Bethesda adds 27-level megawad to its Doom re-release

Unlike many Doom mods, Base Ganymede adheres largely to the style and conventions of the original game, using the base weapons and enemies, but providing different levels to expand upon the challenge originally conceived by Carmack, Romero et al. Its levels also follow the trajectory of the original game, starting out with familiar sci-fi bases, before becoming more surreal and hellish (in a literal sense) as the story progresses.

Base Ganymede was originally created by Adam ‘Khorus’ Woodmansey back in 2009. Well regarded since its release, it was honored in doomworld’s 2012 Cacoawards (opens in new tab). “Base Ganymede is a megawad beaming with personality and charm”, said Doomworld’s Alfonzo back in 2012 “The maps showcase the Khorus design perfectly in being moderately sized with interesting layouts and monster placement, yet are also very experimental”.

If you own Bethesda’s updated version of Doom (which is available on Steam and Game Pass), you can grab Base Ganymede simply by launching the game and heading over to the Add-ons section. You’ll find a bunch of other classic Doom wad’s there too, including No End in Sight, the Plutonia Experiment, and John Romero’s own addition to the Doom story, Sigil (opens in new tab).

Of course, you don’t have to access Base Ganymede this way. If you’ve got an older version of Doom, you can grab the wad over at Moddb (opens in new tab). In fact, you don’t even need a copy of Doom. You could just head over to the website WAD Commander (opens in new tab), whack your Base Ganymede WAD file in there, and you’re off to the demon-infested races. And while you’re there, why not check out a bunch of other WADs, like Brutal Minecraft (opens in new tab), or this extremely NSFW wad that lets you get frisky (opens in new tab) with the demons.