Say what you will about speedrunning (I don’t care for it), there are some players who happen upon some admittedly cool things while doing it. Such as a secret that had been hidden for almost 24 years in normal playthroughs.
According to Doom‘s designer, John Romero, a runner by the name of Zero Master uncovered Doom 2‘s best-kept secret: a previously inaccessible portion of the map found in the Industrial Zone map, which Romero himself had designed. Truthfully though, the secret had actually been known to players for a long while, but up until now, you could only get to it using the ‘idclip’ command. Zero Master is the first to get it without using the cheat.
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
The secret goes like this, as explained by Romero: “A secret teleporter [in the Industrial Zone map] 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!” According to Zero Master, Doom 2 only registers when a player gets a secret “if Doomguy’s center is within the secret area and if he is on the same height as the secret sector [of a map].”
Zero Master found a way around this in the Industrial Zone map by luring a Pain Elemental, having it attack him with a Lost Soul, and using the knockback to push him down into the secret. “This forces you down to the lowest floor the moving door is on, which puts you within the secret sector and on the same height, thus triggering the secret,” Zero Master said.
As I said, it’s pretty cool when speedrunners happen upon things like this that not only make you appreciate the effort to discover the secret, but also makes you want to load up Doom 2 and try it yourself. Then again, do you really need a reason to play Doom 2?
