Doom 64: The Lost Levels (DOOM64.WAD)

Samuel Villarreal has had one of Doom's longest and storied love affairs. The object of his affection? Doom 64. Kaiser started out converting its levels or otherwise using them as inspiration for part of his 2000 megaWAD debut, DSV. (Not to forget about the more polished reconstructions in his Console Doom.) He spearheaded the Herculean effort to recreate the entire experience in Doomsday for 2003's Absolution TC. 2011 saw the official release of the next phase of his passion project, the reverse-engineered Doom64 EX source port. It's been clear that some of the developers of Doom 2016 have a lot of love for the largely forgotten '97 release so it's cool to see all this hard work pay off in an official re-release for both consoles and PC using Kaiser's KEX engine, used for some other Night Dive re-publications, as the base. There's slightly more to this story, though - The Lost Levels.

The 2020 port has a seven-level bonus mini-campaign authored by none other than SV himself! This is brand new material that extends out the Doom 64 experience for its lovers, few though they may be due to its cantankerous and sometimes cryptic nature. The new material spans MAP34-MAP40 and doesn't waste any time trying to ease the player in. You get one techbase, four regular Hell levels, a beefy boss encounter, and one of those "fun" challenge maps that could probably have taken off as its own genre. Provided that its laser-focused, arcade-style gameplay didn't clash so hard with the Doom as dungeon crawler meat and potatoes of the 64 iteration.

As far as narrative, The Lost Levels is about as inconsequential as could be expected from a sequel. You are enduring your reign in Hell as the post-64 antibody when a fell power removes you from the inferno, depositing you in an infested UAC outpost. It's the Sister Resurrector, kin to the Mother Demon that kickstarted the carnage that led you to discover the mysterious alien laser and its associated keys. Having made peace with your eternal vigilance, you blaze a punctuated campaign to return to Hell and eliminate the matriarchal marshal before it can stage another invasion into the land of the living.

The episode feels like a fairly accurate synthesis of the coolest aspects of the 1997 sequel as rendered through Kaiser's years of Doom level design experience. "Plant Ops" sets the tone with a complex and highly visually interlinked layout. The architecture of its exit room makes for a pretty firm break from the original's stodgy and dungeon-like design. "Evil Sacrifice" stands in for 64's ruins-style levels and the opening outdoor area adds so much to the character of these Hell-controlled outposts. The interconnected design makes it feel less sprawling, too, a common thread throughout The Lost Levels. Villarreal's incorporation of modern sensibilities leads to much tighter gameplay. This may affect your immersion depending on where you stand with concepts like "wasted space" and whether or not you consider exploration (and backtracking) to be part of Doom's core gameplay loop.

"Cold Grounds", "Wretched Vats", and "Thy Glory" offer more ruinous outposts but with less immediately obvious deviances from D64's DNA. The first is readily comparable to Tim Heydelaar's nested fortresses, complete with an apparently different way of doing code puzzles. "Vats" gets the closest to feeling like the never-ending complexes of 1997. "Glory" is a blood-washed triumph and feels like a take on the catwalk levels that sprung up in the wake of "Circle of Death". It also reminds me of The Plutonia Experiment, though, which may be the color scheme evoking shades of "Neurosphere".

"Final Judgement", the boss map, is plainly in the image of "No Escape" but has a combat-heavy newschool execution that ought to delight arcade action enthusiasts. More to the latter, though, is "Panic". The bonus map feels quite authentic to the encounter-focused nature of Doom 64's extra levels and borrows a little something from each of the originals to create something that feels fresh and "fun". I feel like there's an untapped genre potential there that could draw in folks who are interested in a more challenge-oriented, disposable gameplay experience than Doom typically offers. Less the overwhelming spectacle of an entire slaughter map and more the thrills of its individual encounters, perhaps. This may be a denial of the reasons why new folks tend to gravitate toward idtech1 and its derivatives in the first place, though.

As far as combat goes, the toughest difficulty level has a similarly modern eye for encounter stylings. So much of Doom 64 was spent diligently grinding down Hell Knights, Barons, and imps with the most common shocks coming from pain elementals and teleporting lost souls. Kaiser's style packs a bit more punch into every fight. It can't approach the madness of slaughter (and how would you even escalate to it for the uninitiated) but I think that it leans more heavily on the player for each individual scenario. I had a lot of fun with arena-style encounters and you get at least one or two big ones per map. Nothing on the scale of "Dark Entries", I think, but Kaiser does not hesitate to demonstrate the efficacy of 64's bigger non-boss monsters - the pain elemental, arachnotron, and mancubus. I particularly enjoyed the outdoor coliseum of "Evil Sacrifice" and the inner yard ambush in "Cold Grounds".

