When Doom 3 came out, there were a number of attempts to recreate its gameplay within the boundaries of the Doom source ports of the time. Similarly, Doom 4 has been receiving similar recreation efforts, with varying levels of closeness to the original source material. Ultimately, looking at these efforts made me take a step back and think: why restrict yourself to mashing just two games together...?
MetaDoom is a gameplay mod that attempts to merge in elements from every Doom game ever made into something loosely resembling a cohesive mass, with Doom 2, 3 and 4 elements standing side-by-side and often merged together in new and interesting ways. And then the obscure stuff, like the mobile games and console ports, get thrown in... then the resulting mass of flesh and guns gets thrown into a blender for five minutes. Serve with a clove of garlic.
Features
The Greatest Hits: I'm attempting to implement every weapon from the extended Doom arsenal. I've probably forgotten a few, and a few probably won't be included because something else does pretty much the same thing... but I bet I'll be pretty close by the end. I also merged together different iterations of the common weapons together to create a unique and fascinating blend of these much-loved death-dealers. In addition, Doom 4's infamous "glory kill" system has been translated into an off-hand melee system, so you can punch monsters for supplies. Also, grenades and their numerous variants are present, using a shared ammo system.
Intelligent Weapon Randomization: While replacing every weapon spawn with a randomizer that spits out a hundred different shotgun variations is all fun and games, it can be a wee bit overwhelming when you're starting out. As such, weapon spawns will only introduce the weirder, more niche things once you already have that base weapon upon a map start. For example, if you have a shotgun when a map starts, there's a chance that Shotgun spawns will give you one of the deeper cuts instead.
Intelligent Monster Randomization: Again, many monster randomizers tend to get too carried away with having lots of variety to consider the possibility that maybe having a very good chance of the first Zombieman being replaced with a super-monster that floods the map with fart gas is a bad idea. (You know who you are...) As such, monster variety will slowly open up as you complete levels, allowing for a more gradual ramp-up in difficulty.
Also, all monster hitscans have been replaced with tracers. Because as Doom 4 so aptly put it, screw monster hitscans.
Fancy Visual Effects: All sorts of modern GZDoom trickery is implemented in a bid to create new and interesting visual effects without damaging that lovely Doom pixel-art aesthetic too harshly. Rolling sprites, flat sprites and so on all get their time in the sun.
The Codex: A fancy built-in menu developed by the awesome DrPySpy that provides info and lore on the enemies you fight, weapons you find and items you use in a manner more interesting and useful than a pile of bloated spoilers in a forum OP.
ULTRA-NIGHTMARE!: Because seeing how far you can get while Ironmanning is fun, no matter how much the engine developers are violently opposed to it.
Secrets and Easter Eggs: It wouldn't be a Kinsie mod without them.
Videos
Downloads
NOTE: This was designed for the latest Stable GZDoom. Software mode is not supported. The older OpenGL renderer is not supported. EDGE is not supported. Doom Legacy is not supported. Zandronum probably won't be supported until 2050. This may change in the future, but for now, assume it won't!
