Making sense out of the Doom 2 levels

[SaladBadger]

glenzinho said:

Map 14 has got me fucked... Waiting to see a good explanation!

Could be ruins, maybe. The demons do seem pretty drawn to things with some religious significance, and definitely seem to put priority in subverting these locations, its possible its some sort of ancient ruined religious site kept around as some sort of monument, and the demons swiftly came in and built their own things into it

[glenzinho]

The map is just so outta place between the 2 Romero grand city maps that it's always been odd for me... Water dam reservoir won't cut it at this point, we've achieved much more!

[VGamingJunkie]

Judging by the level name, The Inmost Dens, it might have been a village that the demons swiftly took over and turned it into a Den of their own to utilize as a kind of living quarters. Probably located between the two cities.

[Angry Saint]

Maybe Map 14 is an archeiological area filled with water? Or an old fortification system with moats?

[shotfan]

glenzinho said:

The map is just so outta place between the 2 Romero grand city maps that it's always been odd for me... Water dam reservoir won't cut it at this point, we've achieved much more!

Downtown is Petersen's, Industrial Zone is Romero's.
For me, 14th map is located in some run-down, flooded slums near the shore (of Gulf of Mexico). The big wooden doors that open when you approach them are the flood gates. The cages placed on the southern courtyard used to be small water towers.

Map 15 is located in Port of Houston (Houston being Doomguy's homecity), also on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico - the big water body to the north behind the low stone wall is the Gulf. The castle to the south got brought in by the demons, in the place of a customs house - it is actually the back entrance to Wolfenstein that got transported to Houston too, and that is were maps 31 and 32 are located. The pit in middle of the map is a dry dock, now overtaken by the magma due to demonic presence. The three tall bulidings to the north used to be warehouses, whereas the one in the middle is a corrupted communication tower (or maybe the base of a incomplete gantry crane?). The stone staircase in the north used to lead to the northeastern warehouse, but the catwalk between them fell to the lava and melted. The last building used to be a workshop for building parts of the ships' hull.

[RightField]

I feel map 14 is a luxury billionare villa with the wooden doors being parking garage doors. The two chaingunner cages are actually stripper cages and that area is the party area.

Just think about it:

Spoiler

[VGamingJunkie]

Moving on, I'd say Map 16 Suburbs is as the name suggests, a Suburb that's being influenced by Hell, hence the inferno textures. There could have also been some nuclear dumping nearby, unless that was also brought in by the demons.

[joe-ilya]

MAP16 you start in an abandoned house near a book market surrounded by a manmade barricade designed to protect those two buildings.
The red building is made by demons to storage human flesh and blood for survival purposes or maybe even reproduction purposes. (Think Duke Nukem 3D)
The red key building is an evacuated suburban house with a fire place that releases FIREBLU fire because demons and hell.
The exit place is an electricity generator for the suburbs.

[eargosedown]

Voros said:

How can map31 and map32 be explained rationally in the Doom 2 universe?

Hitler's private lair in hell, filled with the damned souls of other fellow SS?

[dsm]

Castle Wolfenstein, being a fortress of such great evil, was assimilated into Hell, the most sadistic and cruel of its SS guards were given back their Human form (but driven mad, which is why they fire continuously at the player instead of firing in disciplined bursts like they did in Wolf3d).

Also their weaponry was affected by Hellish energies so their bullets became more powerful, making them more equal to the futuristic bullets fired by the Marines in Doom's future setting.

Seeing as Castle Wolfenstein was the most recent addition to Hell prior to the invasions depicted in the Doom games, its dimensional proximity to Earth is closer, so when Hell had broken down the dimensional barriers between Hell and Earth, one such secret rift opened in the Industrial Zone.