John Romero releases new Doom II map to “support the Ukrainian people”

All screens in this article were captured from a GZDoom instance running "One Humanity," currently on sale for 5 with all proceeds going to charity. (Yes, I opted for IDDQD. You'll have to wait for another day to see my Nightmare difficulty speedrun without cheats.) (credit: John Romero)

In a surprise treat for '90s first-person shooter fans, Doom series co-creator John Romero emerged this week with a brand-new map for the 1994 classic Doom II. While it's priced somewhat high for this kind of content-5 for a single old-school map-there's a good reason.

Romero makes clear in the release's template file that this WAD's sale is intended to "raise funds to support the Ukrainian people." It can be purchased at his personal shop site, where he says all proceeds will go toward two humanitarian organizations: the Ukrainian Red Cross and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund. (On the non-charity front, Romero's store also sells a bunch of Doom-era goodies.)

Romero makes clear pretty early on that we're in Doom II territory, not Doom 1. (credit: John Romero)

One day after its Wednesday launch, the download was updated to add much of the same ReadMe information found in his 2019 Doom 1 map pack, Sigil, that explains to newcomers how to easily get the new map working in either Windows or MacOS. (As I found in my own casual testing, the same instructions do not work on Steam Deck, whose semi-closed Arch Linux implementation currently requires a dive into its command line.) To play Romero's new map, "One Humanity," you'll need an original retail Doom II installation (which comes as part of the newest Doom II version on Steam and GOG), on top of which you can apply a source port like GZDoom.

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