaotic Evil mapset for sure. The more i go into it the more near to rage quiting i am. Charming experience, even when there are not that much details, the text screens help us get in the mood.

-Valiant: Skillsaw was a member of Team TNT, and the abstract semi realistic trademark of them is on his DNA. Valiant is an awesome mapset not to be taking lightly. Through subtle details, Skillsaw told us an amazing sci-fy story.

 

-Sinister Seven: Sequel to UAC Rebellion. Punchy and to the point with a good backstory. Sweet maps that blend some abstract and semi realistic designs.

-Ancient Aliens: Skillsaw did it again. His sci-fy stories are the best. And we are more than willing to play them, even if it mean to suffer, duffer a lot. Details, inventive, atmosphere and a spiritual voyage of knowledge. The stunning music and the awe inspiring visuals thanks to that modified playpal, are what gives this mapset an otherworldy look never seen before.

-Nihility: Infinite Teeth: Years is a rare speci(wo)men between us. Come out of nowhere and made this creepy and atmospheric episode long mapset. There are promises of more to come, but i already lose my teeth trembling with this amazing maps.

-Mutiny: Dystopian settings are atractive for sure, and Mutiny revive the good old feel of mapsets like Dystopia 3, STRAIN, and HacX. Awesome detailed maps full of incredible visuals on a seriously interesting aesthetic. And it even has a good backstory like the good old days!

-Alpha Accident: Terra Nova: @Wraith777 is a master of analisis and atmosphere. Every detail is studied for an specific effect, and we can't help ourselves and fall to them. Detailed, gourgeous design, an a story that promise to get even better. Hope you continue it, pal!

-Comatose: One map, just one map. There more hidden details on this map than in all the heaven of mapsets, my good Lainos. Thanks for this.

-Bloodstain: Simple and to the point, but not for that less fun and less atmospheric. This mapset is a complete adventure like good old mapsets made in the old days.

-THT: Threnody: Ty Haldermann was a pilar of this community, much may don't know it, but he was not only the administrator of Idgames, he also led Team TNT on their mapping projects. Thanks to his vision we have outstanding design and mapsets far beyond what he could had imagined. And this mapset is a love letter, and homenage to this great man.

-The Journey: A hidden gem for sure. Short and punchy maps, with lot of neat details and awesome atmosphere to spice things up. Amazing art for sure and some really interesting ideas to play.

 

-Urania: One may think that blending the detailed and massive maps of Eternal Doom with the action packed gameplay of Plutonia may be impossible. Well, think twice. Urania is that, with and excellent sense of place, amazing and intrincate interconnected maps, lost of puzzles, and awesome backstory.

-Tangerine Nightmare: the sheer amount of details and esoteric imagery on this mapset made us feel shivers on our spines. Visually impressive, challenging like no other. This mapsets is a hidden gem that needs more and more recognition. The realm of Goetia seems as scary as it is atractive.

-No End In Sight: NaturalTvventy made outstanding maps, we all know that, but this mapset catapulted him to the major leagues of mapping gods. The details here are far from simple, and we can't stop getting amazed by the sheer amount of creativity and sense of place this maps give us. Xaser and Lutz are the best sidekicks he could have needed. Thanks Xaser for the good laugh at tension peak, you are a kidder for sure ;)

-TNT: Revilution: The struggle behind this mapset is only surpassed by the sheer atmosphere and awesomeness it achieved. At first it feels more like Back To Saturn X, but later, Kyka and company submerge us into the drenched and muddy atmosphere of the good old TNT: Evilution. Awesome visuals accompannied by the best soundtrack to date. TNT will always be Forever!

-Legacy of Heroes: this was the year of TNT styled mapsets. And this one is no exception. With a really good sense of place, this mapset take us into a time voyage as the good old Eternal Doom. But the level of detailing if bigger here, and the maps are on par, if not better, to the source material. A total homenage for the legacy of those TNT heroes.

 

-Counterattack: 7 absolutely realistically detailed maps of awesome gameplay. And a really coold backstory for sure.

-The Given: A gigantic map, a clear homenage, and a puzzleish monsterless adventure, that even without demonic threat, send us chills down our spines.

