Classic Doom with ray tracing? Sure

The Doom Guy saw his shadow and decided we could have a little treat

Classic Doom with ray tracing is not something I thought I’d wake up to today of all days, but here we are.

Shared on Github by sultim-t, the open mod allows real-time path ray tracing support for the first three episodes of classic Doom, aka Doom 1993. I know, the nomenclature has gotten pretty confusing over the years! Interestingly, this goes deeper than “adding ray tracing” according to the details in the Github code. It has seemingly reworked the lighting effects as a whole, giving it a fuller, more dramatic effect.

How many times will we go back to classic Doom, both in terms of a coverage perspective, and actually playing it ourselves? As many as it takes. I have fond memories of playing this post-Blake Stone/Catacomb-3D and being blown away, and I have the recent experience of playing through the entire series again on Switch. It’s one of those things that never goes away or out of style. And a lot of the reason for that is the tireless efforts of the modding community. Thank goodness so many of these games were put out on PC in an accessible state.

Just to be clear, this is a real thing. I know, what timing! But it’s real, and you can download it.

Classic Doom with ray tracing gameplay:

Chris Carter

Reviews Director, Co-EIC – Chris has been enjoying Destructoid avidly since 2008. He finally decided to take the next step, make an account, and start blogging in January of 2009. Now, he’s staff!