SIGIL II is Harder than SIGIL

DOOM turned 30

Imagine my surprise when I looked at the calendar and was like “oh right DOOM turned 30 two years ago,” which means that I wrote my first rambling post about DOOM two years ago, which is a lot to take in, let me tell you something! Time: it continues to move forward, in spite of everything!

You’ll remember that way back when I wrote about SIGIL, I mentioned that Romero’s initial plan had been to release it for DOOM’s 25^th birthday, a thing that did not quite happen due to the realities of putting together a big ol’ megawad and also getting a couple bitchin’ soundtracks and whatnot. That happens sometimes – hey, we’ve all heard about how game development is hard, right? – but when DOOM’s 30^th birthday rolled around, Romero was ready. This time, DOOM would get a proper birthday present: a follow-up to SIGIL, the belated 25^th birthday present.

I got it, I played it, I even wrote a sort of in-process review of it on this very website, but I never went back and updated it. That’s on me, really. I got distracted doing things like ranking the DOOM games and other assorted malarky (is that enough back-linking to old blogs of mine? Yes? No? Maybe?). The point is, I never really talked about everything that made SIGIL II my number two game of 2023, outstripped only by Alan Wake 2 because Alan Wake 2 was a masterpiece and SIGIL II, while very good, was also exactly what you would expect from John Romero coming back for another bite off of the DOOM megawad-making apple.

Calling a Shot

When DOOM turned 29, John Romero made an announcement: He was going to build another megawad – a follow-up to SIGIL, and he was going to stream the creation of a level live on twitch. He also called his shot: SIGIL II would release in time for DOOM’s 30^th birthday. He also went on to stream much (I do not think he streamed everything) of the creation of the levels over the course of the following year, which I didn’t find out about until they were already over, but hey that’s a pretty good reason to follow Romero on twitch if you’re interested in the science of designing DOOM levels.

In an interview he conducted post-release, Romero went into the design philosophy he had in mind when creating this particular megawad: “When I decided on the difficulty level for Ultra-Violence level for SIGIL II,“ Romero said, doubtless trying not to cackle too hard, “I decided to make it more difficult than SIGIL’s UV. The difficulty of SIGIL’s UV was designed so I could finish a level without saving — just one run and I exit the map. With SIGIL II, my choice was to make it so difficult that I need to save/load my way through the levels.”

Romero also brought James Paddock back for another ride to give the episode a bitchin’ MIDI soundtrack, and decided that he would also once again go for an mp3 soundtrack as well. This time, instead of having Buckethead put together a selection of tracks for him, Romero opted to have all-new music composed by THORR instead. As with SIGIL, the mp3 version of the .wad would be the one that cost money – all sales of SIGIL II, Romero said, would go directly back into further .wad development and net you some bitchin’ physical goods to boot. I know they are bitchin’ physical goods, because I bought the box this time around from the jump – not the most expensive edition, but an edition that came with bitchin’ pins, a poster, and a USB shotgun shell. That USB shell includes an overview of the development process of each level and the soundtracks. Oh and also the .wads, obviously.

True to his word (apart from a slight hiccup where the folks who bought a physical edition had to wait a little longer than expected for their digital codes ), the .wad went live at midnight in Ireland on DOOM’s 30^th birthday. I stayed up way too late and immediately booted it up.

Romero was Right

You may recall, dear reader, that John Romero is extremely good at DOOM. He remains one of the best players in the world, in fact, which is a pretty good sign that playing SIGIL II on Ultraviolence is probably a suicidal move unless you also happen to be very good at DOOM. Depending on whether or not you clicked on that link to my earlier post about SIGIL II, you may notice that I, being a fucking fool, absolutely booted into that shit on Ultraviolence immediately.

If you thought the demonic conversation pit in SIGIL’s first level was tricky, you do not know a goddamn thing about “tricky.” Imps, shotgunners, and soldiers are all there to greet you – I have yet to get out of the beginning without taking at least a little damage, but I will say with no small amount of pride my personal best is getting through it with 97% health. That was basically a miracle though, a blessing of RNG and somehow not getting hit by any of the hitscanners. Most of the time I am somewhere around 70%.

In fact you know what, I think the best way to explain the specific ways SIGIL II is out to fuck your shit all the way up is to walk through the first level (Cursed Darkness, in case you were wondering).

