John Romero's about to make you a gift
It's a free Doom episode
Celebrating the 25th birthday of Doom's shareware episode today, Id Software co-founder and level design wizard John Romero has announced he's making a whole new episode for the seminal first-person shooter. Sigil is its name, and launching free in February 2019 is its game. Romero calls Sigil "the spiritual successor to the fourth episode of Doom," the one added in the Ultimate Doom expansion, saying it "picks up where the original left off." While Sigil will be free, it is getting paid physical releases too, with the fanciest including "a pewter statue of John Romero's head on a spike."
Sigil is to be a nine-level campaign with nine new deathmatch levels too. John Romero started mapping for Doom again a few years back, making a new take on Doom's E1M8 (the final level of the shareware episode) as well as a new version of E1M4. Looking at Sigil, yup, his new style is still big on jagged hellcracks.
Romero expects to launch Sigil for free in "mid-February 2019" and yes, you will need the full version of Doom to play it - your shareware's no good here.
For people who wish to commemorate a new Doom episode from John Romero by putting new physical objects in their homes, two boxed editions are coming. The $40 Standard Edition has a big box containing a USB drive with the episode, a few doodads, and music from celebrated eerie shredder Buckethead - including a song written especially for Sigil. That music's not included with the free downloadable version. The $166 Beast Box has all that plus a coin, a print of the technosatanic box art, a t-shirt, and the aforementioned pewter spiked head. Technically that's a Doom II reference, but I'll let it slide.
