This is kind of old news, as it's available already via a near-stealth released in mid-December 2019, and also not really of interest to PC-exclusive gamers, but since everything else Id-related does tend to land here eventually, let's talk about this for completion's sake. And there are a couple of things here that actually make me happy.
The Doom Slayers Collection is available for Playstation 4 and Xbox One, and out-of-the-box comes with four games: Ultimate Doom, Doom II (including Master Levels!), Doom 3 (including Resurrection of Evil and Lost Mission), and Doom 2016. Fairly standard stuff.
And now the fun bits, the big one first:
Final Doom properly hits consoles for the first time with this release, with a free update allowing both of its episodes and "No Rest for the Living" to be played in this package as add-ons for Doom II. John Romero's Sigil was also added as an add-on for the Ultimate Doom. This means the entire Id-made catalogue of Doom is available for consoles for the first time, which is really cool.
They also updated some graphics for the older games, and I don't mean for 4K televisions and such. In a sense, it's a downgrade: Health packs in the old games sport a cross again instead of a pill icon, though it's green instead of red to keep a certain humanitarian organization off their backs, and the secret levels in Doom II have their original textures and enemies.
On its face, it's just another re-release of old stuff for new profit, but there are some quality-of-life updates present for the two oldest games, as well. Quick save/load is present, which is unique for a console release of these games. Quick switching of weapons via the otherwise unused d-pad is in, and a weapon carousel similar to Doom 2016's, so players don't have to cycle every weapon between the chaingun and BFG anymore. As a neat little "bonus" to that weapon carousel, the pistol has a third-person sprite for the first time.
They've also said that more add-ons will be coming in the future, as well. I wonder if they'll dare to wrangle the confusion that would be releasing Team TNT's Eternal Doom for this package along side Doom Eternal.
It's a neat package, I think, and if nothing else, it looks like someone at Bethesda has realized it's worth showing the classics some love on modern platforms beyond the usual basic ports.
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