In Defense of DOOM 2's City Levels

[@GermanPeter]

The idea for this video had actually been floating around since 2018, believe it or not. That's how dedicated I am to these levels! *Edit:* I find it interesting how many comments I get that are along the lines of "Errmm no ackshually these maps have ALWAYS sucked and are NEVER good!!!" Like jeez dude maybe add some positivity to your life. I quite literally stated several times that these maps have their flaws, the point of the video was just to highlight that they also have positive aspects that get overlooked because people have such an unreasonable amount of hate for them. If you're just looking for flaws, you'll find them.

[@Treblaine]

(trailer guy voice) "five years in the making!"

[@anticorn6635]

I feel like with just a bit more detail the city levels could have looked more aesthetically pleasing. Which reminds me! Do you have those maps you made for them with a bit more detail up for download somewhere? I would love to play them!

[@DinnerForkTongue]

Wow, I'm perplexed you didn't mention _the_ city level in Classic Doom for comparison: Odyssey of Noises.

[@SwiftBlitz.]

never knew you made doom 2 content! wow!

[@DinnerForkTongue]

@@SwiftBlitz. Yep. I recommend his video on keys for doors vs switches.

[@fun-epersonnproductions4002]

Fun Fact: Almost all the levels of Doom 2 were made without a pre-set order. The level order was only later set, based mosty on individual level's difficulty. That's why hell levels don't look at all like they did in Doom 1 and some other levels set on earth seem to be kind of garish and hard to imagine as locations on earth.

[@Ducky-vl7mp]

Imo one of the biggest missed opportunities in Doom was making a cohesive story told through level design rather than just crafting random levels and throwing them together. Then again they only had 10 months to make Doom 2 and most of Doom 1 maps were made/finished in 3 months by Sandy.

[@quiver5756]

@@Ducky-vl7mp I mean... Doom 1 is the closest to that among the classic games. There's an actual thematic cohesion between episodes, rather than the mess of D2. First you start in the Phobos moon in the space ship hangar as it logically would be. The episode itself consist on tech bases with few satanic elements usually hide in the secrets, and the final level is the Phobos anomaly, a giant teleporter platform which shows the first sings of demonic corruption and abstraction. The second episode continues on the Deimos anomaly, the other side of the portal, and this time you can see the tech bases are corrupted and distorted by hell influence with satanic stuff everywhere. This epidose even shows the Tower of Babel being build slowly in the intermission screen, nice detail. And the final epidose is hell itself, with cathedrals and pure organic structures, and bits of human tech asimilated in the middle.

[@goldheartodyssey4486]

@@Ducky-vl7mp that is a big reason why 2016 is my favorite DOOM. It was the only one along with DOOM 3 to nail that.

[@PerfectSense77]

@@goldheartodyssey4486Doom Eternal definitely successfully tells a story through its level design. It’s all logical and perfectly cohesive with the story, with lots of variation to keep things fresh.

[@JasperFoxo]

@@PerfectSense77 It's far less interesting than 2016s in my opinion, the story in Doom Eternal has a lot of random places you go to. But doom 2016 keeps the story of you having to rip and tear your way through the facility to prevent olivia from opening a portal to hell, she does anyways. So you go to hell to kill them. Doom Eternal is, oh hey youre the same dude as the last game, oh btw you have a chainsaw and you just get thrown into hell on earth, nothing to link 2016 to Eternal, you just are teleported there. sure Doom Eternal is pretty good if you ignore the story, and so is 2016. In my opinion 2016 just has a better story than eternal. If you compare Eternal's story to 2016, you will probably also say its a lot more coherent than eternal. Sorry for the paragraph lol, it wasn't meant to be a rant. If i were to explain Eternal's story it would make this even longer.

[@tearfullink]

Like them or not, the city levels gave us one of the best tracks in doom 2

[@GermanPeter]

Which ones you mean?

[@sheldor6172]

@@GermanPeter sandy city was a pretty good song.

[@gibbonplays6111]

@@sheldor6172 i dont think 'the pit' classifies as a city level

[@evdestroy5304]

@@gibbonplays6111 Into Sandy's City is the name of the song

[@gibbonplays6111]

@@evdestroy5304 yeah, and that song is from a level called 'the pit'

[@discardedbiscuit5449]

I feel like a lot of kids were much more observant than me on this stuff, I kinda just took everything as is like "yeah that's a doom 2 level aright". Doom levels are like dreams, you can't really make sense of them, just experience them.

[@spineappletea]

many people say e2m8 is too small to be the tower of babel, but i prefer the idea that you're just at the very top of it and it's like this sandy courtyard area. but for the actual city levels, i enjoyed them for their gameplay rather than visuals (plus, it's not like they could've been all that detailed. even with how primitive it looks now, downtown is only about 30 sectors away from a visplane overflow at the tower with the red key). maybe playing the games dozens of times is a factor in it, but the maps weren't ever as confusing or difficult to navigate as many say they are.

[@Legally_John]

I never even considered E2M8 being the entire tower. It only the top always just made so much sense that's what I'd imagined from day 1.

[@boltstrikes429]

I think what's being pointed out is that the skybox has mountains that clearly reach over the supposed "tower of babel" which is supposed to be so massive it can reach heaven

[@illyay1337]

Yeah I always thought it was the top floor too.

[@animarthur5297]

Well, it's still weird, right? Doomguy SHOULD have encountered a lot of shit while making his way up to the top, but i guess the whole goddamn tower is empty

[@npc_blob1609]

This is forgetting that visplane limits are arbitrarily set by the programmers to enforce respecting technical constraints at the time.

[@NiGHTSnoob]

One thing about Duke 3D and Blood is that two year difference is actually a lot. It might not sound like much, but in the 90's two years might as well have been 10 or 12 today in terms of how fast graphical fidelity was progressing. Going from 50 polygons to 250 polygons is a hell of a lot more noticeable than going from 300 million to 301 million after all. Of course they look a lot more like real cities. The cities in Zelda Ocarina of Time and Sonic Adventure sure look a lot more like actual cities than the one in Wet-Dry World in Super Mario 64, and that was also a two year difference.

