MAP26: Sever the Wicked (PlayStation Doom)

MAP26: Sever the Wicked is the twenty-sixth level in the Ultimate Doom episode of the PlayStation and Sega Saturn versions of Doom. It is based on the original E4M3: Sever the Wicked, with modifications made to adapt the map to the consoles' limitations. The author of the original map is Shawn Green.

Essentials
This level has two keys: red and blue. You can get them in any order.

Red key

In the starting area, you can see a skull switch to your left. Press it to build a bridge leading east to another ledge. Walk across this bridge to get to the other side of the wooden platform and take the invulnerability powerup. While you are protected, head due west to a staircase leading down. In front of you is a window leading to a lift, and to the left are two staircases. To get the red key you can do the following now:


 * 1) Run through the window or go on the staircase to your left that leads down. Step on or use the lift in this room to lower it. There are three alcoves at the bottom when you lower the lift, but head into the north alcove that has a teleporter and step into it. In the next room, go round the wooden structure in front of you and press the switch located before the lava pit; the metal platform in the pit will lower. The red skull key is on this platform - get it and backtrack to the teleporter.
 * 2) Instead of dropping into the window, take the staircase leading up. Follow the passage to a wooden door and go through it. In the next room you can see the platform holding the red skull key in front of you. Drop into the pit and quickly get out of the lava. Press the switch here to lower the platform. Get the red key and head to the teleporter in the south of this room. This will bring you to the western lift room, however it is full of monsters now.

For that reason, method #1 offers a safer way of getting the key while method #2 should be completed when you are protected with invulnerability.

Blue key

Backtrack to the starting point. If you got the red key first, use the lift on the south side of the wooden platform to get back on top of it. Open the red bar to the north to reach the ledge with the blue skull key.

If you want to get the blue key first, drop down into the western lava pool and press either skull switch to lower the lift. Head north around the wooden structure and you will see two lifts here. Use either lift to get up to the ledge with the blue key and take it. To get back, you will need to drop into the eastern lava pool and press the skull switches here to lower a lift which will get you back to the main area of the level.

Exit

When you have both keys, drop down into the eastern lava pool in the starting area. Open the wooden door requiring the red key in the south-east corner of the pool. Climb the stairs and open the blue door at the top. Head left into the room and enter the exit teleporter at the end.

Other points of interest
If you step backwards as soon as the level starts, you will drop onto a hidden ledge with a berserk pack, a backpack and a partial invisibility powerup.

Another partial invisibility powerup can be found on a ledge above the western lava pool in the starting area. To get it, head due west from the starting point and approach the staircase in front of you, but instead of going down the stairs hug the north wall and follow it round to the powerup.

As the level starts, you can turn left to see a tunnel with a plasma gun in it. To get to this tunnel, head due west and go down the stairs, then go south up another staircase and follow the passage through a wooden door. In the next room, turn left and head up a third staircase, then follow the passage to get the weapon.

A rocket launcher can be found in an octagonal room in the south-west corner of the level. It is connected to the room you enter to find the switch that lowers the red key platform.

Secrets

 * 1) From the start, head straight forward off the ledge and head down through the staircase. In the next room, take the upward staircase and continue along the hall until you reach a wooden door. Before you reach it, a wall in the corner behind you (you also can open this door manually) will open, unleashing some imps, but also allowing you to get megaarmor, a chainsaw, and other goodies. (sector 30)
 * 2) In the wooden room at the far south of the map (where the red skull key lowers to) is an alcove in the west with four tall red firesticks. Open the north wall in this alcove and climb the staircase to a room containing a soulsphere and ammunition. (sector 31)

Bugs

 * Inherited from the PC version: a plasma gun (thing 22) has no flags set for any of the three difficulty classes, so it does not actually appear in the level. The two player starts (things 1 and 21) also have no flags, but because of special handling in the engine, they function normally in the level.
 * Two spectres waiting near the entrance to the dungeon (things 202 and 203) are flagged to appear on easy skill level and all others respectively, and both have the same blend modes, flagged to ambush and placed almost at the same point. As a bugfix the PSX port of the map could have only one spectre having to appear on every difficulty setting.
 * In the penultimate room behind the red door, some wooden walls are improperly offset resulting in slight rendering distortions.

Room design

 * Brightness has been toned down greatly, especially in sectors without colored lighting, to fit the different light mode and make the port look similar to the original, thereafter.
 * Most of the secrets in the level are removed, including two sectors which were unreachable because they were covered by firesticks and all the steps leading up to secret #2.
 * Nearly all switches in the level use a skull switch on metal wall texture, except the switch which lowers the red key platform which uses a red/green light on metal wall texture (SW1MET2).
 * Several staircases in the level have fewer steps:
 * The staircases next to the elevators in the starting area's lava pits have two steps each instead of four.
 * The curved staircase leading to the blue door has nine steps instead of twelve.
 * The staircase connecting the starting area to the interior of the wooden building has one step removed.
 * Numerous steps were removed from the staircase leading to the secret soulsphere.
 * Because the starting area would consume most of the PlayStation system's memory, several changes were made:
 * The metal grates surrounding the platform that holds the blue skull key have been replaced with wooden walls.
 * The window directly in front of the blue door was removed, and several other windows around the exit teleporter were shrunk. A side-effect of this is that the monsters behind the blue door cannot be woken up without opening that door.
 * The walls of the first room in the wooden building, accessed using the staircase on the west side of the starting area, are one-sided linedefs rather than two-sided.
 * In the same room, a barrier was added between the two staircases to the south.
 * The middle texture concealing the tunnel on your left as you start the level was removed.
 * There is a partial invisibility powerup on a small ledge above the western lava pit in the starting area. The ledge has been widened to account for the player's increased radius.

Monster placement
Five of the seven barons of Hell that appear in the level on Ultra Violence skill level are replaced with Hell knights.
 * One in each of the lava pools in the starting area.
 * One in each of the large alcoves surrounding the lift in the western-most room.
 * One in the room south of the platform with the red skull key (this is the only baron/knight present in the level on Hurt Me Plenty and lower skill levels).

Bugfixes

 * A rocket in the northeast island over the lava pool (thing 225) accidentally placed outside the map was moved to a proper point.
 * Several linedefs created by mistake in the western-most room were removed.
 * The rocket launcher room in the south-west corner of the map contained a mechanism which allowed players to seal and unseal the entrance to the room. By pressing use near the center of the room, part of the floor would rise to block the entrance and crush anything standing on it; a skull switch on the south wall of the room could be pressed to lower the floor again. While it was created primarily for deathmatch, the column could not be lowered from the other side which might lock the player out and make it impossible to get 100% secrets in some cases. Both the rising floor and the skull switch were removed from the console levels.

Music
The map uses the following music tracks:

Player spawns
This level contains four spawn points:
 * 1) facing west. (thing 0)
 * 2) facing east. (thing 281)
 * 3) facing north. (thing 282)
 * 4) facing east. (thing 283)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: