Tangerine Nightmare (TN.WAD)

The French Doom Community celebrated in 2024 with a huge win, finally pushing out a release candidate of their Necromantic Thirst megaWAD after years of development. They didn't get there by just chipping away at their mega-project, though. franckFRAG and WH-Wilou84 fostered a creative community through their 3 Heures d'Agonie speedmapping project, which got sequels in 3HA2 and 3HA3. This seemed to activate authors like Datacore, who has since become one of the most productive authors of their subset of the Doom diaspora. Tangerine Nightmare started as a Datacore-led project with an emphasis on an orange color scheme. At some point, and I can't exactly tell by reading the development thread, franckFRAG sort of organically became the lead. What started as a vanilla adventure became a (mostly) limit-removing episode for Doom II, finalized in early 2018, replacing MAP01-MAP10.

3 Heures d' Agonie 3 (3HA3.WAD)

The Doom community has several, thriving international scenes. The French have developed over the last few years, spawning some prolific authors as well as auteurs. The front face of the FDC has been the 3 Heures d'Agonie series, which debuted in 2012 and was founded on the premise that all of the submitted maps be built over the course of three hours - give or take a few. These speedmapping megaWADs were conceived as an attempt to rejuvenate their community, which had become burnt out by the now-Quixotic construction of Necromantic Thirst. 3 Heures d'Agonie 3 is the third and purportedly final installment of the series as far as megaWADs go. It is a full, 32 map replacement for Doom II and ought to play well with any source port.

Plutocracy (PLUTCY.WAD)

PLUTOCRACY
by Franck "franckFRAG" Livolant

franckFRAG has made a bit of a name for himself as a purveyor of levels that seem composed almost entirely of death starts, mostly in his Swift Death, where every map begins in a bad situation that only seems to get worse as you poke your head around looking for some sort of foothold. Plutocracy is sort of a logical offshoot of this action brand, a MAP28 replacement released in 2015 to be played with The Plutonia Experiment (naturally). Like most of Franck's work, it doesn't come with any sort of story, but you're free to insert it anywhere in your personal Doom chronology. I think it fits in pretty well with the spirit of Swift Death, if not in its entire execution, but historical sticklers may note that it started out as a Plutinya 1024 map before quickly overgrowing its bounds.

Swift Death (SWIDEATH.WAD)

When 3 Heures d'Agonie was released, there were a few authors who formed the backbone of the megaWAD. One of them was franckFRAG, who had six levels of a construction type I'd never seen before. They weren't ornate, but they were heavy in height variation and tricky monster positioning, making them short, sharp shocks full of riotous gameplay. Swift Death takes this aesthetic and drives it to its logical end. Released more or less in 2014, the lower difficulty levels play like the 3 Heures d'Agonie maps, but UV is a collection of death traps you will be hard-pressed to navigate, perhaps the closest confluence I've seen of a game like Super Meat Boy and Doom.

3 Heures d'Agonie 2 (3HA2.WAD)

The French Doom Community released 3 Heures d'Agonie back in 2013, a megaWAD's worth of speedmaps from a wide variety of authors, from inexperienced to guys that are established as heavy hitters in Doomworld thanks to their contributions to mapsets like Plutonia Revisited. 3 Heures d'Agonie 2 is what else but the second outpouring of hastily put-together levels from what is becoming an increasingly talented stable of individuals. This time, it's a full megaWAD for vanilla Doom II, though as could be expected there's no attached story, just raw Doom II.

20 Years of Doom (20YDOOM.WAD)

The French Doom Community wanted to pay tribute to Doom on its 20th anniversary. What better way than a trip down memory lane? The plan: condense the original trilogy into one single episode by conflating some of the most prominent elements of every three levels, all working in Boom-compatible ports. Interested authors claimed slots and did their best, but don't expect a slavish reinterpretation of the original Doom. Sure, you're gonna get a few homages. When you're doing Doom tributes, it seems to be practically unavoidable, even in 2014. I think it works, though, and these maps are anything but reference-composed patchwork. 20 Years of Doom proves again the vibrancy of Doom's international theater as its long legacy drags on, grunting and moaning.

And the Bloodshed Began (ATTB_F2.WAD)

The first glimpse I had of the French Doom community was through their contributions to the Plutonia Revisited Community Project, a mapset near and dear to my heart. They've been slowly working on the much-awaited Necromantic Thirst, but somewhere along the way, JCD got a few of those that I'd never played before to contribute to 3 Heures d'Agonie, an interesting if scatterbrained sampler from authors polished and not. Datacore and Subject_119 were two such contributors, and they combined their developing talents to bring us And the Bloodshed Began in 2014. It's a full megaWAD for Doom II, to be played in... PrBoom, I guess, though I didn't see anything specific to Boom. Datacore and Subject_119 have included no story, so just enjoy this collection of carnage for what it is.

Back to the Fire (BTTF.WAD)

BACK TO THE FIRE
by Simon Dupuis

I've never played the PSX version of the Dooms, and while I've dabbled in Doom 64, I haven't given it good enough of a look to be intimately familiar with it. What I do know is that to some players, both Dooms are the iconic experiences driven by their nostalgia trains, and oppressive ambiance plus colored lighting constitute much of that feel. Back to the Fire, released in 2012 by Simon Dupuis, is a single map for Doom II that uses these elements to I feel evoke that sensation but in a more modern sense. Replacing MAP01, it's meant to be played in the GZDoom engine or Skulltag (now defunct - use Zandronum). Apparently, it's not strictly necessary to play the level in GL ports, but you'll miss out on the colored lighting, and that's a huge part of the level's draw.

Survive in Hell (SIHR2FIX.WAD)

French author JC Dorne started work on Survive in Hell as early as 2008, looking at the sector stamps. He eventually finished and released it in 2012, a Boom-compatible megaWAD for Doom II. Not only is it BooMBF, but it's got bonus cosmetic features for those playing in ZDoom-derived ports, a nice touch you don't see often. There's no given story, and what comes across in the intermission texts is your essential marine-conquers-all scenario where you battle into the very heart of Hell to do what you do best - kill all of the demons. You'll see a lot of Hell and you'll also see a lot of less specific locales...

Titania (TITANIA.WAD)

TITANIA
by JC Dorne

Apart from Survive in Hell, JCD's token one man megaWAD, his only other solo release as of this writing is Titania, published in 2012 for Doom II. It hasn't graced the archives, but it's interred on the Doomed Speed Demo Archive if you want to take a look. (EDIT 12/22/13: JCD uploaded it to the archives on 12/17/13!) He describes it as a small map inspired by Ultimate Doom, but if that means upwards of 250 monsters with a layout to match, he has a very different sensibility about level size. Titania has no given story. It's clearly a UAC techbase complete with a front desk, but that's it.

3 Heures d'agonie (3HAFINAL.WAD)

Necromantic Thirst may be on hiatus but French Doomers JC and Oxyde managed to wring some maps out of their burgeoning community. Speedmaps, that is. 3 Heures d'Agonie was constructed under one general guideline; authors were to map for no longer than three hours. Of course, it's just a guideline, with some taking slightly more time in their editor of choice. 3HA is a collection, offering no major themes and no given story. It does fill all thirty-two map slots, though, to be played with Doom II in limit-removing sourceports. While there's no defined theme there are a fair bit of custom textures added so that you have something new to look at and a pretty good soundtrack to enjoy them with.