John Romero’s brutal megawad Sigil 2 has formally chainsawed its way into Bethesda’s Doom + Doom 2 remaster
Bethesda and Nightdive Studios’ remaster of Doom + Doom 2 was not just an excellent overhaul of the legendary FPS and its sequel, it brought together all of vanilla Doom’s additional adventures under one cracked, pentagram-scrawled roof. Alongside the two base games, it included the master levels for Doom II, the two halves of Final Doom, and a new official campaign developed by MachineGames, the furiously challenging Legacy of Rust.
Yet there was one notable omission from the remaster’s library of canonical (and semi-canonical) adventures—Sigil 2. Designed by Doom cocreator and general FPS legend John Romero, Sigil 2 is Doom’s sixth episode, comprised of nine new levels (two of them secret) which take place directly after the events of the first Doom.
The original Sigil, Doom’s fifth episode, was initially released in 2019 and included as part of Doom + Doom II’s official expansion lineup on launch. Sigil 2, on the other hand, was available only as a featured mod, meaning you had to go rummaging through the mod menu to find it. But this has now changed.
Earlier this week, Bethesda patched Doom + Doom 2 which fixed various minor bugs and mod compatibility issues. Mainly though it officially added Sigil 2 to the roster of mainline Doom releases, meaning it appears on the game selection screen alongside Doom, its sequel, and the game’s other supplementary adventures.
It isn’t clear why Sigil 2 wasn’t part of this lineup to start with, given Sigil 1’s inclusion. But the most sensible explanation would be that there were some licensing hurdles Bethesda couldn’t vault in time for Doom + Doom 2’s launch. Sigil 2 released in December 2023, while Doom + Doom 2 landed in August last year. Nine months might seem like more than long enough to get a licensing issue like this sorted, but in the legal world it’s the blink of an eye.
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In any case, this update would suggest that both Sigil episodes are now officially part of the Doom story, which is exactly as things should be. I’m a big fan of both of Romero’s new episodes, which unlike Legacy of Rust, limit themselves to the original Doom’s weapon and enemy lineup, and are primarily exercises in level design.
Structurally they’re similar affairs, but Sigil 2 has generally larger and more challenging maps. Indeed, one key difference as told to me by Romero himself, is that he designed Sigil 1 so he could complete every level on ultra violence difficulty from a pistol start without saving, whereas he designed Sigil 2 so that this was impossible even for him.
Of course, Sigil 2 isn’t the only Doom game getting formally added to the series’ roster this year. There’s just over a month to go before Doom: The Dark Ages launches, and it seems that id Software is taking some pretty bold swings with the prequel. Joshua recently got hands-on with the follow-up and came away mostly, if not entirely impressed.
“Doom: The Dark Ages was not what I expected, but it was still a great, ridiculous power fantasy in the few hours I got with it, trading in running-and-gunning for rocking-and-socking in a way that still makes perfect sense for the series,” Wolens wrote in March. “It wasn’t perfect and I still have questions, but I came away from my hours with The Dark Ages a lot more eager to play the full thing when it releases on May 15 this year.”