[@npc_blob1609]

It was probably more to do with what those games were aiming to achieve. Mario 64 is generally more abstract and the city in that level is only a small element of it, modeled by hand as level geometry without much if any bespoke textures or models from the art team.

[@CreativeUsernameHere-r1k]

Just sticking to fps games Quake-Half life jump is enough to show 2 years difference.

[@double-cheesemcqueeze6315]

​@user-un5xj1wl6p The jump from Wolf 3D to Doom alone shows this, too. Hell, look at Rise of the Triad vs Duke Nukem 3D.

[@Astfgl]

Graphics technology was advancing at an insane rate in the '90s, two years was an eternity compared to the glacial pace of development today. The Build engine used by Duke 3D and Blood stretched the limits of what could be done with a Doom-style game engine, and it was also made to play primarily on Pentium processors, when Doom was designed to be playable on a 486. The jump in technology between the two was huge and should not be understated.

[@tacosunbirth]

People who say "the city levels in Doom 2 don't look like cities" have clearly never been to certain parts of the Midwestern states of the USA. I literally have been to places that look like "The Factory" level in Up-North Minnesota. Something people forget too is that Doom takes place in the Future. Judging by how buildings nowadays are lifeless gray cubes and how companies won't stop with minimalism, I think it was actually a very realistic depiction of the future of cities having brutalist architecture. Although I have never been to an ex-Soviet country, I have seen many pictures of places from that part of the world that look like Doom 2 city levels!!

[@lethalbroccoli01]

Dont know where I heard this, but apparently much of the levels on Earth are based on locations in europe. I think courtyard for example was supposed to be eastern europe.

[@Thrackerzod8]

i feel so weird and alien when i have way more fun exploring city levels than the normal space military stuff, it's just so cool to see bigger areas and huge buildings that you can enter inside and get out and explore more.

[@alchemispark7751]

ive not played or watched doom 2 far enough to see city levels, but i find seeing how ordinary people live in fictional universes extremly interesting

[@doododaadoo8673]

The city levels are fiiine, it's just they're really open and their overall ugliness is kind-of a problem when you have to look at them for a decently big chunk of the game. EDIT: good points but I still think theyre just kinda blech to go through

[@JustinLesamiz]

Big chunk of the game? There's 32 levels and only 3 are city themed.

[@Fargoth_Ur]

@@JustinLesamiz The city levels tend to take a lot longer to complete than most other Doom 2 levels. They may not actually make up a large portion of the total playtime, but when you're going through them, they sure _feel_ like they do.

[@christopherthibeault7502]

Now, just to be fair, Map14 Inmost Dens resembles a shootout scene from a Spaghetti Western movie. It also looks like repurposed storm drains and reservoir channels that can get around the city without being actual streets; hell-spawn simply fortified the area. It may not necessarily be a place where citizens live (unless they're homeless or transients), but it does seem part of a city.

[@amphimixis]

I played Doom 2's city levels for hours on end. In retrospect they've not aged well, but in 1994 they were mindblowing. I still appreciate their abstract design as Sandy Peterson, John Romero, and others decided that making levels based on how places looked in real life didn't make them fun to play.

[@alex91849]

Actually the cities in doom 2 are very reminiscent of current day detroit in almost every aspect.

[@MiroslavBaldzhiev]

Maybe not as dangerous as detroit

[@DrGiggleTouch67]

XD

[@Rountree1985]

Translation: “I’m a white guy who is scared of black people”

[@tacosunbirth]

YES! This is what I have been saying! Doom 2 City levels are genuinely becoming more realistic nowadays with how urban areas are becoming brutalist hellholes.

[@unduloid]

A lot cleaner, though.

[@luigitrollface]

the real place sandy petersen said he designed suburbs around was his house, one of the buildings is essentially a recreation of the first floor of his house

[@funnyvalentine4691]

The city levels were probably the closest thing doom 2 had that resembled a place on Earth. If you ignore the everlasting brick wall surrounding them they're actually pretty cool looking

[@JustinLesamiz]

Seriously. They were astonishing in 1994.

[@ludi1982]

As a Doom mapper with several years of experience, I loved seeing your additions to the vanilla maps! They're tasteful, and keep to the original style quite well. Would you consider releasing your edits in a wad? :^)

[@beltwaaay4006]

THIS! I wouldn't mind playing all DOOM 2 all over again with those additions 😂

[@gunzblazin6860]

Which maps have you made???

[@sosafnot]

That’s one thing I feel like people and sometimes myself forget is using your imagination. Some of my favorite things about the Doom 1 and 2 and even some fanmade WADs is the creativity that went into maps to make them resemble certain object and areas of a world. While I do think some places in Doom 2, specifically the Suburbs and The Factory looking the least like what they say they are I can still vaguely make them out and fill in the blanks myself. Fan made remakes of Doom 2 have done wonders to make those thoughts and interpretations become a reality thanks to newer tech and the removal of limitations. Reading and responding to your tweets about the city levels always did make me wonder how come some people didn’t like them. And from looking at the comments it’s quite clear it’s from the limitations of Doom 2. With most textures being reused from Doom 1 and any other texture vaguely resembling a building or house it’s pretty clear that many people especially those probably, heck, more than likely have played games like Duke Nukem 3D or even games from later generations that have had far more detailed interpretations of cities and houses to go off of due to advancements in technology. I still personally think that some of the levels that are still city levels in my eyes; The Factory and Industrial Zone, have issues with level layouts being underutilized like the factory having enemies and such occupying the interiors and less so on the exteriors. Aside from a couple of Arachnotrons there’s so much emptiness in that level. Industrial Zone doesn’t have it so bad with at least zombiemen patrolling many out door areas but that’s really all there is aside from chaingunners sniping you from afar on buildings. Some pinkies or specters to throw off the play in those open areas would’ve kept players on their toes so that traversal isn’t just a straight line to the next area. Mt.Erebus from Doom 1 had this issue of being an open map with not many enemies in areas to go to that wasn’t surrounded with damaging goo. However it feels like a blend of Gotcha! and Suburbs with the mostly open area filled with lava and the huge wave of enemy spawns it almost turns into a slaughter map. For it’s first open map it’s not the worst thing ever, but it’s still got issues. A map like Gotcha! which is far from a city (more like an Earth map I guess) is one that feels slightly more seamless however it does have areas that can pretty much only be accessed with a rad suit and may require trail and error to even get to. The Suburbs having that huge wave of monsters after obtaining the blue keycard is a moment that caught me off guard my first time playing. It’s a a part that did take advantage of the openness of the level that did make things more manageable than say a more confined Doom 1 level. I think what I’m getting at here is that open ended levels with lots of area for the player to roam, should have monsters occupying it. If that means keeping them in structures to snipe the player like in Downtown. Or spawn a battalion after procuring a key item to better utilize that space like suburbs. I could probably go on about how some things are well made in the city or even just the Earth levels in general. Heck, or even how some parts are frustrating and just haven’t aged all that well in Doom 2. I will say this though, Doom 1 has many issues with its levels especially the later episodes,(episode 3 and 4) that I’d rather play TNT than another minute of those levels.

