Doom, Doom II Patched for 60fps, Quick Saves, and Megawad Support

Bethesda released updated versions of its classic Doom and Doom II earlier this year. At the time, the new versions of the classic game mostly got noticed for the initial mandatory login in order to play Doom or Doom II. Bethesda has brought out a major game patch for the titles and is making the updated Doom and Doom II available to anyone who wants to buy them, via the Bethesda.net launcher. The Steam version of the game has not been updated.

Features of the update include:

Add-On Support: This is Bethesda’s support for megawads and add-ons created for Doom and Doom II. Currently, John Romero’s SIGIL (a mod for Doom), TNT: Evilution, and The Plutonia Experiment are all available, as is No Rest for the Living, a map pack created by Nerve Software for the XBLA release. Gamers can load their own WAD files if they wish to do so, but the WADs will need to be compatible with vanilla Doom/Doom II. More detail on this is available in the FAQ.

60fps Support: Doom originally ran at 35fps, but this kicks it up to 60.

Aspect Ratio Options: Stretch the display vertically to match the old 4:3 aspect ratio Doom was originally played in.

Quick Save / Quick Load: You can save and load the game with a single button push, though Bethesda only lists the controller buttons. F5/F7 would be the typical PC keys for this, but Doom II is so old, it may have mapped other functions to those keys.

Level Select: You can now play any level in the game that you want to rather than fighting your way through the previous levels.

Other new features include a weapon carousel, a quick weapon select option, and the option to increase both the overall brightness and the level brightness. You can now turn off randomized sound pitches, the split-screen hub has been improved, and optimizations have been made to Doom’s software render to support higher resolutions and 60fps play on the Nintendo Switch. There’s also an array of bug fixes, all of which you can read about here.

Of course, many more quality of life improvements are available via the blizzard of various Doom engines and total conversions that have been created since the mid-1990s, and they’re often available for free if you already own the game via Steam. If you already own the game and are willing to dive into modding, there’s a lot to explore in freeware. If you don’t own it and want to play around with a curated version that offers what seems to be a pretty solid set of features, well, $5 isn’t a ton of money. The patch should now be available for all supported platforms, including Android and iOS.

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