2004 was a pretty solid year for Doom WADs, which is not exactly a surprising development given the state of things. With years of mapmaking experience to draw from, design sensibilities were, by and large, pretty sophisticated by this point in time, and many authors were producing levels one might call professional… if one was inclined to use such words to describe hobbyist pursuits. Furthermore, the source code had been freely available for over half a decade, allowing most of the baked-in limitations of the engine to be broken or at the very least significantly curtailed. In other words, it was a good time to be making maps. You had, in one hand, the collective experience of ten years of WAD-making to guide you, and in the other advanced source ports that allowed you to make, more or less, whatever your heart desired. And in 2004, very few could lay claim to utilizing these two things quite as effectively as did Huy “Converted Doomer” Pham with Deus Vult. Though it is the author’s first map, it is a product that simply could not have existed without the years of effort that had already been poured into Doom.

It becomes abundantly clear even before playing the level that it is as much a product of the past as it is of the present. Pham lays out his inspiration for the map via the WAD’s text file, where he cites Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta as his primary muses. As far as launching points go, you can’t get much better than these two WADs, but he also goes on to specifically praise MAP20 of Alien Vendetta, which, if you were to ask me right now to pick a favorite Doom map, would probably be my response. So clearly he is a man after my own heart, or rather one with similar tastes in his Doom maps. He also mentions B.P.R.D.’s nuts.wad, which was a tad more concerning to me, I’ll admit, since I’m not really a fan of the kitchen sink school of encounter design, but, without getting too far ahead of myself, that ended up being a false alarm. Deus Vult may resemble nuts.wad in terms of the sheer monster count, but, thankfully, the usage of said monsters bears little resemblance, if any (my apologies if you actually like nuts.wad).

The first thing to be aware of vis-à-vis Deus Vult is that it’s massive. Like, no foolin’, it’s really big. “How big?” you ask? Well, big enough that it comes in two varieties: the whole shebang, i.e., the entire, unbroken level, and the same thing split into four smaller (but still pretty substantial) chunks. Pham’s stated reason for this dual presentation is not only to ease the load on players who might not be accustomed to or inclined toward long, tough maps (the par time is almost two hours), but also to ease the load on low-end CPUs. These days the latter is not much of a problem, so there’s really no reason not to play the full version. The four-map variant actually plays basically the same, with some minor differences, but you miss out on the interconnectivity of the full version, and the second level break bisects a major encounter in a rather unfortunate way. Even if you don’t like long levels, you’re better off just playing the full level while using saves. Heck, you’ll probably be riding the save a fair amount either way.

That’s because this is a very hard map. Combat emphasis is on, in Pham’s words, “large, well-choreographed fights.” No tricks. No sucker punches. Just you against a buttload of enemies in a variety of interesting configurations. Even early on, when you’re facing off against demons, spectres, and a few hell knights with naught but your fists and a chainsaw, it’s clear that monster usage (and item usage, for that matter) is very deliberate, and this attentiveness carries throughout the map. In fact, it’s probably the single most satisfying facet of Deus Vult. Thoughtfully-composed monster packs are par for the course, and you’ll never have to worry about boring filler fights. Enemies aren’t placed haphazardly or served up for an easy kill just to pad your ego. They’re there to present you with a choice: react properly or die horribly. Pham’s arch-vile usage epitomizes this. Starting about a quarter of the way through the level he begins mixing them in with normal monster packs as a way of both preventing player complacency and forcing target prioritization. Moreso than most maps, you’ll need to think about what needs to be killed in what order and which angle of attack is least likely to get you killed. Thankfully, there’s a lot of monster variety, so you can count on lots of infighting.

The level itself is sadly somewhat outshined by the encounters within it, though that’s not to say it looks bad. It looks quite good, in fact, but I could never really shake the sense that the level was designed around the encounters as opposed to the two being designed to support each other. It doesn’t help that the level starts out with a series of large boxish arenas that do a pretty poor job of hiding the fact that they exist for the sole purpose of filling up with monsters. Once you fall off a precipice and into Hell itself, things become a little less straightforward, but the biggest battles are still mostly fought in vast, obvious arenas where you’d have to be daft not to see fights coming a mile away. The various locales of Deus Vult are more combat venues than actual places, and it’s a little disappointing that the level design is so utilitarian. Plenty of levels have succeeded in being excellent architectural showpieces without sacrificing playability, so it’s too bad that Deus Vult doesn’t quite strike the same balance.

That said, it’s still an impressive beast if for no other reason than scale. If Deus Vult makes one thing clear, it’s that Pham isn’t afraid to play with large spaces. A yawning marble cathedral and a massive subterranean cave system are just a few of the venues you’ll visit, and unlike many such constructions, the extreme size isn’t just for show. It’s absolutely necessary in order to accommodate the suffocating monster hordes that Pham deals in. The overall theme of the level is a tech base being consumed by Hell. You know, that old chestnut. In this case, though, you come across the base in the middle of its subversion. At the outset the environs are clearly of human construction, but before long you’ll find that Hell has literally torn through the facility, leaving the larger part of the level to be fought on unholy ground. The map’s initial blue and checkered floor tech aesthetic is, frankly, not that good, but it is quickly forgotten once the demonic influence kicks in. There are a fair number of custom textures present, including some, let’s say, interesting iconography in the cathedral leg and a few draws from Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films which probably aren’t meant to be as funny as I found them. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Sauron and Satan are so simpatico. They have such similar interests, after all.

While the vastness and variety of the map is without a doubt one of its greatest strengths, I have to say I found the consistent variability of its combat even more astonishing. And by that I mean that a surprising amount of Deus Vult’s combat can be engaged to the degree of your choosing. There are of course battles that you can’t really get around, but on my first playthrough I was able to circumvent quite a few threats, and on my second I found myself aghast at just how much Pham lets you get away with. Several major encounters can be dodged with minimal fighting if you play your cards right. Sometimes this approach will come back to bite you in the ass, but for the most part it doesn’t. This is because there are a number of cutoff points in the level past which monsters can’t pursue you, and once you know they’re there it’s hard not to take advantage of them. There are also kind of a lot of invulnerability spheres on the map, and, again, once you know they’re there, they can be exploited in some interesting ways. Now, it could be argued that these things break the map’s difficulty, and it’s true that Deus Vult is less challenging than it seems at first. Whether you see these attributes as features or flaws is probably a matter of taste. For my part, it’s a bit of both. It’s an exhilarating moment when you discover that you can thread the needle through a sea of enemies without fighting anything, but that high is follow by a twinge of regret as you realize all those carefully-place monsters are now left to twist in the wind, groaning and shrieking in their own fecklessness.

Even if the architecture doesn’t pop as much as you might like and slippery play is rewarded more than perhaps it should, Deus Vult is an amazing map and without a doubt one of the greatest first maps ever produced. The best compliment I can pay Deus Vult is that it’s not really my kind of level, but I still like it quite a bit. The biggest danger in a large, monster-ridden map is combat fatigue, and it’s to Pham’s credit that that’s never really an issue here. Despite the near-constant fighting, things are always fresh, encounters are always interesting, and you’ll always want to see what he has in store for you next. You’ll never curse the author for throwing monsters at you just for the sake of it, because he never does. They’re all part of the plan. I’m still a long way from playing 2008 WADs, but I’m nevertheless greatly looking forward to playing Deus Vult 2, because if this is what Pham can accomplish without any prior mapmaking experience, his second outing ought to be something really special.