Going Down Turbo Reinvents a Doom Wad Classic
Since the release of the original Doom in 1993 and its sequel Doom II in 1994, fans of all ages have made and traded their own maps and map packs (wads.) Today there are thousands of discrete creations to fit every preference. myhouse.wad hides backrooms horror beneath its humble exterior; Jumpwad warps the game into a platformer; I WILL NEVER GIVE YOU ANY THING is excruciatingly brutal, eye-searing profundity. Doom modding is now more creative, more personal and yet (in many ways) more accessible than it has ever been before.
The problem, though, is that there is so much to dig through that it is tough to know where to start. Some recommend Eviternity, a well-rounded epic “megawad” released in 2019. Others might push for Fava Beans or Revolution!, two older wads on the easier side. Or why not start with Doom or Doom II themselves, old-fashioned as they may be?
One wad that I’ve seen recommended again and again is Going Down. Released by Cyriak Harris in 2014, the wad is Doom by way of Die Hard. The first map begins with the protagonist launching an assault on a demon-infested building. After fighting off dozens of zombie soldiers on the roof, they enter an elevator and “go down” floor by floor.
Going Down’s maps are short, punchy and consistently imaginative. The fifth map, “Time Warp,” has you teleport back and forth between a shiny tech-base map and its rusted, overgrown past/future. The fifteenth map, “Gladiator,” is a colosseum fight that ends with every other enemy picking a fight with the “emperor” cyberdemon at its centre. “200 Mega Hurts” demands that you sprint through endless pain elementals and arch-viles in search of energy cells to fuel your BFG.
The wad has a sharp sense of humor, and horror, as well. “The Mouth of Madness,” which has you enter a gaping maw vomiting hundreds and hundreds of demons, is followed by maps titled “Indigestion” and “Constipation Station.” Other maps feature bathrooms, chemistry sets and portraits of Hitler. (Now that’s evil.) Once in a while, the protagonist even receives a call from his mother. “Oh, hi mum,” he says. “I’m in this building and I’m killing monsters…”
Above it all hangs Cyriak’s original soundtrack, which is like a sleep paralysis nightmare at an especially bad dentist’s office looping circus music over the speakers. Cyriak honed his skills on YouTube with videos like “chimpnology” and “cows & cows & cows” that rode the line between hilarious and deeply uncanny. Going Down repurposes a few of these songs (“chimpnology” becomes “Running From the Jazz Robots”) and adds others. It’s not a soundtrack I would happily listen to in any other context, but it’s perfect for the wad.
There is one problem with making Going Down your first Doom wad, though, and that is that Going Down is hard. When played via “pistol starts” (resetting your weapons, health and armour after every map) as intended, the wad demands high-level strategies. Hoarding ammo, beating up demons with your fists and even luring them into fights with each other are all necessary for the later maps. Even the earlier maps can be nasty for beginners, though, regardless of whether you opt for continuous play.
The wad’s difficulty can be attributed in part to the Doom-wadding community’s longevity. Successive generations of battle-hardened players have spent the past 31 years designing increasingly dangerous death traps for their friends to navigate. Going Down is moderately spicy even by today’s standards, but well ahead of a beginner’s, whether or not you stick to “Hey not too rough” difficulty-setting. Perhaps Cyriak realized this himself. His most recent original wad, Overboard, is much easier than Going Down save for a new game+ loop that ramps up the challenge.
Now we have Going Down Turbo, a variant of Going Down that Cyriak developed for the wad’s 10th anniversary. Turbo is a revamp of the original wad that streamlines the architecture and adds many new details. It is also significantly easier than its predecessor. Cyriak wrote on the Doomworld forums that he “wanted a version of the megawad I could play through in a single afternoon.” As a player who has knocked my head against Going Down in the past, I was surprised at just how breezy this new version of the wad is.
On the “Hey not too rough” difficulty, the very first map gives you a chaingun that can make short work of the various rooftop enemies. The third map, which had you rooting around cramped tunnels for hidden pathways in the original, is made an easy-to-understand loop. Every other map in the wad is similarly smoothed out. Even the original “200 Mega Hurts” is now just “100 Mega Hurts.”
It’s enough that some hardcore Doom players might be a bit miffed with the changes. But the original Going Down remains unchanged. A new Doom player, after beating Going Down Turbo on Ultraviolence difficulty, might very well return to the original Going Down armed with their hard-earned confidence and expertise. Cyriak is also still tinkering with the Turbo release; it’s possible that this new version of the game may be made harder over the next few months.
I would never recommend the original Going Down to a beginner. Even if they survived the first few maps, as I did, they might very well have run into a wall with later maps like “Pain Frame” and “Trip Switch.” Going Down Turbo, though, is another story. Its gradual introduction of enemies, streamlined progression and myriad funny details make it a strong entry point to what the Doom community is capable of. There’s even a version of the wad available for the recent Bethesda update of Doom and Doom II.
If you decide to try out Going Down on your own computer, I recommend installing a Doom source port (like GZDOOM) and grabbing JP LeBreton’s “Always Pistol Start” mod. Use it in collaboration with Going Down Turbo and you’ll have a good time. Just remember that there is no way to play Doom incorrectly. Easy or hard, classic or experimental, adventure slaughter or both, Doom is everything and it is infinite.