-Saturnine Chapel: Fear instilled through our bloodless veins is now what dominate us, what corrupt us knee deep into our core.

-Moonblood: Not at first a storydriven mapset, but there are neat details and marked progression that hints a backstory. Interesting and good challenge. But the Jovian Palette may cast some players away.

-Avactor: End of the Fifth Circle: deep into the jungle lies a temple... No, i won't do it. Go find it yourself, this mapset is a complete journey, a descent into dark regions.

-Struggle: Antaresian Legacy: Amazing aesthetic with like 50  shades of blue, marvelous interconnected maps, and new weapons to kill those demons. A total experience along an amazing story of survival through a catastrophe.

-REKKR: what can we say of the best and most atmospheric mapset of the recent times? Mysterious, enthralling, awe inspiring, challenging, and detailed like no other.

-Maskim Xul: There is an inescapable need to join Doom to the Yog-Sothotery, and just a few mapset tried it, but this mapset achieve it to great extents, offering us a really deep and inmersive story in the process.

-Exomoon: Deadwing like to reshape his efforts onto better things. And this one is quite an achievement for sure. Moody and challenging, it also offers a good backstory.

-Doom 404: Don't be fooled by the simple aesthetic Adam Windsor aimed for, this mapset is no easy ride. Some of the most devilish monster placements and carefully designed maps to kill the players, all accompanied with a really good and interesting story and some neat PC internal structure jokes.
 

-Atonement: @Moustachio lone project is a mapset to be reckoned with. Using the Community Chest 4 Texture Pack, and making some seriously deadly abstract but with a lot of sense of place maps, he tells us a really awesome story about a scientific incident that brought us the invasion. And we are the ones to blame for it. Taking guns in hand, we try to clean our own mistake. There is a third part in development, and probably more to come.

 

-Eviternity: No backstory, but the loose narrative map per map, and those interesting text screens, surely add to the amazing adventurous sense of the mapset.

-Lost Civilization: titanic effort, full of amazing details and a really good story. The realistic environment really make for an inmersive experience.

-DBP16: Cyb's Freaky Colonoscopy: This mapset is one of those few rare gems that appear quite in a while. Serious joke wads that not only make us laugh with it goofy nature, it also left us in awe with the amazing visuals and the sheer challenge. The story may be the best ever writen to this day.

-Doom Zero: naming itself as a long lost third part of Final Doom, this mapset take us into familiar, yet surprisingly fresh locales, combining good details, puzzle-ish maps awesome challenge, and a sense of place, even on the more abstract maps, like the best on the good original IWADs. This mapset is so good, that it is now accepted as a proper Id Software release.

-Rowdy Rudy's Revenge: Like a time machine to the good old days, this dehacked mapsets offers us a great challenge, detailed and interesting maps, and a backstory that really put us onto the character itself.

 

-Sargasso: Valkiriforce loves Star Fox it seems. He love it soo much he made a little mapset inspired on it. Massive maps with tons of detailings and dehacked enemies.

-Rowdy Rudy II: Powertrip: The sequel to a great throw back to the dehacked heavy forays of the old days. Making better what was already made on the first, and telling us how things continue for our good Rudy.
 

-Three is a Crowd: Three protagonist, three pawns on a bigger game they don't understand. Detailed, mindbending, uniquely abstract and atmospheric, and most importantly, the most elaborate storydriven mapset to this day.

 

-25 Years on Earth: Cheese and funny, this mapset take a reallistic approach to mapping, but don't have problem adding some neat abstract designs to the mix. A really nostalgia trip to the first years of Doom, and quite challenging, too.

-CPD: An out of nowhere amazing mapset. Awesome and detailed maps action packed to the limit and telling and interesting story that may touch those who know what a Continuous Professional Development is. And suffer, oh yes, and suffer what it is.

 

-2048 Units of /vr/: For a community project that has a limitation to the playing area, this mapset has an interesting progression with detailed maps, awesome sense of place, and really neat mbf dehacked weapons, and some interesting and nice boom enhanced features for the maps.

-Ray Mohawk's Manic Monday: Doomkid is not a man anymore, he is a time machine to our childhood. And on this 6 maps, he offers us a nostalgia trip pink flavored on oola oola suits. Rejoyce old friends. The trip is worth the play.

