Awesome DOOM Quickstart for New Gamers

Why?

There are literally decades worth of forums, mod websites, communities. Recently there also have appeared great "retro" gaming channels (retro is a bit misleading, because some DOOM mods are as good fun as some AAA-titles) on YouTube.

But many people, who have not played DOOM originally, do not know about all this. For example - fun fact - a game that was released in 1993 is still alive and it has one of the most active modding communities ever. I would argue that games like Elder Scrolls, Unreal Tournament or Warcraft (first things that come to mind) also had huge communities, but I would not really say that all of them stood the test of time. But people believe that DOOM is something dead, generic, archaic, outdated akin to tetris or pong. It is not not!

TLDR - DOOM + 20 years of mods = best game ever, still alive. Do not believe me? Being an active gamer in the past, I played only a handful of games in 2019 - some reimagined old Heroes III games (Horn of the Abyss), DOOM 2016, DOOM megawad Eviternity, a bit of RDR2 - and believe it or not Eviternity was the best game overall in terms of game experience and design.

Do not believe me? There is a whole YouTube channel dedicated just to DOOM mods! Obviously it features the most ridiculous ones.

You should also distinguish 4 main types of DOOM games:

The original "old" releases by ID Software and related media;
Map packs, WADs (original DOOM assets were in .wad file, which were just archives, WAD stands for where's all the data) or MegaWADs - these are usually just new levels or campaigns. Sometimes they feature minor or major asset additions (a few demons, new textures), but the core balance and game-play does not change. These are most cherished by the hardcore DOOMers, because they do not alter the balance of the game. Also the best MegaWADs also have custom soundtracks;
Weapon packs, power-fantasy mods and randomizer mods (yes, Brutal DOOM and Project Brutality combine all of these concepts);
Total game conversion mods. So this is not DOOM anymore, it is just another game. It may be cool AF (e.g. Project Brutality or Brutal DOOM) - but the gameplay is vastly different. You may consider Heretic to be the biggest total conversion mod ever;

I personally like the first and the second type of games most. They are the most visceral DOOM experiences that stay relevant even now.

So, why DOOM is great after these years? There are a lot of misconceptions on this topic:

It was NOT a first first person shooting game;
It was NOT a first 3D game (it was not 3D at all);
It was NOT a first commercially successful video game;
It was NOT a first game with "realistic" graphics;

The real reason is that it was the first game to do all the things right. Also - openness to modding. As for me personally, its endless replayability comes from a few game mechanics:

Tight balance between action, horror, exploration, high skill ceiling (bordering on art with modern WADs), horror elements and surrealism. Maps in DOOM kind of resemble reality, but they are very surreal and abstract at times;
Awesome metal-inspired music (best community WADs also have stellar music). Later semi-professional / indie mods have had various music inspirations - from arcade games to techno and bossa nova;
Initially DOOM was quite open to modification, map-making and tinkering;
It was a first first person game with decent looking shading which combined with minor horror elements, surreality and textures just clicked;
At the beginning of each level all the demons are "asleep". You wake them up either by making sounds or running if front of them and they start chasing you. This sound simple ... but each level replay becomes its unique game. All demons have different speed, size and sometimes can open doors. Also sometimes map designers prohibit demons from entering certain areas. Also there are some subtle hacks, like Archvile jumps or map requiring player to squish demons, use barrels, etc etc;
Maps are essentially flat in DOOM. It looks 3D, but in reality it is not. Therefore pathfinding is relatively simple for demons and they can chase you. Each game is unique;
Demons hate each other, and they just need a to be cleverly triggered to in-fight. Needless to say - this makes the game 10x more diverse (there are even maps that are very hard to beat without this mechanic). This is especially relevant in very hard MegaWADs like Sunlust;

In What Order Should I Play DOOM Games?

"Canon" and Original Games

This is very brief, go to wiki or something if you need exact historic details and dates.

I believe that to really experience DOOM, you need to play the original games in this order:

(0) DOOM Shareware (1993-ish) - first episode done mostly by John Romero (included in Ultimate DOOM);
(1) Full 3 episodes of DOOM (1993-ish) - first commercial relese (included in Ultimate DOOM);
(2) DOOM II (1994-ish) - 32 levels, arguably the best original game, a bit boring last portion of levels, yes with super shoutgun;
(3) Ultimate DOOM (1995-ish) - 3 episodes + 1 new episode with a difficulty spike (Thy Flesh Consumed) and 3-4 nice maps;
(4) E1M8b by John Romero (2016). A replacement for E1M8, which sucked due to being an ending to a shareware release. Play immediately after you beat E1M8 and see for yourself. It even won a Cacoward!;
(4) Sigil (2019) - 5th canon episode done by Romero. 2 awesome soundtracks (one by Buckethead!). Blows the original 3-4 DOOM episodes out of the water, but was met with no universal acclaim mostly because it used only DOOM assets and decades of mods kind of raised the bar. Just consider it a 5th episode;
(4) Master Levels for Doom II - 20 + 1 (secret) levels for DOOM II. Tough as nails compared to original games;
(5) Final DOOM (1996-ish) - 32 + 32 levels - TNT: Evilution от Team TNT и The Plutonia Experiment. Made by modders, released by ID. TNT is notorious for being evil, cruel and ball-busting at times. Also lots of chaingunners, archviles and revenants. Plutonia is kind of meh for me, but it was an important milestone nevertheless;

In my opinion you need this vanilla experience to experience the OG games first-hand and refine your pallete for more ball-busting DOOM games.

