If you haven’t played Doom or Doom II for a while — or ever — a new re-release that Bethesda surprise-dropped (sorta) on Thursday might be the perfect excuse to jump in to the classic games. The re-release, which combines both games into one package called Doom + Doom II and is a free update for anyone who already owns Doom (1993) or Doom II, offers a long list of great new features — including a brand new single-player episode and online, cross-platform deathmatch multiplayer.
With Doom + Doom II, you’ll have access to both of those two games as well as extra single-player content like John Romero’s Sigil episode released in 2019 and Legacy of Rust, which is a new Doom episode created by “individuals from id Software, Nightdive Studios and MachineGames,” according to Bethesda. You’ll also be able to download single-player mods through a new in-game mod browser.
On the multiplayer front, Bethesda has added 25 new maps for deathmatch, meaning you’ll have up to 43 to pick from. The cross-platform deathmatch and co-op also support up to 16 players.
The combined package will support up to 4K resolution and 120fps if you’re playing on PC, PlayStation, or Xbox Series X / S. There’s also updated music for the games by Andrew Hulshult (who worked on the music for Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods DLC), and you can switch back and forth between the newer tracks and older tracks whenever you like.
There’s a lot more I didn’t touch on, and if you’re at all interested in this package, I recommend scrolling through the extensive patch notes. The game is available on PC (via Steam, the Windows Store, the Epic Games Store, and GOG), Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
There was one other cool piece of retro Doom news announced today, too: Limited Run Games is working on a re-release of Doom on the SNES. The game is set to release in 2025 — and, naturally, there will only be 666 copies made.