-Interception 2: This sequel went full onto the bigger and more detailed way. Every map is moody and challenging offering and awesome experience for sure.

-CABIN: Seven creepy maps of serious fear inducing corridors full of darkness, creepy moanings and threating monsters. Excellent narrative, may need a little more variety on monsters, but awesome experience as no other. One of the few mapsets that is centered on be fear inducing.

 

-Hellevator: This is a weird case where a speedmapping community project has a well rounded and defined narrative. Centered on a building, every floor is a map. Sounds familiar? Its pure coincidence. We are going up here, up into hellish realms. A mapsets full of neat and detailed areas, creepy moments, and cohesive narrative.
(Bonus Status Bar made by me for this project)

 

-Doom: Damnation: @Ofisil come back in 2021 to mapping and expanded his original 2014 3 episode megawad for Ultimate Doom into a complete 4 episodes replacement for Ultimate Doom. The maps are rich in details and continuity, oozing atmosphere as no other mixing excellent semi reallistic areas with pure abstract design, and acomppanied by the most awesome soundtrack ever for a megawad. The originallity and uniqueness of this megawad is something rarelly seen around here. Top notch material!

*-----------------------------------*
         -Especial Mention-

*-----------------------------------*

 

-Hell To Pay: Wraith Corporation was made, mostly, by members of Team TNT, so the influence of this mapset is right up there. This is probably, one of the most narrative driven mapsets ever made. Beside the intermission images that help to move forward the narrative map per map, every maps oozes lots of details and atmosphere to the point that one can simply forget its a vanilla mapset. There are some outstanding trickeries that made the inmersion really deep, and then adventure feel is just amazing.

-Perdition's Gate: Tom Mustain along his father made the true lost third Final Doom chapter. Unfortunatelly, the window of oportunity to submit it for Final Doom closed and so he offered this awesome mapset to Wraith Corp. It end coming out with Hell To Pay, becoming somewhat an alternate version of Final Doom.
Short and really punchy and challenging maps with lots of good non intrusive details that move forward the narrative. Along the text on the intermission screens this mapset is truly story driven.

 

-HacX: Doom was alway about a sci fy marine facing hordes of demonic entities. But HacX let us be a cyber reconstructed hacker against a megacorporation and a IA going rampage. Cyberpunk is the theme, and it perfectly achieved on this mapset. Unfortunatelly, it is kinda unfinished, and may need some polish on the sprite area, but it offers a really good and atmospheric experience, that, someday, may be fully completed.

 

-Doom 64: After long years of waiting, we are now able to play an excellent port of this forgotten gem on modern OSs. Probably the most enhanced Doom Engine that is still Doom to its core. Atmospheric, creepy, atonishing, an excellent mapset for sure.

I will be adding more and more, so feel free to share your experiences and recommendations ;)

Edited February 14, 2021 by P41R47

[KeaganDunn]

It'd be a sin if Going Down was not included on this list. :)

[Omniarch]

20 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

So after playing for long time, i realice that my favourite wads were those that has a proper and cohesive narrative that blended the action and the atmosphere to achieve a great an specific effect on the player. Some wads made it far better than others out there, so i will try to make a list of those that i think show undeniable signs of a pregressive fiction being told through all the mapset.

So much of this! To me, a sense of place and narrative is vital to a truly great dooming experience. To that end, I have a couple of recommendations for the list:

 

No End In Sight: my favourite megawad (yes, I am a broken record, sue me). To me, NEIS is the megawad that executes Ultimate Doom's thematic arc the best, taking the player on an epic adventure across worlds and dimensions. A true epic, conveyed entirely without words (the tongue-in-cheek text screens don't count, sorry Xaser :P).

 

Three is a Crowd: honestly, I'm surprised you forgot this one, given that you and I seem to be its biggest fans ;) 3IAC has the strongest sense of narrative out of any megawad I've played, especially impressive given that it does it's own thing rather than relying on existing nostalgia. I was genuinely invested in the fate of the three protagonists, and the ending actually resonated with me (hard, given my unemotional, unsentimental personality). It has tension, plot-twists, tragedy and narrative pay-off.