[@Disthron]

Thinking about it now, there were towns and villages in Heretic and Hexen that were WAAAAY more convincing. Then there was Strife, with it's RPG elements. These games didn't have much more detail to work with than Doom and Doom 2 but they still managed to make way more convincing environments.

[@CreativeUsernameHere-r1k]

I mean, my favourite doom city is a bit cheaty being a Auger zenith since it's a source port map pack... but damn those citys actualy make sence.

[@Tae-Joon-Park]

I Like that no one can aktualie spell aktyulaly

[@DeltaV287]

That big fight by the blue key on Suburbs was always one of my favorites. It's essentially the first slaughter fight and inspired SO many WADs to come.

[@juanausensi499]

Oh, yes! I still remember the first time i had that encounter. It was nuts.

[@AlysZara]

That fight was pure blissful joy for me. I kept retrying it until I won undamaged

[@jmjanzen]

Just replayed Doom 2 recently, and was so surprised by this part. Somehow I always forget that the official games had some pretty high monster counts. I can NOT imagine playing this with just a keyboard though, like so many people did back in the 90s

[@DeltaV287]

@@jmjanzen hehe I’ve played keyboard only since the 90s. It’s kind of a stubborn nostalgia at this point.

[@casual_villain]

I always assumed that when it came to the wacky level designs (even in Doom 1), it was simply the demonic forces corrupting the buildings, we even saw something similar to this in Eternal now that I think about it.

[@JustinLesamiz]

It's also a significant part of the Doom novels from the 90s

[@Spiderella3959]

I've never understood why people were so mad about city levels either and shook that off as some sort of running joke I didn't have enough context to understand. Glad to see other people who had fun on them. Nice video as always

[@DinnerForkTongue]

Me too. Everything about Doom's maps is abstract, you literally can't judge their fidelity.

[@cooler_carpington]

I don't like much of the DOOM 2 maps in general, they just seem badly designed to me

[@ghoulbuster1]

One guy said it's bad and everyone believed it.

[@xxnoxx-xp5bl]

I dunno, when first played Doom 2 as a kid, the Hell on Earth thing had me really excited and... It's more Doom. Probably the one and only time that such a statement is a disappointing thing.

[@TYR1139]

Maybe because the combat setpieces are bad, the are annoying to navigate trought, maybe because of the unnecesary backtracking, maybe for the awful monster window dressing? Maybe people here should play good Doom Levels

[@rapappathepepper3996]

Huh, i didn't knew they were hated, i always found them to be really cool and ambitious even if limited.

[@JustinLesamiz]

It's revisionist history nonsense that has become popular amongst loud people in the last few years. It's bullshit.

[@amaruqlonewolf3350]

I'm quite positive that these levels definitely would've been more closer to real life locations had Tom Hall not being fired. His maps are definitely the most recognizable as real locations even in Wolfenstein 3D. Also, the problem that we've got on our hands regarding the levels in general in DOOM, is that the team dumped about 90% of the workload on Sandy Petersen. For every 5 maps Romero made, 20 were made by Sandy. With this sort of workload dumped onto you, you'd definitely try the most you've got to make each of the map look unique. Id Software, as legendary as they are, sucked big, big time when it came to proper team work. One of the major reasons why Tom Hall's departure was evident due to the team not considering his ideas in spite of putting him as the creative manager. Watching Sandy Petersen's interviews gives one a good insight on how badly the team was organized without any sort of leadership. This is evident in the map design; it clearly reflects Sandy's burnout. If possible, try giving Memento Mori 1 and 2 a go. The beautifully brilliant map design in there reflects what can be achieved if the workload is properly distributed.

[@GermanPeter]

Oh yeah, I also wonder what Doom might have looked like if they hadn't just ignored 90% of Tom's ideas. Like... the man was the CREATIVE DIRECTOR. That was his job, and you just IGNORE it??? Probably closer to Rise of the Triad in a lot of ways, considering that's where he was finally able to implement his multiple characters-idea. I still like Sandy's levels. They're not flawless, but they have a weird charm to them. And I honestly find a lot of them more memorable than some of Doom 1's levels. Especially since that one had classics like space station #2 and space station #7. On the topic of Wolfenstein 3D levels, check out this video of mine, it talks about exactly what you mentioned: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h2nWmKN-rpiVedE

[@eltiolavara9]

hell yes personally i'm a huge fan of the hell levels, people really hate them for being ugly or whatever but they play great and never overstay their welcome at all, and the abandoned mines is amazing

[@JAiZYouTube]

6:54 - I heavily disagree with the idea that "if you need a giant arrow to tell you where to go in the level, the level is badly designed." A crucial component of good level design is showing players where to go, and the way that's done is basically by placing giant arrows throughout the level, they just don't usually look like literal arrows. Things like using lights and framing scenery to guide the way are essentially just big arrows saying "go here", usually they're subtle, but they're still functually an arrow pointing you in the right direction. Even using literal arrows to show the way through a level works just fine if you do it right. Look at Left 4 Dead's levels; Some have dozens of glowing orange arrows telling you where to go next, but it's pretty evidently not bad design despite literally being "a giant arrow to tell you where to go". My opinion on city levels, having never played doom, is pretty much the same after the video as before; It's hard to make any setpiece interesting over a long course of time. You could take any theme or location and it would become very boring if it stays the same the whole way through. Even if you had something like hell itself it would become monotone if all you ever saw was lava lakes and caverns everywhere, so just like with any setpiece or theme, having variety is important to make an urban level interesting. While modern games can do this more easily since there's more resources and better technology, I can see why older games struggle with that detail aspect of design, and I think leaving them simple and giving the player the freedom to interpret them however desired is probably the better solution for those limitations, though I would still be careful about the overall size of such levels and their layout, since it's possible to make an environment feel imposing and confusing without actually making it imposing or confusing.

