The Ultimate Doom

The Ultimate Doom title screen

The Ultimate Doom (or The Ultimate DOOM as a brand, and informally "Ultimate Doom") is an expanded version of Doom released on April 30, 1995, that adds a fourth nine-level episode to the game, Thy Flesh Consumed. The enhanced version was made as an incentive in the distribution of the boxed game through retail stores and venues, although to be fair to fans who had previously registered Doom, id Software provided them with a freely available patch to upgrade their copy of Doom version 1.9 to The Ultimate Doom.

Design

The Ultimate Doom CD from the Depths of Doom Trilogy collection.

The expansion's design was led by John Romero with American McGee and Shawn Green. Romero recruited two prominent level designers from the fan community to complete the team: John Anderson (Dr. Sleep), who would later help John Romero with Daikatana; and Tim Willits, who eventually became id Software's lead designer. A few extra new graphic assets were created by the artists.

Ultimate Doom was produced as a retail version of Doom while id Software was involved in other projects. John Carmack has explained that it was always a secondary focus spearheaded by GT Interactive.

The plot of the new episode is indicated to occur between the events of the original game and Doom II. Though the exact location of the new levels is unknown, the ending of episode 3 implies that the protagonist is on Earth after entering the hidden doorway from Hell. The ending of the new episode declares that the spiderdemon had already sent forth its legions, and that the player is aware of them rampaging through Earth's cities.

As Doom II features were present in the executable, some of these, namely sector type 17, the key-requiring switches, and other linedef actions such as blazing doors were used in the additional levels.

In addition to making two of the new levels, John Romero modified the first level of his first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead, to allow more circulation among opponents during deathmatch games by adding openings into the central courtyard.

Engine

For the release, the programmers involved made some small tweaks to the source code as required for the new episode, adding the necessary text strings, a fourth-episode demo to the demo sequence, and modifying the boss death triggers to accommodate for new boss situations in the sixth and final levels. This last change had the side effect of making the modified executable incompatible with a few PWADs that depended on the old trigger behavior. Additionally, the programmers also fixed a glitch existing in previous releases where lost souls would not bounce on the floor or ceiling as intended. This change caused some demos previously recorded on levels including these monsters to desync.

In other respects the engine performs like Doom version 1.9, and in fact is still marked and internally considered as "v1.9" regardless of the changes mentioned previously, which produce occasional incompatibilities. As such it can run the 1.9 versions of Doom and Doom II, although when doing so the additional fourth demo is still requested by the executable, resulting in the termination of the program immediately following the third demo of the looping demo sequence. Also, when running the non-Ultimate 1.9 version of Doom the executable still expects the M_EPI4 lump, so that the engine will crash when showing the "Which episode?" screen.

Name

Before the expansion's release and before the name The Ultimate Doom was chosen, the game was referred to as The Definitive Doom Special Edition. References to the original name can be found in the source code and in the DOS installer of the game, which features the shortened name DOOM: Special Edition on the titlebar and suggests DOOM_SE as the default installation directory. This name was also used in early press material referring to the add-on.

In the 2015 Doom source data release, an early version of the Ultimate Doom executable is included in the DoomMapsSE folder of the doom-maps.zip file. When run, its startup displays the title "DOOM System Startup 1.9 Special Edition" in black characters on a cyan background, instead of "The Ultimate DOOM Startup v1.9" in dark gray on light gray background.

Episodes

Ultimate Doom maps
Knee-Deep in the Dead E1M1: Hangar E1M2: Nuclear Plant E1M3: Toxin Refinery E1M4: Command Control E1M5: Phobos Lab E1M6: Central Processing E1M7: Computer Station E1M8: Phobos Anomaly E1M9: Military Base
The Shores of Hell E2M1: Deimos Anomaly E2M2: Containment Area E2M3: Refinery E2M4: Deimos Lab E2M5: Command Center E2M6: Halls of the Damned E2M7: Spawning Vats E2M8: Tower of Babel E2M9: Fortress of Mystery
Inferno E3M1: Hell Keep E3M2: Slough of Despair E3M3: Pandemonium E3M4: House of Pain E3M5: Unholy Cathedral E3M6: Mt. Erebus E3M7: Limbo E3M8: Dis E3M9: Warrens
Thy Flesh Consumed E4M1: Hell Beneath E4M2: Perfect Hatred E4M3: Sever the Wicked E4M4: Unruly Evil E4M5: They Will Repent E4M6: Against Thee Wickedly E4M7: And Hell Followed E4M8: Unto the Cruel E4M9: Fear

• Knee-Deep in the Dead
• The Shores of Hell
• Inferno
• Thy Flesh Consumed

Speedrunning

Current DSDA records

The DSDA movie run records for The Ultimate Doom are:

Run	Time	Player	Date	File	Notes
UV max run	2:29:50	Erick Tenorio (GuyNamedErick)	2018-02-11	udm-22950.zip	Plays back in CNDoom only

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 27, 2022.

Physical media

• 

  3.5" floppy disks

• 

  CD-ROM

• 

  UK manual

• 

  Poster

See also

• Doom
• Doom II
• Cover art
• DOOM.EXE, DOOM.WAD
• SIGIL

External links

• id Software's The Ultimate Doom site (archived 🏛)
• Upgrade patch for registered Doom v1.9 at Doomworld (also see readme file at Gamers.org)
• Radio advertisement promoting The Ultimate Doom (archived 🏛) at Planet Romero
• Poster of The Ultimate Doom, at The Page of Doom, on Doomworld
• The Ultimate Doom UK poster at Doomworld/idgames
• The Ultimate Doom manual 90-page edition (English, French, Italian, Spanish) at the Internet Archive
• The Ultimate Doom manual (archived 🏛) on Steam
• The Ultimate Doom at Compet-n
• The Ultimate Doom full-game runs at the Doom Speed Demo Archive
• Top-down perspective view of all Doom levels by Ian Albert
• Review at ONEMANDOOM: WAD Reviews

References

Games in the Doom series v ·  t ·  e
Classic Doom	Doom • Doom II • Final Doom • Doom 64 Expansions: The Ultimate Doom • Master Levels for Doom II • No Rest for the Living • SIGIL • Legacy of Rust • The Lost Levels Official ports: 3DO • Acorn RiscOS • Apple Macintosh • Jaguar • Doom 64 (2020 version) • Doom Classic Unity port • Doom + Doom II • Game Boy Advance ( Doom, Doom II) • iOS • Linux • NEC PC-9801 • NeXTSTEP • OS/2 • Pocket PC • QNX • SGI • Sega 32X • Sega Saturn • Solaris • Sony PlayStation ( Doom, Final Doom) • Sony PlayStation 3 • Super NES • Tapwave Zodiac • WebTV Plus • Windows ( WinDoom, Doom95) • Xbox • Xbox 360 Related: Development of Doom • Doom engine
Doom 3	Doom 3 Expansions: Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil • The Lost Mission Official ports: Doom 3: BFG Edition • Doom 3 (2019 version) • Doom 3: VR Edition Related: id Tech 4
Doom (2016+)	Doom (2016) • Doom VFR • Doom Eternal • Doom: The Dark Ages Expansions: The Ancient Gods, Part One • The Ancient Gods, Part Two Related: Development of Doom (2016) • id Tech 6 • id Tech 7
Mobile games	Doom RPG • Doom II RPG • Doom Resurrection • Mighty Doom
Canceled games	Doom Absolution • Doom 4 1.0
Tabletop	Doom: The Boardgame • Doom: The Board Game • Assault on Armaros Station
Related: Commercial games • Expanded universe • List of books • List of commercial compilations