[Rytrik]

49 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

But all of use suffer the rich atmosphere of dread and decay at E1M8: Phobos Anomaly, we all feel powerless at the feets of those Bruiser Brothers, and we all struggle to understand that enigmatic ending.

 

 

*pulls out his rocket launcher with 80 rockets* 

I mean.... 'powerless' might not be the most accurate word for how I feel on E1M8 against the Bruiser Brothers..

Edited January 5, 2021 by Rytrik

[Michael Jensen]

These kinds of maps are my favourite. WADs that only care about action get boring quickly, and have almost no replay value for me.

 

You made a very cohesive list, the only one not featured I can think of right now is Going Down. That one is one of the best. 

 

I really wish you were making maps, we have very similar taste in wads. I'd definitely enjoy them.

[Dimon12321]

I never tried to understand much from custom Doom wads, even those which I liked to play. Because 4-5 victory screens are simply not enough to tell what's going on.

ZDoom WADs is another thing because the story can be easily put in cutscenes via dialogs, for example. Town Infection was my first WAD which put some accent on the story, but then I returned to Boom/Vanilla wads and forgot about such things as stories in Doom until Rowdy Rudy 2 where the story was written in a README file and I read it, and I like it.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Dimon12321

[galileo31dos01]

I remember Flashback to Hell came with probably the longest story of all wads I've played that didn't structure the context on a map-to-map basis. CABIN, although not a megawad, is another example -- full narrative, you lack something if you don't read it beforehand. 

 

"The Journey", on the other side, comes with brief texts apart for each map that you can read or not (if you don't want to be spoiled). Perdition's Gate and Hell 2 Pay include them in the tally screens. 

[Pechudin]

Hey

 

hey

 

you CANNOT mention narrative and immersion and not include A.L.T. or Sacrament. Russians really make good narrative-driven stuff.

[Doomkid]

I’ve always been a big fan of narrative in a wad, be it implied or explicit. Most of the greats have already been named here, and I know you said no ZDoom wads, but surely the Action Dooms warrant a mention. Even one of the worst wads, Doom Rampage Edition, was hyped up to the max before release partially because it was story-heavy which was (and still is) uncommon in Doom.

 

Yeah, story matters to me, even if it’s something campy. I mean, it should be, Doom itself is campy!

 

UAC Rebellion from 2009 follows a slightly insane marine who works for the UAC realising they’re sacrificing their own men for experimentation and decides to try and destroy the operation from within by simply killing everyone. (Bit extreme of him, huh?)

 

Point of Contention is a DM wad I made in 2015 where one player is the captain of a small vessel adrift in space that is boarded by a space pirate (the other player) and they must fight to the death for dominion over the ship.

 

Doomed in Space from 2018 is about a genetically modified super soldier who is the result of experimentation (loosely following from the thread of UAC Rebellion). He escapes captivity, steals what he can in the way of goods, weapons and space crafts from the UAC, then takes down several of their bases of operation scattered across the galaxy before finally stealing one of their largest war vessels, the SKREE, and taking off to the deps of space for his next adventure.

 

Rowdy Rudy I and II follow a conspiracy theorist ex-marine who’s brother ends up dying due to an explosion in the city. Rudy realises this was caused by a growing mob of insane cultists. He has to take them down, then use their spirit world portal to go to hell and destroy the source of the evil leaking into the real world. After such a hard job he attempts to retire, but is then pressured into taking on another, much harder job of containing an outbreak of aliens and mutants that were held in captivity by the UAC. When he completes this mission, he finally gets to retire.

 

In Ray Mohawk’s Manic Monday, it’s all about a new fuel being discovered called “Nukage” which had unforeseen long-term ecological effects (see: turning most humans and animals into bloodthirsty zombies). Ray never trusted Nukage, so he was halfway prepared already. Despite being a drunkard, he (violently) makes his way to the heart of UAC to give them a stern talking to and finger-wagging about all this zombie business. He instead finds a bunch of demons which he promptly kills, and is thanked by the prestigious General Kawasaki for his hard work.