The first thing I do, personally, is go for the shotgunner. With him down (and his shotgun) you can polish off the imps and then put your back to the wall and pistol down the soldiers and other shotgunner. Then you can sometimes (but not always!) bait an imp or two high up into range and pistol them down too. After you’ve done that, you can hit the switch and exit out into the rest of the level, which is where it starts to get difficult.

As soon as that door opens, I head to the left – there’s a bunch of shotgun ammo (and a shotgunner, but you can take him down before he gets a shot off) and you need to do that fast, because there’s more hitscanners above you – to say nothing of the meatball himself, a cacodemon, who starts making his way over at this point. Run back to the rocks leading out to another evil eye, shoot that, and clear out all the shotgunners and two pinky demons waiting on the other side. If you make it in fast enough, you’ll be able to just outrun the cacodemon and either save him for later or just accept that you’re gonna be dancing around him for a bit. He’s not the biggest problem you’ll have anyway – no, that’s the Cyberdemon that woke up when he heard you shooting those pinky demons. Don’t worry about him.

Another eye switch will do two things: it will open a teleporter that you need to proceed, and it will also pull the first example of Romero bringing the evolving level design of DOOM 64 into regular-ass DOOM. When Danny O’Dwyer did a quick look at SIGIL II (and bless him for it), he referred to the level design as “gnarly” and yeah, you know what, that’s a good way to describe it. Big glowing pentagrams hanging in the air and all kinda shit. When I first saw this happen, I was so fucking excited. I might’ve punched the air enthusiastically a bit! Then I got hit by a rocket from the cyberdemon and died. So maybe worry about him a little.

Anyway, the teleporter takes you back to the first room, except it’s opened up and there’s stairs now. You take those stairs up, and now you can jump across the gap into the caged area you might’ve noticed next to the teleporter. This makes some monsters rise from their graves (no really), and once you shoot them another evil eye will be uncovered for you to shoot. During this time, if you didn’t take care of the cacodemons that showed up earlier they’ll probably show up to cause you trouble. This is also the first time you will have a chance to get any armor at all, a resource which is extremely important because health pickups bigger than the little bonus vials are few and far between.

If you walk to the back wall after shooting the eye (tempted, no doubt, by the shotgun ammo just sitting there) you’ll be dropped into the point where the map gets a little ridiculous. Namely, the point where there are a bunch of shotgunners and imps behind bars. You need to run down a narrow path (not too narrow) and deal with the shotgunners blocking your way – and the lost souls that litter the place to boot until you open the door to salvation.

Well, actually to a couple of pinky demons but that’s like the same thing, right? There’s also a shotgunner and some lost souls and oh right a cage with some imps and a shotgunner in there to boot. More importantly, there’s another evil eye to shoot, which lets out one more cacodemon to really make sure you are paying attention, and then… a pathway that leads to a drop you have to take (I will also say here there are a couple extremely good secrets hiding at this point, including one with a bitchin’ SIGIL II logo in the ground). Make it to the end of the path (there’s some more shotgunners to deal with, along with some lost souls) and a very long elevator will come down. That elevator will also have shotgunners on it.

Take the elevators up, open the door, and there’s a baron of hell waiting for you (unless you got super lucky and the cyberdemon killed it for whatever reason), along with (possibly) another cacodemon and some imps. More importantly, the exit’s there! That’s right, the exit that you got a glimpse of back when you went to get those extra shotgun shells back at the very beginning of the level! That’s level design, baby! From there, you go to the next level: Violent Hatred. You know, because Perfect Hatred was already taken.

If all this sounds rad to you, then I have great news: you can play SIGIL II for free with a bitchin’ MIDI soundtrack.

Just How Good at This Game Are You, Anyway?

I am not the first person to say this – hell, I basically said it about SIGIL already – but SIGIL II feels like the final exam for DOOM. If you’ve really played a lot of DOOM, if you really got good at it, then SIGIL II is here to see just how good you’ve gotten. If you are here putting SIGIL II up to Ultraviolence, John Romero expects that you know what you’re doing, and more than that, he expects you are up to a particular level of challenge.

