John Romero, the legendary designer behind Doom, Quake, and Daikatana, has revealed his new FPS on the 25th anniversary of Doom - and it's a free add-on to the original Doom called Sigil, which will serve as Doom Episode 5.
The new John Romero FPS has a release date of February 2019, it'll be free to anyone who owns the original Doom (presumably any version), and will consist of nine single-player levels and nine deathmatch levels.
As exciting as the idea of the lead level designer of Doom and Quake returning to do a full Doom Episode 5 is, especially for free, there is obviously a slight degree of disappointment that Sigil is "just" a wadpack for the first Doom. When Romero teased his new game announcement, many people were expecting the return of Blackroom, his studio's full new FPS. Furthermore, as this is for Doom 1, that probably means it won't feature such iconic adversaries as the Revenant, Arachnotron, Mancubus and Arch-Vile - all of which were introduced in Doom 2.
Of course, this had been teased for a while now. Back in 2016 Romero released a new Doom map and promised that it was just a warm-up. Apparently this is the result. We're certainly eager to try it... but a full new John Romero-designed FPS? That would truly have us salivating.
While Sigil itself will be free when it releases in February (presumably they are announcing it now for Doom's 25th anniversary), Romero Games and Limited Run Games have teamed to offer a couple of cool-looking limited edition box sets for fans. You can find the details of them here, which will even include an exclusive soundtrack by metal guitar legend Buckethead, including a song composed entirely for the game.
We'll find out more closer to release. You can check out a video of Sigil in-play below, and it looks suitably intense.