 

These all could have just been run of the mill stories of demon invasion, but that tale gets a bit old after a while.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Doomkid

[Boomdav]

Winter Fury tells a really cool story through cutscenes and the atmosphere of the frozen uac outpost on the mountain

[P41R47]

2 hours ago, Dunn & Dunn said:

It'd be a sin if Going Down was not included on this list. :)

 

1 hour ago, A.H. Sankhatayan said:

You made a very cohesive list, the only one not featured I can think of right now is Going Down. That one is one of the best. 

 

2 hours ago, Omniarch said:

No End In Sight: my favourite megawad (yes, I am a broken record, sue me). To me, NEIS is the megawad that executes Ultimate Doom's thematic arc the best, taking the player on an epic adventure across worlds and dimensions. A true epic, conveyed entirely without words (the tongue-in-cheek text screens don't count, sorry Xaser :P).

 

Three is a Crowd: honestly, I'm surprised you forgot this one, given that you and I seem to be its biggest fans ;) 3IAC has the strongest sense of narrative out of any megawad I've played, especially impressive given that it does it's own thing rather than relying on existing nostalgia. I was genuinely invested in the fate of the three protagonists, and the ending actually resonated with me (hard, given my unemotional, unsentimental personality). It has tension, plot-twists, tragedy and narrative pay-off.

Obviously those will be included ;)

i just wanted to hit the bed a little, i miss it  hahaha

Thats why i left blank space, i only take a look to my folder up to 2013, i will continue it now 

Thanks anyway for the recommendations :D

 

2 hours ago, Rytrik said:

*pulls out his rocket launcher with 80 rockets* 

I mean.... 'powerless' might not be the most accurate word for how I feel on E1M8 against the Bruiser Brothers..

I played it for the first time when i was 4 years old. And even when i had the RL, i died to the splash damage a lot as i didn't know the proper distance i needed to use them. So yes, even with the RL, i feel powerless. I didn0t even know that those funny phrases that appear after the episode selection were the difficulty setting, so i played on the one that sounded most badass of all: Ultra-Violence.
Playing only arrows and keys, and didn't knowing how to strafe. THAT was a rewarding experience for sure.

When the wall started to come down, i expected more and more monsters out there...but there was nothing. Nothing.

Just a tiny structure that after activating it become a stairway.

If i killed the the Bruiser Bros. with the RL, i killed myself then when i first step into that teleporter.

To this day, i stil remember the darkness, the ravaging sounds, and the demons screetching loud as i died.
 

1 hour ago, A.H. Sankhatayan said:

I really wish you were making maps, we have very similar taste in wads. I'd definitely enjoy them.

Someday, pal! Me not mapping still to this day is half i want to achieve others things before IRL and half fear to the frustration of learning my way onto the builder :P
I'm a Slow Learner, for sure.
 

4 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

I remember Flashback to Hell came with probably the longest story of all wads I've played that didn't structure the context on a map-to-map basis. CABIN, although not a megawad, is another example -- full narrative, you lack something if you don't read it beforehand. 

 

"The Journey", on the other side, comes with brief texts apart for each map that you can read or not (if you don't want to be spoiled). Perdition's Gate and Hell 2 Pay include them in the tally screens. 

 

2 minutes ago, Pechudin said:

Hey

 

hey

 

you CANNOT mention narrative and immersion and not include A.L.T. or Sacrament. Russians really make good narrative-driven stuff.

Oh, Flashback to Hell, i completely forget about it, thanks for that, pal! ;)
The others are right on my head list to-be-included, especially the Russian community mapsets, and i was going to include the WraithCorp. Wads as special mentions as they are the epitome of narrative driven megawads.

[P41R47]

 

8 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I’ve always been a big fan of narrative in a wad, be it implied or explicit. Most of the greats have already been named here, and I know you said no ZDoom wads, but surely the Action Dooms warrant a mention. Even one of the worst wads, Doom Rampage Edition, was hyped up to the max before release partially because it was story-heavy which was (and still is) uncommon in Doom.

 

Yeah, story matters to me, even if it’s something campy it silly.

There are plenty of excellent zdoom base ports specific mapsets i could list, like: Cold As Hell, Unloved, Chosen, Winter's Fury, etc.