[@roadkill8377]

city levels suck and theyre bad and i hate them actually theyre cool i like them now

[@gibbonplays6111]

You didnt watch the video, there isnt enough time since the video went live you fiend

[@Kensuke0987]

I played this in the 90's when there weren't really any other games to compare. I liked Downtown because it actually looked like a city when everything else didn't look like anything. I heard that the level design is irregular like that because structured rooms and hallways was boring. This was with the moon base buildings - I suppose that level design strategy carried over to Doom 2.

[@TARINunit9]

Before video: Honestly the only city level I've seen anyone complain about is Map13 Downtown. Stuff like Map12 Factory or Map15 Industrial Zone is usually "mediocre at worst" and stuff like Map14 Inmost Dens, Map16 Suburbs, or Map19 Citadel are hailed as some of the best maps. And if we get into Plutonia, Map29 Odyssey of Noises is considered the best (stock) map ever After video: OK I'm disagreeing with your definitions, all the city levels are maps 12 through 19. "City" consists of a lot more than just residential buildings. Factory? City. Industrial Zone? City. Citadel? Literally part of a city, that's what "citadel" means.

[@ErosXCaos]

I would include more levels as City levels. Tenements, for example. The architecture is more brutal than a normal City, but that’s its vision for us. There’s places in Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City that are more awful than Tenement. And cities include Industrial Zones, so Factory is in. The vision of cities is bleak, and they’re Terrible.

[@KrazyKain]

I wouldn't say my opinion has changed. I always liked the ambition behind the city levels. The game is called Hell on Earth and I wanted to see something that screamed Earth, and not a Mars base or Hell, and the city levels did that. The fact that they don't really look like cities is fine, I mean I was always used ot the limitations of the engine, even if other people have done it better. But I will say they are still my least favorite levels to actually play. As much as I enjoy exploration in games, I don't like feeling lost in Doom, and that happens a lot in these levels.

[@chuckthewizard7288]

This is how I feel about defense sections in games. I love defense sections in games but so many people hate them.

[@jasonfenton8250]

They're bad when they're static, making you just stand in one place and shoot. They're good when they make you keep moving, responding to new threats, or falling back to fresh lines of defenses.

[@npc_blob1609]

It's fun when they have multiple points of siege to watch, imagining it like a game of tapper where you have to frantically dart between them, spending risky time at each, helps when designing them.

[@shotenno]

fun fact, i'm currently working on a duke3D styled shooter that for most parts contains city levels based on a austrian small town where i live (the game is called bullet trail) this helped alot thanks

[@shotenno]

@Cycloworks stand alone

[@doomvision8075]

Doom has always been best at implying or suggesting a location rather than explicitly trying to be a place. Even TNT: Evilution, which has the most "lifelike" maps of all the IWADs still has a healthy dose of abstraction for the sake of gameplay.

[@Tycitron]

I mean i thought the weird castles and visuals were a part of Doom 2's story text where it mentions the starbase being "warped by the demons presence" and i imagine this applies to the City levels as well. (and The Shores of Hell in Doom 1).

[@matthewbrown1555]

Before: I don't care that they don't look very much like a real city scene I'm playing a classic doom game anyway which almost always look like abstract locations anyway. In terms of gameplay however, most of the city levels have confusion and aimless design compared to other doom 2 levels. After: same mostly applies but I never thought about how little interesting stuff is put on streets in later build engine games in favor of interiors.

[@illuminatidad]

Well after working on making city maps for a doom tc project, I've learned a lot about what makes a good city level. What it mainly comes down to, is does it seem like a place someone could legitimately live in? How do people operate in those buildings? Do people gather there for events? How do people get there? Would you see yourself there in real life? Buildings have windows, they're not piles of bricks. Are there no liminal spaces? Tons of things like that are important design decisions. Obviously, after working on space stations and hell scapes for most of the levels, designing a city is a wild turn in style and precautions, so it's no wonder it looks unrealistic. However making a city level is not impossible in the doom engine either, and I'm sure if the designers had more time and some guidelines they could've pulled off some better scenery.

[@JustinLesamiz]

Realism is the LAST thing a good Doom map needs. One of the things that makes Doom so great is that it WASN'T a slave to realism. We need to get back to that kind of thinking and embrace whimsy again.

[@Bicloptic]

I’ve beaten the original Doom multiple times. I’ve only beaten doom 2 once, I just didn’t find getting lost in a city to be very fun.

[@sweetpepino1907]

I remember when I first found out Doom 2 had you go back home to Earth to stop the invasion of Hell there. I thought that was SO cool and scary. I've always been personally susceptible to apocalyptic themes and imagery, so when I first played it when I was much younger that skybox did a lot of heavy lifting for me and I found them mostly enjoyable. I've kinda hardened on them over the years for the same reasons as everybody else however. They're not bad levels, but do not give me a sense of place. Post video edit: I think the point that the city setting gives you room to set expectations is potentially at the heart of the issue. Perhaps when people get stuck on these levels, the facade falls apart and the frustration of being stuck is amplified by not being able to tell what the area you're in is supposed to be. I don't know what a spaceport would be like so it feels like exploring, but I have an idea of what a city is and how I might navigate it.

[@zeubersandvitch8882]

Doom 2's city levels walked so that Doom Eternal's cities could run many years after the fact. Doom 2 tried to portray something that it just didnt have the tech to achieve at the time imo. I dont mind them in terms of gameplay, but visually I just cant look past it, especially after playing Blood and Duke3d as you brought up.

[@bluebay0]

I love the city levels except for the visuals. Downtown and Suburbs have some of my favorite combat in all of classic Doom. Thank you for helping me articulate why I liked those levels all along.

[@deathstarskeetshooter8418]

Ive only just recently started playing the doom games and its not until just now that I’ve found out people hate the city levels.

