I'm sure that I've mentioned it a few times but recently I've been playing a frankly obscene amount of 2016's DOOM. I've pulled back a little recently with my acquisition of the Kingdom Hearts series and the full playthrough of Fallout 76 Wastelanders that I imposed upon myself, but everytime I stop to jam to music while I game I cannot help but get the itches to rip and tear my way across Mars, and Hell, to the beat. (Don't ask what kind of music I play DOOM too. You'll think even less of me than you already do.) As such, I've reached the point where I'm actually intimately familiar with every single level in that game's lineup, to the extent where I even sort of know the location of enemy spawns and secret item rooms. Part of that comes from an obsession for mastering the rather stressful Arcade and the other is the aftermath of the extremely stressful Ultra-nightmare playthrough that I'm doing.
The upshot is that I'm familiar enough with Id software's level design and philosophy that I can appreciate the little things that they put into each level to make it pop, as well as acknowledge the moments when things don't quite pan out as they maybe should have. (Like in that hallway with the Two Barons, Two Mancubi and four Spectres. Seriously, screw that corridor.) All and all it's quite elegant as modern day Id managed to completely reinvigorate the spirit of DOOM for 2016 without giving up on the heart and spirit which made the original DOOM games so memorable; the focus on speed and the necessity for aggression. To really bring that out, ID added a dimension of verticality to the combat and movement which I'm told is amplified and built upon in this year's DOOM Eternal. (Although I wouldn't know myself because I'm already inundated with games, I cannot take on another right now.)
All that praise aside there is one level that stands head and shoulders above the others in my eyes as my undisputed favourite. Not that this particular level is 'the best' so to speak, nor that it really puts all the others to shame, just that it's that one level of DOOM that I can throw on to kill some time whenever I have no idea what it is that I want. It's my comfort level, neither too hard so as to irk me nor so easy as to bore me; instead it sits at the perfect equilibrium of a DOOM level. Since this is a game that's taken up so much of my free-time and this blog is the only person I have to unload to, I've decided to talk about my favourite DOOM level and exactly why this one just clicks with me so well. So without further ado, let me tell you about why The Foundry (or mission 3) is such a perfect level in my eyes and what other FPS' can learn from it.
The Foundry represents the first point in the game where DOOM really takes out it's mittens and throws you to the wolves, although not without training you first. The initial level of DOOM does a good job of introducing you to core mechanics that you'll be using throughout the game such as Key cards, Gore Nests and equipment. (i.e. Grenades) The second level reinforces all of that whilst being careful not to overwhelm the player by limiting the majority of the combat to small groups in narrow corridors. (There are perhaps two open space battles in that entire level.) The Foundry, however, completely changes your notions on the structure of this game, by discarding all of the linear paths and A=B objectives and letting the Slayer loose on the area with absolute free reign.
The set-up of the Foundry is that the Slayer needs to get through this area in order to get to the source of the hell invasion, only to find the blast doors locked due to an automatic lockdown that activated when the 'hell levels' got too high. Thus all you have to do to clear this area is wipe out the gore nests which are the root of the hell infestation and are scattered around the map, and you are completely free to choose whichever you go for first. Now, I'm a complete sucker for even the slightest amount of exploration freedom, therefore this is already the perfect sort of level for me. What really keeps me engaged in each gore nest, however, is the way that each one poses a different environmental challenge for the player to overcome. The first nest puts the player in a room with low ceilings, limiting your ability to jump out of the way of projectiles; whilst the second takes place on a broken network of walkways dangling above molten lava, testing the player's ability to jump in order to save their lives. The third Nest is essentially a narrow pathway, stopping the player from dodging to the side too much and the last boasts a couple of vertical levels to pay attention to.
The skills you'll begin developing from taking out these gore nests will be reinforced in later levels until the last levels, where they all get mixed together in complicated arena battles. But that doesn't mean this is another level that takes it easy by any stretch of the imagination, and that is largely due to the fact that this game throws the first of it's really significant demons at you. (You could go so far as to call them the first 'microboss' demon. Although by the end you'll have killed so many of them you'll likely think of them as just more fodder.) Up until now the slayer was killing grunts like the possessed, Imps and Soldiers; but all of a sudden in the foundry they'll come face to face with the fearsome Hell Knight. Hell Knights are big, strong, and oh-so-tanky, making them able to chew up just about any ammunition that you'll have at your disposal at this point in the game. They charge relentlessly at the player and can easily crush anyone not paying attention, the game even does something rare and sets one loose in the level to hunt you down. (That dude usually ends up jump scaring you at the single most inopportune time, teaching you the hard way never to let your guard down.)
From a set-up perspective this level gets just about everything right, but the thing that I think other FPS' can learn from The Foundry, and the reason I keep coming back to it time and time again, is because it's just a blast to go through. The sprawling layout of the level means that you have a lot of mobility to work with as you rip and tear, the 'Smithery' aesthetic of the level means that despite being indoors this level can have dynamically shifting lighting (The lava helps) and the volume of demons-per-gore-nest is great for going on an off-the-cuff slaughter spree. When designing this level there is no doubt in my mind that Id were extra careful to make something that was functional to the pace of the game whilst also being enjoyable on it's own, and it's incredibly difficult to meet two objectives like that and thus I applaud them. That's something that the later COD games lost as they began devoting more and more time to their Multiplayer over the campaigns; whilst the story is important, it also helps to remember that the moment itself should stand up as fun, otherwise where will the replay value come from?
Of course, I'll not throw any other DOOM levels under the bus; they're all incredible fun to go through time and time again. (As evidenced by the fact that I've done several start to finish throughways in March alone) As far as I'm concerned, DOOM 2016 will go down in FPS legend as a absolute classic, if it hasn't already, and it's successes are definitely the bar to which aspiring shooters should hold themselves up to. This was just a little spur-of-the-moment bit of fanboying that I wanted to get off my chest, so I'm not sure if I'll use this formula on other games. (I feel like I've been doing that a bit too much of late, it helps to keep things as a one off) But maybe once I've finally gotten around to DOOM Eternal I'll find another reason to rave about Id Software again.
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