Doom II's final secret unlocked after 24 years

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: It's tough to determine what's more impressive here: the fact that people are still playing Doom II after nearly 24 years or the fact that it took this long for someone to figure out how to activate the game's last remaining secret.

It took nearly 24 years for someone to discover how to unlock Doom II’s last remaining secret without using cheats. The feat, recently shared on YouTube by user Zero Master, has since been confirmed by John Romero, one of the game’s original programmers.

As Zero Master explains in the video’s description, the secret location on map 15 (Industrial Zone) has long been known but was thought to be impossible to trigger naturally without cheats. Until recently, the DoomWiki for the secret read as follows:

“It is impossible to register secret #4, as the secret sector in question (sector 147) is located adjacent to the raised teleport pad and is only 16 units wide. This setup completely prevents the player from touching this sector's floor (as is required to trigger a secret), because upon crossing the sector's boundary they are immediately raised onto the pad and teleport away. Therefore, the maximum SECRETS percentage one can get on this map is 90%.”

CONGRATS, Zero Master! Finally, after 24 years! "To win the game you must get 100% on level 15 by John Romero." Great trick getting to that secret! https://t.co/Im9BSP5Eyh #doom

— (@romero) August 31, 2018

So in other words, the secret can only be registered if Doomguy’s center is within the secret area and if he is on the same height of the secret sector, the latter of which was thought to be impossible because Doomguy is lifted up to the teleporter sector floor height when his center is on or over the secret sector.

Zero Master figured out you can lure a Pain Elemental into the area and have it spawn a Lost Soul on top of you, thus forcing you down and putting you within the secret sector. Romero explained it as follows on Twitter:

Secret explained: A secret teleporter is marked as a discoverable "secret", but when you touch it, you never enter the sector. So you would never get inside the teleporter sector to trigger the secret. The only way to trigger this secret is to be pushed by an enemy into it! #doom

— (@romero) August 31, 2018

Zero Master said the chain of events that make it work simply do not happen by accident and there’s no reason to even suspect it should work, hence why nobody has done it before.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/76252-doom-ii-final-secret-unlocked-after-24-years.html

 

[BSim500]

"Zero Master figured out you can lure a Pain Elemental into the area and have it spawn a Lost Soul on top of you, thus forcing you down and putting you within the secret sector"

Ah, very clever! I must have played Doom 1-2 a dozen times over the years yet always seemed to clear out that area before attempting to teleport. This is what I loved about those games - the engine was primitive and yet the creative tricks you could use to accomplish the theoretical impossible was virtually limitless and spawned off many great WAD's.

"It's tough to determine what's more impressive here: the fact that people are still playing Doom II after nearly 24 years..."

Doom 1-2 not only has one of the most active modding communities there is (people are still making WAD's today), and not only is it entirely "playable" via modern OpenGL source-ports (eg, GZDoom) on modern systems in widescreen, etc, it's amusingly still more of a shooter than most modern slow as treacle FPS's...

 

[psycros]

I made a Full Metal Jacket sound WAD long ago.

 

[stewi0001]

Sooooo was this intentional or a bug in DOOM 2?

 

[Uncle Al]

I remember unlocking that one ..... oh wait, it said WITHOUT cheats. Shoot, I could barely make it past level 10 without cheats! LOL

 

[ShagnWagn]

I made a Full Metal Jacket sound WAD long ago.

Back in the day, I remember that I tried downloading about every WAD there was. Did you publish it? I vaguely recall hearing a few of that movie's clips as sounds. If it wasn't, maybe someone else dropped a few in theirs?

 

[Danny101]

Doom II can now be put to rest.

 

[Edito]

This game will always represent something special to me... this game and Wallenstein introduced me to fps

But yo very clever After 24 years damn.

 

[Abraka]

The point of the story: Never Give Up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxjaUmaD2VQ