Phobos: Anomaly Reborn (PAR.WAD)

Chris Lutz has a more or less independent property in marshaling The Chaos Crew's Caverns of Darkness. His earliest obsession, though, was to reinvent the original Doom under the guidance of his own image. This started in 1998 with the release of Inferno and was followed by some work on replacements for The Shores of Hell and Knee Deep in the Dead. His passion project took a backseat when he joined CoD, though, and by the time he got back to the trilogy he was so displeased with his older works that he began anew. Thus we were fortunate enough to receive Phobos: Anomaly Reborn. This episode one replacement was released at the beginning of 2003 and imprinted on Doomworld's curators enough to find a spot in their coveted Top 100 WADs of All Time. Lutz identifies Boom/MBF as the target port and his language implies that it ought to work with either but it was also found to be compatible in a then-contemporary version of ZDoom. There are some caveats, though, and I'll get to those in a bit.

The Brotherhood of Ruin (RUINBROS.WAD)

In recent years Kristian Aro is recognized more for his work with his soul brother, Paul Corfiatis, but he was a pretty prolific solo author prior to joining up for Death Tormention II and later 2002: A Doom Odyssey. It's actually pretty fascinating to follow, from the very early and rough 20 Days in Hell to the functional 32 Hours in Pain, afterward hitting his stride with 1 Day of Hellish Revenge. The Brotherhood of Ruin found its way into Doomworld's Top 10 WADs of 2003 but its original date of release - wherever that happened to be - was 2001. It's a seven-map episode for Doom II, was designed to be played in Boom-compatible source ports, and is primarily themed around the ancient Mesoamerican temple texture set used in Hexen II's second hub.

The Gateway Experiments Episode 1: Space Station Omega (GE1-SSO.WAD)

THE GATEWAY EXPERIMENTS
OR
DOESN'T THE MILITARY EVER LEARN?
EPISODE 1:
SPACE STATION OMEGA
by Ethan "Gooberman" Watson

The vast majority of Doom levels available are mostly iterations on a tried and true gameplay model. Marine starts level, marine gets gun, marine kills demons. The introduction of ZDoom offered some powerful scripting paths that allows authors to add in gameplay that is distinctly un-Doom. At least, Doom as it was released in 1993. Today, we are seeing crazy stuff like original Shoot-Em-Ups and tactical combat games and complete recreations of popular games of past like Mortal Kombat and Donkey Kong Country. Doom is still, uh, Doom, unsurprisingly. The early ZDoom forays like Assault on Tei Tenga tried to add story and speaking characters and Hell Factory developed the hub system to better mimic Quake II's execution. Space Station Omega, a single level from Ethan Watson, aka Gooberman, pushes things in a very different direction, one that's rarely seen.

Scythe (SCYTHE.WAD)

Some people like their Doom maps to be huge adventures or action-packed epics. Others prefer something short and sweet. Erik Alm's Scythe is the premiere Popcorn Doom mapset, a megaWAD that's composed of small levels that take a minute or two to finish. Released in 2003, it appears to take some of its cues from classic author Adam Windsor, known for his ability to crop up in classic mapsets. Windsor's Demonfear was a mapset composed of short levels that were fun to just gun through, and some levels originally meant for that project ended up in Requiem, among them a level titled "Chaos Zone", which bears a striking resemblance to Scythe's MAP32, "Enoz Soahc". Coincidence? You be the judge.

Void (VOID.WAD)

VOID
by Mike "Cyb" Watson

Released in 2003, Void is a single Doom II map for ZDoom. But... It's a lot more. The story opening is basically Half Life in Doom, down to scientist voice clips, and when shit goes bad a Cyberdemon drops in and starts slaughtering your buddies. Before it can kill you, time freezes and Hexen's Heresiarch shows up, creating a rift that sucks all involved parties (and corpses) into an unusual dimension. You'll have to fight your way out, of course. Actually, fighting isn't as important in this PWAD, as you'll end slightly upwards of one-hundred monsters slain at the end. There is a much greater emphasis on puzzles, platforming, and platforming puzzles.