[@singleproppilot]

A well-known bug in one of the early versions of Doom II caused the skybox to not change when you went to the city levels. You would have had to save your game, exit, restart Doom II, and reload the game to get the new sky. All the hate aside, I like the city levels. They’re not great to look at, but the wide open areas provide for some huge and intense fights.

[@collinstoltz3467]

I never thought the city levels were BAD, just that Doom II isn't especially well suited to representing realistic spaces, so all its cities - including in mods & such - usually just feel like, well, Doom levels.

[@Disthron]

I think the reason YOU were able to recreate suburbs from memory was because Doom 2 is one of your favourite games and you have played it a ton?

[@R3SerialDreams2]

I always loved the big city levels from Doom 2, with The Factory and Industrial Zone being personal favorites. People who dislike those levels may have a point, but I also think they're taking Doom way too seriously. I mean, when there's a level called "Nirvana" that has a Super Shotgun in the starting area (making pretty direct reference to how the eponymous rock band's lead vocalist, Kurt Kobain, left the world) it can't even be said that the devs took the story that serious, either. XD

[@R3SerialDreams2]

And I also agree that the abstract, sometimes completely nonsensical design works to the maps advantages like you said. I feel as though if the city levels more accurately mimicked a more realistic layout, they'd end up being more boring and monotonous. Whereas the city levels we got are open-ended, but still very interesting and challenging. I mean, Doom lore even supports the idea of Hell being able to twist and contort man-made structures. We saw it in The Shores of Hell and parts of Doom 3 the further the player ventures into the bowels of the UAC's facility on Mars itself.

[@lainamitclaire]

The Doom 2 city levels are actually quite fun if you play them with mods like Hideous Destructor. Doom is in this special place where even the shittiest 90's maps possible can be appreciated with a different sandbox, and you can really understand the art and labor that went into them and what they can offer for gameplay. Doom 2's city levels may not necessarily be for everyone, but in something much slower and more methodical like Hideous Destructor, the tactical shooter styled mod for GZDoom, you're given more of an appreciation of every last piece of cover given to you by the map. Every little edge of the buildings, the tiny little bunkers and hiding holes, little caves and the like. It's a map where you're constantly being hunted and yet these small areas are places of security and reprieve while you're healing yourself. It's kind of why I think there's no such thing as a bad doom map. There's some kind of enjoyment to be extracted from all of them and I don't think we should necessarily be so quick to write off a map as bad or dreadful or whatever the hell just because it may not be as fun in Doom. Sometimes, it just takes a different perspective.

[@W7F0N6]

It all comes down to the fact that DOOM II's design philosophy still revolved around the concept of abstract level design at a time when industry trends and player expectations (due in part to the terrestrial setting of "Hell on Earth") were moving toward more realistic level design. Neither approach is inherently "better", just emphasizes different things. Realistic level design cares about world-building and immersion whereas abstract level design only cares about gameplay. Both approaches have their place. In the modern landscape of FPS, DOOM, DOOM II, and Quake are unique and enduring examples of abstract level design applied to 3D games which you don't see much of these days.

[@GermanPeter]

That's a good way of putting it! I guess it was a continuation of Wolfenstein 3D's level design, where SOME levels had bits of realism in them, but the overwhelming majority were abstract concepts that allowed the player to imagine what it could be.

[@Blankult]

I've played doom so much with modding and whatnot that i don't even question or try to make reason of the maps anymore, they just look like mazes lol

[@AybaOnline]

i really love the city levels in concept, i actually really like how they look and they sell the city look pretty well for me, but i hate the gameplay so much. i feel like they made the architecture first and then tried to work out the linear flow of the level afterwards, and it just ends up feeling a bit misguided to me. i think that's why they're probably my favorite deathmatch levels, they feel like they're designed to be roamed around in, and the regular linear flow of doom seems to get in the way of that.

[@GermanPeter]

Oh, that's for sure. I mean, Downtown is literally just a set of squares that Sandy shaped into buildings, and Suburbs is straight-up just a recreation of a place he saw in real life.

[@JustinLesamiz]

Doom has never been about linearity... That was one of the great things about Doom and why modern games don't have that charm. There are so many Doom maps meant to be played in any order you want.

[@AybaOnline]

@@JustinLesamiz i kind of mean more in the general sense that each path in doom is ultimately linear. i know you’re probably meaning more so that you can pick which path you choose like doom 2’s map09 or 10, but by its nature i still think that the gameplay flow of doom is ultimately summarized by crafted linear paths that you get to choose the order of. the reason why i don’t think sandy’s levels work is because it doesn’t feel as though there is any forethought about the paths he set up, as if he just wanted to make a cool city and the player’s experience within it was an afterthought. i do absolutely agree that doom is more open and geared towards player agency than most shooters, that’s why i love it too, but i think it is still ultimately a guided and (arguably) linear experience. the best part of a good map is masking that guided experience by making the player feel as though they have a greater degree of control (eviternity II’s map14 and sigil’s map4 are great examples of this imo)

[@The-Zer0th-Law]

The problem with Doom 2's levels OVERALL is that they start to feel bland early on (I think about Map05?), and when we get to levels with cities-like structure, we hit another problem: too open. I've encountered similar issues on map packs, where level makers makes it so expansive with little to nothing to prevent enemies on the other side of the map from waking up. And given how the sound travels in Doom (which is, as Decino has shown, via a Flood Algorithm), this means you shoot ONCE and EVERY ENEMY IN THE LEVEL WILL WAKE UP AND HUNT YOU, resulting in some really "Nuts" situation.

[@GrandHighGamer]

The city levels are definitely just too ambitious for vanilla doom, resulting in a bunch of disconnected square boxes, some of which you can go into. The whole "disconnected self-contained areas" concept is hard to pull off well anyway, adding in a grid layout only makes it harder to spatially organise. Of course with custom maps, particular boom/mdf or UDMF maps that have slightly better support for doing things height-wise, can actually do the concept justice and give you city streets that both look more like actual streets and have some sense of flow and cohesion.