Obviously Action Doom & Urban Brawl were some of my favourite mapsets, but i grow so dissatisfied with ZDoom base ports after years of struggling with them, that, when i came back to a more conservative port (not that conservative as it doesn't have demo compatibility) like Doom Retro, i almost totally forgot all those years of crashings and bad coding i made on countless mods i erase one day in total rage.
Some times i remember Cold As Hell and give it a try on GZDoom 2.2, but they feel really alien to me right now. I love that mods like that exist, but they become something more, far more than the simple old Doom that has a Circle like map to tell us what O of Destruction means :P

UAC Rebellion is one that seems could be totally vanilla experience. Hope you decide someday to dehack that mapset for posterity ;)

All your others mapset, save for Doomed on Space, are included right now, pal!

Glad you enjoyed silly and campy stories, too. They give me serious laugh attacks.

May i included Wow.wad? masterfully atmospheric map.

Oh Rampage! You open a years long open scar :P
 

16 minutes ago, Boomdav said:

Winter Fury tells a really cool story through cutscenes and the atmosphere of the frozen uac outpost on the mountain

Thanks for the recommendation, pal!
I love Winter's Fury, but since zdoom allows for tell wichever story possible you could ever think with just a little coding, i prefer to stick with the vanilla to boom/mbf mapsets out there as they are still forced to tell their story like the original games. Thats it, with details and a few text screens.

[taufan99]

Wish the thread did not list only megawads. Otherwise I'd suggest ZanZan TC by the legendary ACE Team. Extremely short with only 3 maps, but very imaginative and contains different endings based on your acts within the TC.

[P41R47]

2 hours ago, InDOOMnesia said:

Wish the thread did not list only megawads. Otherwise I'd suggest ZanZan TC by the legendary ACE Team. Extremely short with only 3 maps, but very imaginative and contains different endings based on your acts within the TC.

Not only megawads, pal!

But ZanZan is deep into ZDoom, thats why i didn't listed it. I remember loving the atmosphere, the little comic that comes with it, and those gorgeous maps.
Sorry!

[Dexiaz]

Nice list! And it's huge! :0

 

I suggest to check the Legacy of Suffering

 

Plus the Threshold of Pain and Threshold of Pain 2 (unfinished)

 

And also the atmospheric Demons of Problematique and Demons of Problematique 2

 

BTW, there is a small and fun story-based megawad about Mancubus (but he uses normal weapons o_O) - Captain Mancubus

Edited January 6, 2021 by Dexiaz

[P41R47]

7 hours ago, Dexiaz said:

Nice list! And it's huge! :0

 

I suggest to check the Legacy of Suffering

 

Plus the Threshold of Pain and Threshold of Pain 2 (unfinished)

 

And also the atmospheric Demons of Problematique and Demons of Problematique 2

 

BTW, there is a small and fun story-based megawad about Mancubus (but he uses normal weapons o_O) - Captain Mancubus

Thanks for the recommendations, pal!

Those are really good narrative experiences for sure, Innocense X serie and Eternal Doom IV and Daedalus: Alien Defense fit that place long all of them, too.

But i decided to let the zdoom bade mods out of the list as is far easier to achieve atmosphere with all the scripting and enhanced features at hand.

[P41R47]

20 hours ago, Dimon12321 said:

I never tried to understand much from custom Doom wads, even those which I liked to play. Because 4-5 victory screens are simply not enough to tell what's going on.

ZDoom WADs is another thing because the story can be easily put in cutscenes via dialogs, for example. Town Infection was my first WAD which put some accent on the story, but then I returned to Boom/Vanilla wads and forgot about such things as stories in Doom until Rowdy Rudy 2 where the story was written in a README file and I read it, and I like it.

Same happened to me a few years back.

I play Doom since it was released, and i played, thanks to those wad collections Cd-Roms, most of the top 100 mapsets.

I found a few more of those Cds and friend share them with me and i made quite a collection throught time.

And i really enjoyed them.

Then i found Zdoom, Massmouth, Cold As Hell, Chosen, Grove, and a lot of really good and story driven mapsets. I was mesmerized by all those new possibilities.

But a few years back, my PC started to have problems with more recent builds of GZDoom, so i had to come back to another port of choice. I found in Doom Retro just what i needed. And i started replaying all those beloved mapsets i played when i was a kid and during my teenage years.

And damn!

