Beta Labs 2 (BLABS2.WAD)

There's always been some level of interest in Doom's pre-release history and it's responsible for a fair bit of inspiration for projects in the community. The successful ones borrow the assets and then make regular maps in their own particular idioms (Favillesco, Alpha Accident) while the failures try to fulfill the promise of Tom Hall's Doom Bible. If you're not going to catch a fish, though, you might as well not catch a big fish. Serious_MOod helmed a release from the former category, 2015's Beta Labs, and recently followed it up with the similarly-titled sequel, BLABS2, in 2017. It's a five-level minisode for limit-removing ports, spanning E1M1 through E1M5, concluding on an end credits map in E1M6.

Doom II In Name Only RDC

By some accounts, Doom 2 In Name Only was a disaster. The initial goal of the project was to just take a level name and then do whatever seemed appropriate - to create a map that justified its appellation. When opened up to the community, though, some of the authors went counter to the potentially experimental direction, creating a mixed bag of levels that at times explored one of the most common criticisms of Doom II, that the experience did not hold up to the expectations of the setting, enforcing monster progression and vanilla textures (outside of Xaser's madness) coupled with clashing author styles and a lack of focus. The Russian Doom Community took some inspiration from the release, from which comes this episode covering the first nine levels. Doom 2 In Name Only RDC has some clear goals; it dumps any aspirations of vanilla compatibility, even sneaking in a few scrolling floors. It also uses a bunch of new textures to further distance itself from the original Doom II experience... even if there are some obvious homages crammed in there.

Beta Labs (BETALABS.WAD)

Few game communities are as obsessed with the vagaries of the development process as Doom's. At this point, we've seen enough beta and alpha materials for an editorial reconstruction on par with The History of Middle-Earth. I've seen plenty of projects come and go that derive some amount of influence from the alpha / beta materials. The ones that are dead-set on using the Doom Bible as their design document have not fared well. The others grab the unused resources and then make something that's like Doom, but not, as reflected by the sensibilities of the authors. Beta Labs is one of these latter projects, a joint effort by Serious_MOod and Chaingunner, two crazy dudes from Russia. Released in 2015, it's an E1 replacement to be played in limit-removing ports, but its architecture and design are far from being a carbon copy of Knee Deep in the Dead.

Whitemare 2 (WHITE2.WAD)

The Russian Doom Community has this thing they do on occasion where they build a megaWAD out of selections from assorted "freakmapping" speedmapping competitions, after tuning up some of the submissions and adding a few new ones. This gave us Heroes' Tales back in 2009 and Whitemare in 2011. Whitemare 2, released in 2014, is a full-fledged megaWAD for Doom II for Boom-compatible engines (specifically PrBoom+). This time, the demons decide to ruin Doomguy's New Year celebration by stealing winter, disrupting the normal progression of the seasons. Or, something like that. I think that Doomguy starts off by fighting off another demon invasion, with them absconding with winter and causing a skip right on through to spring. You rush off to rescue it, and succeed, only to find that something evil has snuck back with the season.

A.L.T. (ALT.WAD)

A.L.T. is the latest release from Clan [B0S], a Russian mapping commune whose previous releases include Da Will and Sacrament. Here they have pooled their considerable talents together to create a full-fledged Doom II megaWAD for Boom-compatible ports, directed by [B0S] veteran Lainos. A.L.T.'s story is pretty simple; you begin as the sole survivor of a plane wreck, finding yourself in a strange world populated by hostile forces that resent your presence. You fight to survive, and to discover the reality of your situation, encountering a variety of worlds during your progress. The ankh is a prominent motif you'll see throughout the mapset, a nice choice of foreshadowing.