Doom... for Free? What's the catch?
Freedoom was a project aiming to create a completely free IWAD file that would be distributed free of charge following the release of the Doom engine under a non-commercial free use license in 1997. Hearing the news, Simon Howard took it upon himself to release DOOM to everyone, which meant creating a total conversion for every asset of the game, save for the engine.
While the maps of Freedoom weren't particularly as good as the original game, owning both the engine and the base game meant you could essentially download any wad or megawad, the only difference being the demons would be replaced with aliens, each behaving like their demonic counterparts. Textures and soundtrack would also be slightly different, as they were also licensed.
We actually loved playing Freedoom, while the sprites aren't quite as detailed and we have no nostalgia whatsoever for it, it does feel like playing an entirely different game, something akin to Chex Quest. In that sense, some of the monsters are definitely goofier than their Doom counterpart, but I actually much prefer the flesh worm over the pinkie, and the imps and soldiers are really rads as well. We feel the iwad would really compliment a sci-fi map. Soundtrack sounds surprisingly tight sometimes, E1M4 is probably my favorite track, but E2M3 is equally as awesome.
There were few projects as extensive as Freedoom back then, most wads from the 90s are actually quite simplistic, and the task of replacing every map and asset of the base DOOM game was a hard task to undertake... and all for a wholesome cause.
Freedoom is pretty sick, even if you own the base game you should check it out, even if solely for the historical value of it.
Freedoom was a project aiming to create a completely free IWAD file that would be distributed free of charge following the release of the Doom engine under a non-commercial free use license in 1997. Hearing the news, Simon Howard took it upon himself to release DOOM to everyone, which meant creating a total conversion for every asset of the game, save for the engine.
While the maps of Freedoom weren't particularly as good as the original game, owning both the engine and the base game meant you could essentially download any wad or megawad, the only difference being the demons would be replaced with aliens, each behaving like their demonic counterparts. Textures and soundtrack would also be slightly different, as they were also licensed.
We actually loved playing Freedoom, while the sprites aren't quite as detailed and we have no nostalgia whatsoever for it, it does feel like playing an entirely different game, something akin to Chex Quest. In that sense, some of the monsters are definitely goofier than their Doom counterpart, but I actually much prefer the flesh worm over the pinkie, and the imps and soldiers are really rads as well. We feel the iwad would really compliment a sci-fi map. Soundtrack sounds surprisingly tight sometimes, E1M4 is probably my favorite track, but E2M3 is equally as awesome.
There were few projects as extensive as Freedoom back then, most wads from the 90s are actually quite simplistic, and the task of replacing every map and asset of the base DOOM game was a hard task to undertake... and all for a wholesome cause.
Freedoom is pretty sick, even if you own the base game you should check it out, even if solely for the historical value of it.