Also please do not tell me that Sigil sucks, it fits nicely into the OG episodes and had awesome design and music. Also this presents a nice progression of ealy design and difficulty spikes, with touches of modern map-making. Yes, Sigil is not Sunlust, but it does not need to be.

What to Play Next?

DOOM world has a very nice article dedicated to 25 years of DOOM modding. It is awesome, seriously - read it - https://www.doomworld.com/25years/the-roots-of-doom-mapping/chapter01/!

Well or you can just go here - https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/. There are literally tens of thousands of WADs, megaWADs, mods, etc etc. Or maybe go to Google / YouTube and just find some awesome mods.

This is overwhelming. And to be frank, I played the OG DOOM games A LOT, but I have discovered the awesome DOOM modding scene only a couple of years ago.

But I guess you would just like a short-list, do you?

Note that Cacowards strive to be fair, i.e. the best award can be given to a whopping 32 level MegaWAD with unique textures, monsters and new music or to one map or even to a total conversion mod. This is cool, but in my opinion there are some community made DOOM games that are just more equal than others. Arguably, these are just masterpieces, 10/10 games or epic milestones. See for yourself, develop your taste!

Eviternity (2019) - one of the best PC games I have ever played, period. Vastly better than original DOOM games, stunning visuals, novel gameplay, etc. No modern games even come close to this thing made a small community of modders + Dragonfly;
Sunlust (2015) - one of the hardest and most beautiful MegaWADs out there. Equally evil / punishing as well as visually stunning;
Back To Saturn X Episode 1 (2012) and Episode 2 (2014). Technically impressive and detailed, though a bit on the boring side (they repeat the same stuff over and over again, but first levels are very cool);
Hell Revealed (1997) Hell Revealed II (2003) - awesome, sometimes ball-busting old school megaWADs. A bit plain and boring architecture (after playing Sunlust), a bit gimmicky;

Note that I do not really include any GZDoom compatible mods, total game conversion mods, exploration oriented WADs. I believe these WADs are the DOOM experience at its finest.

Proper Way to Enjoy Modern DOOM

TLDR - there is GZDoom, which is the default go-to option to play more modern mods. But if your jump on these games right on, or even if you try something like Brutal DOOM or Project Brutality from the get go, you most likely will spoil your taste. These games are awesome, but they are not vanilla DOOM.

Purists may argue until they bleed from their assholes which vanilla mod is better, but I like PrBoom+ for several plain reasons:

It is cross-platform (if you want to compile shit on Linux ofc);
It is relatively fresh - latest build 2.5.2 was released in 2017;
It is very stable, smooth and it can handle maps with thousands of enemies (or tens of thousands lol);
It can be launched via CLI, and what is even more important - using power shell in Windows (or a WLS) - you can launch it using the same-ish commands on PC / Mac / Linux! Isn't this great?;
It has nice docs in the usage.txt file';

If you want to be nerdy about your source port, there are videos on the topic:

I am Sold, Show Me the Guide Finally!

(0) First you need to get the original DOOM and DOOM II WAD files. Do not buy the new re-releases, they have PC culture all over them. Find the OG true files. Also there is a hack - DOOM Eternal comes bundled with some of these WAD files. Also there are compilations available on Steam.

(1) Then you need to download PrBoom+. I gues that 95% of people will be on Windows, so I will show how to do it via PowerShell (if you are on Linux you know what to do - just jump to packaged instructions directly):

# https://sourceforge.net/projects/prboom-plus/files/prboom-plus/2.5.1.4/
cd  D:\GAMES\
wget https://netix.dl.sourceforge.net/project/prboom-plus/prboom-plus/2.5.1.4/prboom-plus-2.5.1.4-win32.zip -OutFile prboom_win32.zip
# unzip, had to do it via WinRAR
# copy your DOOM and DOOM II WAD files!
# I have one just laying around
cp .\DOOM.WAD prboom_win32\prboom-plus-2.5.1.4

On Linux the installation process is more involved and requires compilation. Please see the INSTALL file. Also it varies per Linux distribution.

(2) Now launching your DOOM games is as easy as:

In PowerShell

# go to your game folder
cd prboom_win32\prboom-plus-2.5.1.4
# launche the OG DOOM
.\prboom-plus -file DOOM.WAD -complevel 2 -warp 4 -skill 4 -solo-net

 .\prboom-plus -file .\sunlust.wad -complevel 2 -warp 6 -skill 4 -solo-net

Sometimes for WADs consisting of two files, e.g. BTSX or Hell Revealed:

.\prboom-plus -file .\btsx_e2_b3\btsx_e2_b3\btsx_e2a.wad .\btsx_e2_b3\btsx_e2_b3\btsx_e2b.wad -complevel 2 -solo-net -warp 8 -skill 4

.\prboom-plus -file .\hr\HR.WAD .\hr\HRMUS.WAD -complevel 2 -warp 8 -skill 4

.\prboom-plus -file .\btsx_e1\btsx_e1a.wad .\btsx_e1\btsx_e1b.wad -complevel 2 -solo-net -warp 4 -skill 4 -fast

Also some useful flags can be found in bundled readme files. I mostly use these flags:

-file - this is just your was file(s);
-warp teleports you to the N-th level of the modpack with a pistol start;
-skill - 4 is UV, all you need to know;
-solo-net- some older WADs have extra enemies and challenge designed for coop mode. Sometimes it is just too much, sometimes this is a fair challenge;
-fast - this enables fast monsters. This is usually seen in nightmare mode, but for extra fun and challenge you can play the first OG episodes with this;