Few names can terrify classic Doom fans more than Okuplok, an obscure mapper who's only surfaced a few times on the Doomworld forums, usually to release something painful before slinking off into the shadows. They're best known for unleashing one of the most nightmarish levels in the history of Doom upon the world: The , better known to the community as the , is one of the most gruelling combat challenges in Doom history—a colossal series of arena battles against an ungodly 23,211 demons where even the tiniest mistake spells instant death.
The map has always been beatable. With sufficient quicksaves, or the slow-motion inhuman precision of , it was always theoretically possible to ascend this mountain of demon corpses. But to do it without dying? Without saves? And without leaving a single monster alive? That's the real go rummy challenge. And for thirteen years, players have thrown themselves into this meat-grinder, aiming to be the first to record themselves clearing it under .
In a gruelling six hour struggle on Easter Sunday, pro Doomer 'Coincident' finally did it, and I watched it happen live. , but before you dive into that, check out the video above for a brief introduction of the hell that is to come, and why even surviving the first few seconds of this map is a challenge that only a rare hero can handle.
Coincident has been fighting tooth and nail against Okuplok's creation for some time now. Two years ago, he managed . This evens the odds somewhat, halving the damage done to the player and doubling the contents of every ammo pick-up but leaving enemy placements otherwise unchanged. Even with those advantages, it's a challenge very few could overcome, especially as the sheer volume of oncoming fire means that even with twice the health and ammo, you can still die in a blink of an eye.
Unsatisfied with that partial victory, Coincident set out to surgically dissect the level, developing new strategies to make a true Ultra Violence difficulty run possible. He even went so far as to publish a picking apart its individual encounters and devising the most survivable approaches to get through it. A useful aid, but without patience and precision, it still won't get you very far.
Due to the highly random and unpredictable nature of Doom's combat (including some enemies capable of doing absurd holy rummy damage with a single hit if royally rummy the game's under-the-hood damage dice decide you deserve to suffer), any successful run is going to be a mixture of endurance, precision and luck, and you can hear the stress and tension in Coincident's voice as he ventures deeper and deeper into the map. All that tension comes unraveled and replaced by adrenaline-drenched catharsis as he brings down the final artillery emplacement of Arch-vile snipers in the final arena. It was six hours of the highest-level Doom gameplay ever recorded, and a feat that will be remembered in the community for years.
So, Nightmare mode next, right?