The Lost episode title is something of a misnomer since these don't have anything to do with old dev materials or even Kaiser's custom maps from The Absolution TC or The Outcast Levels. They're a worthy addition to the Doom 64 legacy, though, and a fitting performance for a person who spent so much of his time on a mission to bring the magic of the 1997 sequel to PC users. If you want to play it then you'll have to fork over $5 on the non-GOG platform of your choice, original campaign and all. I hope that this doesn't mark the eternal end of Doom64 EX development - there is so much creeping dread left to mine and its relative instability feels antithetical to the community that fought so hard to keep the console-exclusive in the public eye.

DOOM 64

THE LOST LEVELS

by Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal

Plant Ops

MAP34

The first thing that hits me upon seeing this techbase level is how cool it is having more "modern" level design tropes rendered in Doom 64. Some of the visuals offer thematic echoes of "Staging Area" and it even shares the same sort of long, winding pathway that links everything together. It's a complex outing, though, whose navigable layers must be explored via teleporters while the many apertures allow the imp varieties to harry the player. The architecture is wicked cool and I'm sure that more fun stuff will come given how intimately Kaiser must know the engine's capabilities. I dig the toxic trench, accessed early on, and the architecture of the northwestern area is cool. This is more of an attrition level than anything as far as difficulty goes. The author isn't quick to throw the hate on but there are tons of zombies, even more imps (normal and nightmare), and cacodemon waves.

MAP35

Evil Sacrifice

This gothic fortress takes the basic theme of "Spawned Fear" and errs toward the side of slaughteryards over dark dungeons. Not that you won't find a few of the latter. The opening outdoor area looks great with its beams of hanging corpses but the western bit has the biggest brawl. The solid core of pain elementals with an outer ring of arachnotrons makes for something that's still risky to blitz with the nearby, secret BFG. I enjoy the scripting since your initial panic at seeing the former is stoked even higher when the floor drops out to level the playing field for the latter. Kaiser has a lot of fun with the colored lighting, here, giving all of the wall sconces their own particular shades. I especially like the fun detail of pouring the same baleful, red light over everything exposed overhead.

Cold Grounds

MAP36

A Kaiser re-take of the nested layer fortress approach of, most obviously, "Altar of Pain" and "Unholy Temple". The love-letter starts you in the outskirts and has you work your way toward the central keep in order to access the southern and then northern towers. It's very pretty though bereft of 1997's rugged charm. The setting feels more spacious than its Doom 64 precursors. This trades the claustrophobia of the originals for more intense player exposure, particularly during the super strong key ambush in the inner yard which has a couple of sneaky pain elementals. The little renderer oddity makes the mechanical room-over-room structures so much more satisfying. I really appreciated the puzzle in the southern wing, especially since - on its face - it feels like something brand new for this incarnation.

MAP37

Wretched Vats

Thematically similar to "Evil Sacrifice" in that you have a brief outdoor area followed by a vast dungeon network. MAP35 felt slightly more like a "real" place, though, thanks to its outstanding exterior structural detailing. This locale includes blood sewers, hallways lined with jail cells, a subterranean courtyard, and a cool, circular outdoor structure. The eastern- and westernmost chambers have my favorite fights due to the arachnotron supremacy of the former and the sort of racetrack / cacodemon aspect in the latter. The twisting, connecting tunnels and especially knotted western tip feel deliciously Doom 64.

Thy Glory

MAP38

This is a wicked cool temple-style level that realizes some of the promise of the original concept's "Hells from all civilizations" idea. It's fairly interconnected and centered around an outdoor section that brings to mind the blood trenches of "Watch Your Step" without dwelling on it. There's a lot of the classic PWAD high pathway / deep depths style a la "Circle of Death" but with tighter confines as befits "ancient" ruins. The blood pool / tower section to the east and southern cage yard feel particularly inspired but I'm just as partial to the ledge / pit layout that dominates the northwest. My most memorable fight involves a key and a mancubi ambush.

MAP39

Final Judgement

Deliberately evoking "No Escape", but this offers seemingly more carnage through its invul-fed slaughter that summons successive Cyberdemons as you grab the demon keys. It's pretty fun and sussing out the pickup locations is slightly challenging due to the teleporters that are involved. The boss fight may be even more of a pushover since you acquire a fully-powered alien laser by the time you summon the Sister Resurrector into the fray. It's still a very cool finale and I don't mind the lack of doing anything like "The Absolution" with the demon keys.

FUN LEVEL

Panic

MAP40

This level has shades of "Cat and Mouse" but the setup is less punishing and more conducive to fun. The layout involves a network of columns in a square space. The outer edge has outward-facing homing rocket launchers that require a little more respect if you're going to use it to maneuver. There are teleporting lines to prevent you from just rounding up the monsters in the center, always a nice touch. The first wave involves a bunch of arachnotrons which hog space and punish both the clumsy and slow so situational awareness is key during the initial "panic". The second drops a Cyberdemon duo so be mindful of how you dodge considering the Doom 64 rocket trajectory.

LEVELS OF THE LOST