Extreme Weapon Pack (EWPACK.WAD)

EXTREME WEAPON PACK
by "Doggo120"

Simply not telling anyone about Extreme Weapon Pack would be the worst offense I could commit. Explaining it before you get a chance to see it yourself would be the second worst. So, gentle reader, before you skim any further, ask yourself: "Do I want to spoil the surprise for myself?" You could load this mod up in ZDoom, very quickly, and discover on your own the twisted secret behind Doggo120's 2013 masterpiece. I guess if you're allergic to ZDoom mods, you wouldn't care to try. However, I IMPLORE you to load Extreme Weapon Pack up and experience it before you take a peek at the man behind the curtain.

Big Woodchip (PH_WDCH3.WAD)

BIG WOODCHIP
by James "Phobus" Cresswell

Big Woodchip, released in 2014, is actually the third entry in a trilogy of wood-textured levels by Doomworld Forum superstar Phobus, "Woodchip" was part of Abyssal Speedmapping Session 2, and the follow-up - "Woodchip Woodchip" - arrived in Abyssal Speedmapping Session 3. While this was originally conceived of as a speedmap, the only thing it truly has in common with the rest of the series is its texture theme. The end result is a limit-removing MAP01 replacement that has more of a traditional map progression than its progenitors, and that's cool, because I usually find myself wishing that the authors of these speedmapping sessions had been given a little more room to really bring the proposed concept to fruition.

Abyssal Speedmapping Session 3 (ABYSPED3.WAD)

Obsidian is a cool dude who has more or less brought speedmapping back to the Doomworld community. I mean, they had the Doomworld Speedmapping Compilations going for awhile, and then the SargeBaldy Speedmapping Compilations, and then BACK to Doomworld for a bit before Obsidian started things up again. Sure, there have been other programs to fill the void since then, especially in places like the Russian Doom Community, but it's cool to have a semi-regular event happening again, especially if it means we get maps the average caliber of these. Abyssal Speedmapping Session 3, released in 2014, heralds the return of a lot of the Session 2 crew, though Osiris has dropped out to make Obsidian the only holdover from Session 1. I also see in the notes that Tarnsman was around but elected to do something completely different.

dead.wire (XA-DWIRE.WAD)

DEAD.WIRE
by Xaser Acheron

I hope you don't think that Xaser's been keeping quiet. He's got his tendrils in a handful of community projects, plus the management of both Doom the Way id Did: The Lost Episodes and No End in Sight. Heck, in 2014, he was one of the unifying forces of Back to Saturn X E2. 2015 wasn't a big year for the X-man, but there was a flurry of standalone releases to drink in, starting with dead.wire. This map was a competitor in Realm667's 2015 Doomja Vu contest, and while it did not bring home the gold, it ALMOST did, and if you load it up in GZDoom you'll quickly see why.

Sheer Poison (SHPO1.WAD)

SHEER POISON
by "Zan-zan-zawa-veia"

Zan-zan-zawa-veia, aka yakfak, is an author who exalts what is now a fringe interest of the Doom community. The wild, freewheeling puzzle boxes of '95 have given way to a commercial sensibility that seems afraid to confront the player in any manner apart from the monsters that litter the digital playgrounds. Enter yakfak, whose ideas betray an alignment rooted in the early days of Dooming, when players had to have patience because there wasn't like twenty years of community mods already released and begging for your attention. Sheer Poison, an E2M1 replacement released in 2015 as a vehicle for the accompanying MIDI, carries a lot of the strange progression that I would associate with... Jim Flynn, for instance, but with a metaphysical presentation entirely its own.

Skulldash (SKULDASH.PK3)

The vast majority of PWADs we see don't really muck with the core format of Doom. Even when we throw true three-dimensional geometry and custom monsters and weapons, you are still working your way toward a finish line of some sort, whether it's a literal line or an exit switch or the death of the Final Boss. Skulldash, a Zandronum megaWAD developed by Joshua O'Sullivan aka "Dragonfly" and released in 2015, has these same conceits, but there is a significant change in what it means to complete a level that shares one aspect of 2014's Doom: The Golden Souls. Specifically, you've got to pick up a certain number of collectibles to make it to each exit. The difference is, you're on a time limit, and when your hourglass runs out, you're dead.

Ol' No Name (OLNONAME.WAD)

The Doom community has produced tons of fantastic texture sets throughout its history. The Darkening's E2 took inspiration from Quake II, but its aesthetics languished in obscurity due to a restrictive clause that prohibited use of its textures... until recently. The only mapset I knew that played with the pack was Yashar Garibzadeh's The Darkening Aftershock, which of course had to be run on top of DARKEN2. This, however, is Ol' No Name, a four-map episode released in 2015 by Doomworld Forum superstar Octavarium. The author exploits its resources at a level as befits The Nameless Project's reputation for vanilla trickery, but in a Boom-compatible context, which adds a little something more.

ICAR2015 (ICAR2015.WAD)

Eternal is Russian's favorite son, a multi-Cacoward toting author with several fetishes, one of them being classic megaWADs - especially in the TNT flavor. It should come as no surprise that he eventually got around to making his loveletter to Icarus: Alien Vanguard, the aptly titled ICAR2015, an eleven-level episode published in 2015 for Doom II that must be run on top of the Icarus megaWAD. As could be expected, this release is completely compatible with vanilla Doom II, not that there's anything stopping you from running it in another source port.