Now, I will tell you something about this for free: you have to be pretty goddamn good to get through these levels on UV. It is only because I managed to do just that I will admit to thinking that yeah maybe I have some kind of skill with this whole DOOM thing, but only reluctantly and only for DOOM – I am not nearly as good at DOOM II, for example: both because I just haven’t played through it as much and because DOOM II has fucking chaingunners in it, which I absolutely never quite got the hang of! I’ve never even sniffed the end of Plutonia – shit, I’ve barely sniffed the end of map one – because there’s just more tools to fuck your shit up in DOOM II. I’m just not there!

DOOM though? DOOM I can handle whatever it throws at me if you give me enough time. SIGIL II’s levels are long – the par time for map one is a whopping eight minutes, and while you’re actually going to be able to get through there way quicker once you get used to it, I can say pretty definitively that I did not make par the first or even third time I played through it. I did make par taking screenshots for this blog, but I was also rocking God Mode and had given myself a BFG so, you know.

Speaking of the BFG, you can get one in map three – Twilight Desolation, if you wanted to know – by running around a narrow ledge that is made trickier by the fact that you are gonna have to deal with some fuckin’ cacodemons floating around. Romero is not a cruel level designer – he’s a devious bastard for sure, but he never puts you in an unwinnable situation. There’s always a way to get the gear you need – either right in front of you or hidden in a secret – and that is maybe the best part of SIGIL II (much like SIGIL): the secrets are good, even when they are a piss take (there is a secret in the second map that is a single armor shard and I think some shotgun bullets? It might just be an armor shard, I don’t 100% remember). It’s not difficult to find, but also it ain’t worth much.

If you wanna talk good shit, we can talk about the final level (Abyss of Despair) for a hot second: the level requires you to descend into a cavern to hit switches which cause an enormous, sick-ass teleporter to raise up that will take you to the boss fight, which I guess we should talk about the boss fight for SIGIL II real quick.

It isn’t very good? You fight two cyberdemons and a spider mastermind that has had its health juiced from 3000 to 9000. Deal with the mastermind first and then worry about the cyberdemons. It is brutally difficult, but also Romero sends you into the fight with a big stack of plasma ammo for your BFG (which you will definitely have by now) and a shitload of rockets, so you’ll get through it well-enough. It’s a pain in the ass, but it feels like Romero’s hit the limit of what is like, not fucking ridiculous in a DOOM .wad when it comes to setting up a final encounter.

Then, of course, you’ll get one final challenge: after you defeat the bosses, you’ll still have to get to the exit, and that exit has cacodemons and a baron of hell waiting for you. A fitting finale for what very well may be the last set of DOOM maps Romero ever makes – the end screen tells you to prepare for Hellion, which will be a full 32 map campaign for DOOM II – and after that, Romero’s mentioned doing something for Quake. Of course, currently he’s busy working on a more modern FPS at Romero Games (I’m very intrigued to see what the hell that ends up being), so who even knows when we’ll get Hellion! Hopefully sooner rather than later, although DOOM II already turned 30, so maybe we’ll have to wait until it’s 35 – I’d rather not have to wait that long, but who knows?

Basically it is More SIGIL

You’ll recall I ended up marking DOOM II down in my rankings in part because at the end of the day it was just more DOOM. Not a bad thing by any means – it fucking rocks, actually – but it isn’t doing anything particularly new. We’ve played this game before! SIGIL II has the same baggage, and it doesn’t even have new enemies or a super shotgun!

Now I am about to say something that I know is fucking insane: I would still place SIGIL II above DOOM II if I were ranking these. The reason being that while SIGIL II is indeed just More SIGIL, its maps are uniformly bangers. There are so many little traps and triggers in SIGIL II that cause levels to evolve in surprising ways that are downright delightful. Encounters are never just “hey fuck you here’s a bunch of enemies,” there’s always something extra going on, some additional little wrinkle that complicates matters or gives you an opportunity to make something out of nothing.

It is a campaign that demanded everything from me – I was basically a jittery mess at the end of every level, but completely unable to stop playing. I was up far too late the night it came out and barely got anywhere (I ended up starting fresh the next day) and chewed through the first five levels in a marathon session. I just wanted to see what Romero would do next – and also to hear whatever bitchin’ metal riffs were waiting for me on the soundtrack, too.

If this does in fact end up being the last time Romero does a megawad for DOOM, it’s a hell of an episode to go out on.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to play a bunch of DOOM II so I actually have a chance of beating Hellion when it comes out.