There where no scripting, no enhanced lighting, 3D bridges, but damn!

Those mapset enthralled me way mora than all those awesome mods.

Why? because there was no enhanced features, all the atmosphere, all the creepiness, all the mystery and contextual narrative was only achieved with sector detailing, texture placement and sector lighting. The basic Doom features.

So i started studying the far reaches and possibilities of the original Doom Engine to tell good stories, and the slighty enhanced ports of Limit Removing and Boom/MBF.

 

This list is my study.

Its nothing new for sure, as almost all these mapset are well known.

But no body listed them before as Narrative Style Mapsets.

Just as really good megawads.

 

[Deadwing]

I love some environmental storytelling, stuff like Dark Souls ou Hyper Light Drifter. Stuff that you see in the map and the game lets you use the imagination to try have a picture of what happened.

 

It's quite hard to create a compelling story with only some paragraphes and run away from "monsters invaded UAC buildings" template. Still, as the player progress through the maps in a WAD, as a creator, you can definitely create some sort of build-up that leads to a climax, in one map or through several of them. Also, you can have some sort of message like the early Arachnotron map in Ancient Aliens, or create very specific landscapes that heavily implies a story, sometimes even enemy/item placement.

 

With that approach you can create a more interesting context even if the main plot remains "you arrive in a invaded UAC base and kill demons"

[P41R47]

2 hours ago, Deadwing said:

I love some environmental storytelling, stuff like Dark Souls ou Hyper Light Drifter. Stuff that you see in the map and the game lets you use the imagination to try have a picture of what happened.

 

It's quite hard to create a compelling story with only some paragraphes and run away from "monsters invaded UAC buildings" template. Still, as the player progress through the maps in a WAD, as a creator, you can definitely create some sort of build-up that leads to a climax, in one map or through several of them. Also, you can have some sort of message like the early Arachnotron map in Ancient Aliens, or create very specific landscapes that heavily implies a story, sometimes even enemy/item placement.

 

With that approach you can create a more interesting context even if the main plot remains "you arrive in a invaded UAC base and kill demons"

 

Yeah, thats what i'm talking about. :D

Thats the stuff i like, too.

And the possibilities are somewhat infinite.

All depends on what the author wants to tell.

 

[BigBoy91]

Very well written! Glad to see Hell to Pay *kinda* make the list. That was the first WAD that came to mind as soon as I saw this thread.

[P41R47]

1 hour ago, CleaverHeaver said:

Very well written! Glad to see Hell to Pay *kinda* make the list. That was the first WAD that came to mind as soon as I saw this thread.

Hey!

Thanks for the compliment!
I'm not a native speaker, so what you say means a lot to me. :)

Even tho i know there are some mistakes here and there.

Thanks again for your kind words ;)

[BigBoy91]

2 hours ago, P41R47 said:

Thanks again for your kind words ;)

This was an awesome post, and I appreciate the effort you put into it. Cheers bro.

[Boomdav]

Very well written indeed.Even if the mapset is gzdoomish,i would recommand the entire TEmple of the Lizardmen series for the atmosphere,nice story and for exapanding the temple theme

[Gez]

How comes Three's a Crowd is not listed in there? The most narratively narrative mod that ever narratived for vanilla Doom.

[P41R47]

3 hours ago, Gez said:

How comes Three's a Crowd is not listed in there? The most narratively narrative mod that ever narratived for vanilla Doom.

err... its narratively narratived and properly narrated right there, pal!

Near the end of the list.

[MrFlibble]

Thanks for all the effort put into compiling this list! This deserves being bookmarked.

[P41R47]

12 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

Thanks for all the effort put into compiling this list! This deserves being bookmarked.

 

Thanks for the comment, pal! :D

Glad you liked it ;)

[BlueThunder]

Nice list,  Alot of interesting wads to try out that I would probably never have come across otherwise.

[P41R47]

12 minutes ago, BlueThunder said:

Nice list,  Alot of interesting wads to try out that I would probably never have come across otherwise.

Glad you like it :D

I'm slowly expanding it, adding more and more little mapsets and solitary maps that may tell a good story.

[Hazel-Rah]

This thread is amazing. I love story/atmosphere and exploration in videogames so i'll definitely have to check these mods out