[@truebluethecat]

I always considered that the term "city" was used in a more generic term as huge city's with super tall buildings are not necessarily the norm in occurrence. Sure we all know the big city's like New York and LA. But compare doom 2s city's with places like Tacoma, WA in the 90s. Where there are some large buildings but most don't go much taller than 5 levels high in the downtown area. And there are plenty of warehouse/industrial type structures not terribly far away. Couple that with the two ideas of 1. Recent war aginst the demons damage. And 2. Hell warping things. And I can see how it would look the way it dose.

[@Cyfrik]

I don't have an issue with how the city levels look, and I like exploring large areas, but the issue I have with Downtown in particular is that it doesn't flow very well in my opinion. Downtown felt less like exploring and more l like I was running in circles and getting nowhere. It's got neat setpieces to discover, but the "main path" navigation's heavy reliance on teleportation radiates out into the rest of the level, making it feel disjointed and unconnected.

[@adampagano5361]

CyberMage actually had an interesting take on a city area. The game tried to use it like a hub area in between plot levels in the game. It actually did a good job of looking and feeling like an urban area.

[@Maceror]

City levels give me a headache edit: they still give me a headache, tbf most DOOM 2 levels do (especially Sandy's), city ones just last longer, so they give me a worse headache

[@oscarcacnio8418]

Motion sickness is a special kind of hell. And by god can I feel it while playing DOOM 2.

[@TheGuyWhoIsSitting]

The only maps that ever gave me a headache from the iD sanctioned map sets that aren’t the master levels were Map 8? The one that ends with two archviles and a bunch of revenants that teleport in, in Plutonia and Barrels o fun in DOOM 2 (both from pistol start)

[@panthekirb7561]

IG shooters aren't for you

[@Maceror]

@@panthekirb7561 I play a ton of shooters, especially the "boomer shooter" kind, DOOM 2 just turns my brain into scrambled eggs

[@panthekirb7561]

@@Maceror You're probably just one of those zoomers who think they're retro because they play Doom Eternal and Ultrakill (garbage game btw)

[@nicolasdelariva]

not only civvie told abot Suburbs being based on real location but Sandy Petersen himselff uploaded a video showing some ofthe real locations of the map

[@bitwize]

I know they don't look like real cities, and the geometry inside the buildings is... weird and not how a real building would operate... but I can't see how anyone could hate Doom 2's city levels. They are what make Doom 2 a worthy sequel to Doom, along with the Super Shotty, because the level design on them really kicks it up a notch compared to Doom 1. The environments are bigger and more complex and intended to represent scenery familiar to the player -- albeit in an abstract, Doomy way -- rather than the usual sprawling techno-complexes, fortresses, catacombs, and whatever hell is supposed to be. The city levels also present even more oppressive combat scenarios as you go from fighting in tight quarters in the buildings to being out in the open, closed in on from all sides. More realistic city scenarios have been created, even in vanilla Doom or source-port engines, but for 1994 the city levels were push-the-envelope mapping and I have nothing but fond memories of them. And yes, I think of levels like The Factory, Industrial Zone, and The Courtyard as city levels.

[@Runie549]

Yeah I never got all the hate for the city levels, they're my favorite 1/3 of Doom 2 for all the reasons you describe. But then I love the whole low-poly 3D aesthetic, and how it forces you to use your imagination, so I might just be weird XD

[@arthurdsjrjbr]

As a kid I can't say I liked these levels, but I didn't hate them either, I found them ugly and weird, but for a kid like me It was an excuse to shoot more monsters so I went along anyways. Today as a game designer and artist, yeah those levels were a mess, but hey It's 1994 and It's the third ever (relevant at least) FPS game in the 3rd year after the genre has been born and the first ever to feature city levels, It's not like they had many game references to work with. In compensation, 26 years later in Doom Eternal they made the most awesome city levels (peak at Final Sin and Ark complex for me, even if they were all good) featuring day-today stores, with fictional brands everywhere, posters and in-world merchandizing on the streets, office buildings, residential buildings, commercial buildings, neon signs, parking lots, the environment in those were peak (meanwhile I did like Reclaimed Earth a lot I did want it had the same treatment though but It was still awesome anyways).

[@SQron188]

I just hate the imps in building windows in Downtown. And also, some of the levels, like Downtown, are easy to get lost in. Suburbs, on the other hand is one of my favourite levels.

[@Ribulose15diphosphat]

The Buildings aren't _made_ of metal, they are probably covered in metal. 90's Postmoderismt architecture liked covering Facades and roof in sheet-metal.

[@josephkeen7224]

The thing is that the same makes the textures blend together more, making it harder to tell things apart. It’s a part of why the barren levels are a problem. It’s why bloods levels stick out despite the similar looking assets like you pointed out. Compare this to Doom 1, where the tighter design causes environments to stick out more due to how textures were better while still being non linear while not being barren like the city levels. Hopefully I explained this well. Another problem is that dooms combat is so dependent on enemy placement, and larger more open maps are a lot more limited in where you can place enemies, making them more boring for me personally.

[@Yubl10]

I've never really had any problems with the city levels in Doom 2. I've been playing the Doom games since I was 8 years old. Yes, I'm that old .

[@raptorprimal1077]

Hell On Earth Starter Pack Wad (you can take it out of the brutal doom it's packed with if you want and play the levels in vanilla doom) showed how to do perfect earth levels

[@GermanPeter]

Oh, dear, no. I actually wanted to make a video about those levels years ago, because they are ATROCIOUS. They look fantastic, but play TERRIBLY. I loved the part where you go through a massive battle that makes you use up all your ammo, and then right afterwards fight a giant boss with nothing left and no way to get more. That's when I quit.

[@raptorprimal1077]

@@GermanPeter looking back i somewhat agree. Somewhat. One thing i for sure can see being bad is how cramped some of the areas are

[@CrashOzzy1223]

10:12 I remember there’s supposed to be something about a green sunset somewhere, irl somewhere unable to sustain human life. Also mars? Phobos?

[@E5rael]

Thanks for defending the city levels! Although I will admit there's one thing I hate about Downtown: The overabundance of teleporters. I still have a hard time remembering which takes to which place. And, if you get it wrong, off you go back to the warehouse, wait for the slow elevator ride and then try the next teleporter.

