The Abyss

DOOM The Abyss, also known as The Abyss, is a 24 map megawad released in September 1995 for Doom II by J.M.P van Waveren (MrElusive) and H2SO4, co-creators of the Omicron Bot for Quake. As of this writing, The Abyss is their only known Doom work.

The Abyss was relatively unknown for years after its release, and was never released in any known compilation CD, nor mentioned in any USENET posts. It was rediscovered in the mid-2000s through a crawl of id Software staff's public servers.

The majority of the maps are non-linear &quot;dungeons&quot; that rely on secret passageways and switch puzzles, as well as multiple paths that the player can take to complete a level.

Issues
Some older source ports, such as Skulltag, can read in the graphics incorrectly due to the arrangement of the lumps, causing all textured surfaces to be out of place or corrupted. A fixed version was distributed as ABYSS24B.zip, but has since been lost due to the shutdown of several community file hosting services.

Trivia

 * Van Waveren went on to work at id Software as Technical Director during Doom 3's development. He is now Senior Engineer at Oculus VR, LLC.
 * Two of the maps are modified id Software levels. This may explain its lack of inclusion in archives.
 * This mapset was never released in any known compilation CD, nor mentioned in any USENET posts, which suggests this PWAD was an obscure work.

Links

 * The Abyss (Van Waveren's personal website)