[@Toraryuko]

I first played D2 at the time i did not think about it that much. Sure from DN3d the city levels were astounding. But Doom levels were fine. Basically just areas with different structures for layout and monster placement, only the textures gave it this or that feel. So in my eyes the city levels surely doesn't resemble city locations at all, but they are unique and fun to play taking down monsters from various placements is what gave them the unique feel. But one remark, what's with the barf-like default automap background color in the modern Doom ports? What was bad on the backgroung being black?

[@Zack_Wester]

I think a massive problem whit the "City" levels is that there is no sidewalk and road next to the building so they look... Im going to use Unity here. open unity download a few buildings model (whit no grass patch or anything around the bottom, or a floor at the bottom floor/level). then plop then down randomly and in a random direction on a empty field. (this is what some reviewers would call a asset flip game, because no thought have been given to the placements of the buildings ether for game play reason or realistic reason). do not add roads between them (dirt path, or concrete/pavement or anything). dont have any way for stuff to move to them (a road for car or for older European ones Horse carts). the Front door does not constrain to any logical placement. I think is one of the reason why player really dont like the maps the landmarks are so tiny that the player can´t see them. Take HL2 for example the Citadel can be seen at almost anytime and this have the effect of grounding the player orientation. most peaple navigate and give direction by landmarks. Like go down this street untill you see the Statue whit a bucket on its head turn left there follow that street until you get to X chain store then do X and your outside Y and you know your there because Y have this Triangle Fountain outside. and I remember playing some CS1 or correction playing CS1 over at a friends house whit some downloaded maps and the City maps was usually really bad. like it just looked like someone plopped down 4 boxes surrendered them all in in a tall wall and called it a city (you could or could not enter any or some or all of the boxes but thats semi uninported). It does not work. and if this was because of hell twisting it it really dont show it. (okey this is a lot later but having a building be cut in half because the other half is been replaced by some hell struckture could work exept here its clearly not what have happen and if it have thats not really communicated).

[@Aeduo]

I get using one's imagination, but the city levels are like the 3D version of Atari graphics. :p It's a bit too far from what it's supposed to be. But yeah, I definitely do get that it's easier to take for granted the fictional themes. Which I do find interesting about them though. You can kinda make up in your head what some room in a tech base or some weird hellish place of worship or just areas in hell could be used for and you can easily just fill in the blank with almost anything because it's distinctly otherworldly. Kinda the same way I feel about Quake's level design. It's abstract, but it's also weird twisted worlds inhabited by beings that just live very differently from us. I thing though that yeah, Doom 2's level design is as much larger maps with much fewer details and set-pieces. It was very much more of an experience for Doom players who just wanted more and harder Doom gameplay but probably didn't care as much about the visual aesthetic of original Doom. Also yeah the 1 year development time.

[@cybernightzero5891]

Suburbs is likely the most fun level in Doom 2. Downtown is the most imaginative. Industrial Zone. The Most ambitious. One factor a commercial product thrives off of is an element of controversy. Something that raises its hand and calls attention to itself. I know it's outside of games but look at the band Radiohead. Their album Kid A is an experimental landscape of electronic beats and synths. Songs like that push the boundaries, and yes, fans of The Bends hate it. Or the movie the Shining. Kubrick went against the book, much to the authors disliking and its one of the greatest horror films of all time. I could go on but hopefully I've made my point.

[@bobsaturday5840]

3:42 I like to imagine that this is old castle right in city which kept as either museum or touristic place

[@BreadTeleporter1968]

I always thought the castles were Hellish forts like we see in e3’s intermission screen brought to Earth

[@TheGuyWhoIsSitting]

I never understood the complaints “they don’t look like real cities” “they’re too big and I get lost” Ever been to a city for the first time? Because my god it is easy to get lost. Even with GPS I couldn’t find some stuff when I went to Tokyo. I followed the directions but my little indicator of where I was never seemed to correspond with reality. In fact by the time I found the destination I wanted to go to, the place was closed for the evening. Also, considering when the game came out and even compared with mostly vanilla compatible newer mapsets, computers back then would have absolutely crawled trying to render something more realistic. DOOM was well optimized but it still ran poorly on a lot of hardware at the time. I think people take that for granted now with hindsight and almost 30 years of innovation and technological advancements. Even between Doom 2 and the plutonia experiment the later levels look more defined than the levels in DOOM 2, but it was also released a long time afterwards as well. I’d argue TNT’s other set for final doom had some more blatant design sins of being too big. Besides there’s map 21 in DOOM 2 and people want to complain about downtown and industrial zone? Even before I saw others talking about how bad Nirvana is, I always felt something was really off about that map. Indeed, there is a lot off about it. Just my take. I’m not saying I’m right. I’m just confused why people would complain about any map that isn’t Map 21.

[@AndyAKratz]

I've been playing Doom and Doom II forever. I'm one who never hated the city levels. I think it kind of odd that some folks dislike them so much. I couldn't agree with your take on this more .

[@ssgssssg]

I had to look up a guide for downtown my first play through, other than that I didn’t mind the city levels

[@austinreed7343]

Plutonia goes further and adds nature levels (jungles, caves, etc) on top of city levels; it could have been interesting to toss some nature levels to show that the demons aren’t just targeting humankind but all life:

[@xcoder1122]

I didn't hate the city levels in Doom 2, I just thought there was too much running around in empty wide areas. Sure, you fight enemies outside but way too little considering how large that space is. As for "not looking like city levels", I agree that most of the time nothing in Doom or Doom 2 looks like anything meaningful. I also don't understand why Quake looks like a medieval theme park and while Quake II at least stays within the theme of bases and factories, most places don't look realistic either as nobody would build real bases or factories that way. The first game that gave me the feeling of a believable, realistic environment was Duke Nukem 3D and the game that really blew my mind in that aspect was Half Life.

[@blehmeh9889]

I'm a zoomer in my early 20's, and I played Doom 2 back in 2017 or so for the first time. Before watching this video, I had no strong opinion on the city levels. I heard people criticize them in the past for looking nothing like real locations despite being supposedly based on real locations. I could look past that, figuring "Based on and looks like a real place" was different in 1993 than it is today. Plus, it's far more "realistic" than the hell levels or the rest of the game. I enjoyed walking around the city levels and seeing all the towers and buildings. It was a little confusing and complicated, but that's any old school Doom level. I never heard anyone complain heavily about these levels apart from the usual "It's based on a real place but doesn't look very realistic!" angle, which I find to be an unsurprising observation for a debatably 3D game engine made 30 years ago.

[@spybgon4597]

i feel the inmost dens was a piece of hell the demons teleported

[@ash10ashofficial63]

my theory has always been that map 14 is a fort, like a historical site or something

[@volbound1700]

On the other city levels from the era, two other games come to mind that you don't mention. Tek Wars (lost to time) had amazing city levels with even Hospitals, Police Stations, Malls, etc. You could also interact with people and only got shot by criminals or police when you raised your guy or killed people. Star Wars Dark Forces had unique city like structures set in Star Wars Galaxy and was not far off from Doom 2.

[@Lizzaroro]

I always imagined the Pinky building in Downtown to be a fashion shop.

[@fabioataidedelima296]

As a fan of old FPS games, I understand that there has been a notorious evolution throughout the games since Wolf3D, which I like a lot for being simple as it is. Doom came with new resources such weapons and high and dark areas, and for me the city maps in Doom 2 are visually awesome, especially Downtown and Industrial Zone, maybe due to the nice view you get from the high up ledges and buildings. Of course the engine used in Duke Nukem and Blood brought more realism to the levels and then it just went better until nowadays when we have games with levels more realistic than real places LOL. About gameplay and complexity of the city maps, I find Doom reached its target with the resourcing limitations it had then. I found other maps more confusing than these ones, for my opinion still remains that Downtown and Industrial Zone are my favourite levels in Doom 2 followed by The Courtyard, which in my opinion has the best enemy infighting moment, more than Suburbs.

[@genyakozlov1316]

You can't argue that Chex Quest 2 didn't have better looking city levels despite being on the same engine, however.

[@thesmilingman7576]

3:35 they rearranged the levels multiple times during development check it's development page on the Cutting Room Floor and say which order would make more sense

[@DinnerForkTongue]

For me, the city levels were no different than the rest. Doom is always so abstract, you'd have to be a pedantic dongwad to say "BuT iT lOoKs NoThInG lIkE [insert theme here]!!!" with a straight face.

[@SpiritMaster99]

5:47 nah i say citadel is a city level. Back in the day you would have a citadel in the center of your city to hold troop garrisons and Factory is on the outside of the city

[@lancebaylis3169]

The most realistic Doom city in an official map set is actually Final Doom: The Plutonia Experiment Map 29, albeit transposed to a hellish landscape. It's the one time Doom ever gives us a city that is recognizable as a city in the way a Duke Nukem 3D or Blood city map does. 'Downtown' is a weird one in that the original design in the pre-release version actually includes docks and a water section at one end of the map, which got removed in the finished version. Quite why they'd take out the section that actually enhances the feel of it being an actual city is anyone's guess.

[@GermanPeter]

I actually prefer that the docks were taken out, because they added more buildings with windows on them. The docks certainly looked really cool, but it's probably better this way.

[@Fadam_red]

First time I played downtown It felt so cool to see that it’s not only hell and lab areas but also other places like a city, but then when I watch a video on doom 2 and downtown came on I began to hate it, but now I have began to see the fun In the city levels after this video, thanks

[@sweethomealabama6695]

I love your videos and how exited you sound, your fast pronunciation and overall humor

[@prodigy-hu6dy]

I enjoyed the city levels mostly, it was when I got to the Hell portion that this game just took a massive dump in quality for me and barely recovered. I really enjoyed Nirvana, Condo, Chasm and Spirit World in particular was my favorite map. The city stages were the best in my opinion

[@rukifellth2]

Gotta say, a year or so ago I played a Doom 2 remake megawad called Honte (Hell on THE Earth). Unlike other remake megawads that have a tendency to overbloat the vanilla maps, Honte actually stick very true to the source level and size while adding a TON of visual improvements while only using vanilla textures. When they managed to take The Factory and make it GREAT thats a good mind for detail. I'd love to see you compare D2 with Honte's unterpretation of D2.

[@david_escalante]

11:10 No, the problem isn't even that. It's not by design that the lack of city-like features exists, but rather due to the map designers' lack of skill. The maps are still enjoyable to play, but they weren't designed with the intention of encouraging players to fill the world with their imagination. It's simply a lack of skill in creating a design that makes sense when the necessary technology was available

[@otaking3582]

7:08 As a Texan, I must call out Civvie for his ignorance. Does he think Lee Harvey Oswald was human? Of course not! The warehouse building on Elm St in Dallas is swarming with Imps! That's where Wes Craven got the name for one of his horror franchises!

[@natetheninja3182]

I've always found DOOM's architecture really interesting. I mean, it is very limited since it's a 3D engine from the 90's, but it still makes the player use their imagination to figure out what certain things are, and I personally think that makes the architecture unique and cool. Even when making your own maps, you are limited with what you can do, but you are still using your imagination to create certain sections of the map. It's really cool tbh

[@nuke211]

after all this time, i never realized that Doom 1 end sceen was actually city with their skyscrapers. I always thought it was a huge tower where you fought the bosses. (hence the name Tower of Babel)

[@MentalParadox]

As a child, I thought the same

[@judsongaiden9878]

I always preferred the more fantasy-like maps over the city ones, but "Suburbs" is fun because it has that huge horde of frothing abominations. 10:10 Ackchyually, that's supposed to be Phobos.

[@billycausey4277]

I always took the cities as like at the time sci fi brutalist types. like what was in comic books in the late 80s and early 90s like Judge Dredd etc.

[@VitaTheMerm]

I feel like the inmost dens is a canal that was corrupted by hell kinda like doom 1's shores of hell

[@alfredblarzgh]

All I can say is that I first played through the Doom games in 2020, and completely forgot that Doom 2 was subtitled 'Hell on Earth' until after after I finished it. I didn't dislike anything about its levels, I just never made any connection between them and our planet.

[@aaronryan1259]

I always thought that the DOOM 2 city maps were manipulated warfare, what im trying to say here is that in the short time the millitary tried to destroy the demonic invasion most buildings were turned into tiny outposts. not to mention the map i think were made for playing efficiency not aesthetics

[@GermanPeter]

Definitely explains why there's so much ammo around.