Winter's Fury

Winter's Fury is a partial conversion of twelve levels for Doom II and GZDoom by Pyroscourge. It was released on December 7, 2012, days before it was named a winner at the 19th Annual Cacowards. Winter's Fury takes place in Siberia, in the year 2033, some time after the events of Doom II. The levels are based around a frozen theme, and the WAD's story is highly significant to the overall experience.

On December 7, 2022, on the 10th anniversary of its original release, an updated version of the mod was released containing assorted changes and improvements.

Development history
Development of "Winter's Fury" started in 2009. The first map was built from an older map named "Snow Moon", which was made during a speedmapping competition. On December 9, Pyroscourge started a thread at the ZDoom forums, sharing first details about the project. This was planned to be a GZDoom mod with eight maps, divided into three parts: part one with three maps (01-03), part two with three maps (04-06) and part three with two maps (07, 08). At that time only part one was in active development. On July 8, 2011, the first demo was released including part one with three levels.

On February 26, 2012, the second demo was released including a fixed part one and a new part two with six levels.

On December 7, 2012, "Winter's Fury" was released.

On December 19, 2012, version 1.1 was released.

On December 25, 2012, "Winter's Fury" was named a winner at the 19th Annual Cacowards. The review was written by Xaser, who praised the levels' highly detailed architecture with massive use of portals to give the player a real three-dimensional feel. He called it a "Torm Done Right".

On November 13, 2013, version 1.2 was released.

On March 28, 2016, another update was released.

On October 26, 2016, version 2016.5 was released, which included some bugfixes due to the release of a new version of GZDoom.

On December 7, 2022, the 10th anniversary update was released. Most maps were tuned up, while MAP07B was completely redone. The dialogue system was updated and all maps were converted to UDMF format.

Custom monsters

 * Blot (20 hp)


 * Ice imp (60 hp)


 * Ice soul (100 hp)


 * Ice demon (150 hp)


 * Void fiend (200 hp)


 * Ice revenant (300 hp)


 * Ice cacodemon (400 hp)


 * Vampire (450 hp)


 * Ice mancubus (600 hp)


 * Ice archon (1000 hp)


 * Ice knight (1000 hp)


 * Void phantasm (1000 hp)


 * Ice archvile (1100 hp)


 * Ice smith (3000 hp)


 * Darkness
 * Darkness 1 and 2 have 5000 hit points. Darkness 3 and 5 have 999999999 hit points. Darkness 4 has 99999999999 hit points.


 * Cho'Gath
 * Depending on the difficulty skill selected, this monster has either 6000 (easy), 7000 (normal), or 8000 (hard) hit points.


 * Ice cardinal
 * Depending on the difficulty skill selected, this monster has either 8000 (easy), 10000 (normal), or 12000 (hard) hit points.


 * Azmodan (10000 hp)


 * Diablo (10000 hp)


 * Void Cho' Gath (10000 hp)


 * Ice cyberdemon
 * Depending on the difficulty skill selected, this monster has either 10000 (easy), 13000 (normal), or 16000 (hard) hit points.


 * Ice Baphomet
 * Depending on the difficulty skill selected, this monster has either 15000 (easy), 17500 (normal), or 20000 hit points.


 * Baphomet
 * Depending on the difficulty skill selected, this monster has either 20000 (easy), 22500 (normal), or 25000 (hard) hit points.


 * Ice Cho' Gath (30000 hp)

Custom weapons

 * Machinegun
 * This weapon replaces the chaingun


 * Photon cannon
 * This weapon replaces the BFG9000

Levels
Part I. "Exactly as planned": ''Part II. "A road often travelled is enough to be a hero":'' ''Part III. "The blizzard is just the calm before the storm":''
 * INTROMAP: Winter's Fury
 * MAP01: You Are Here
 * MAP02: Unexpected Losses
 * MAP03: Frostbite
 * MAP04A: Afterburn
 * MAP04B: Highway to Hell
 * MAP05A: D.A.R.K.ness
 * MAP05B: Cold Snap
 * MAP06A: Hypothermia
 * MAP06B: Cryophobia
 * MAP07A: Blizzard Conditions
 * MAP07B: Void
 * MAP08: Absolute Zero
 * CREDMAP: The End!
 * TITLEMAP: Winter's Fury

Soundtrack

 * INTROMAP: no music
 * MAP01: "Protectors" by, from 
 * MAP02: "Absolute Zero" by, from 
 * MAP03: "StemCell" from Community Bonus Pack 2 for Unreal Tournament 2004
 * MAP04A: "Main Theme" from  and "Against All Odds" by Ari Pulkkinen, from Shadowgrounds
 * MAP04B: "Serenity" by Kevin Riepl, from Unreal Tournament 2004
 * MAP05A: "Caution" from Ultimate Community Map Pack for Unreal Tournament 2004
 * MAP05B: "Clockwork" from Community Bonus Pack 2 for Unreal Tournament 2004
 * MAP06A: "Mind Storm" by, from  album
 * MAP06B: "Weapons of Mass Distortion" by, from  album
 * MAP07A: "CwP-24cmis" from Community Bonus Pack 1 for Unreal Tournament 2004
 * MAP07B: no music
 * MAP08: "Total Metal Jacket" by Ari Pulkkinen, from Shadowgrounds, and "The Wings of Icarus" by featuring, from  album
 * CREDMAP: "" by, from  album
 * TITLEMAP: "Better-Luck-Next-Time" from Community Bonus Pack 2 for Unreal Tournament 2004

Difficulty settings
Winter's Fury uses MAPINFO to define a new set of skill levels that function differently to the original Doom. Difficulty settings are shown for the latest version (2022).


 * Frozen
 * The easiest skill level. The player takes only 80% of normal damage and picking up ammo gives 130% of the usual amount. Things with the skill 1 flag will appear on this difficulty. This is an equivalent of "I'm too young to die".


 * Frostbite
 * On this skill level, the player takes normal damage, and receives normal ammo. Things with the skill 2 flag will appear on this difficulty. This is an equivalent of "Hey, not too rough". The name of this skill level is also used for MAP03.


 * Hypothermia
 * This is the medium skill level. Again, the player receives normal amounts of damage and ammo. Things with the skill 3 flag will appear on this difficulty. This is an equivalent of "Hurt me plenty". The name of this skill level is also used for MAP06A.


 * Cryophobia
 * On the fourth skill level, the player takes normal damage, but monsters are more aggressive than usual (aggressiveness 0.8). Things with the skill 4 flag will appear on this difficulty. This is an equivalent of "Ultra-Violence". The name of this skill level is also used for MAP06B.


 * Darkness
 * The hardest skill level. This difficulty is hidden on the skill selection menu, and with good reason. While the thing placement is the same as on Cryophobia, the player now takes 200% damage, and monsters are even more aggressive than on Cryophobia (aggressiveness 1.0). Cheat codes are disabled, and fast monsters are in effect. This is an equivalent of "Nightmare!"

Series
A prequel to Winter's Fury, named S.U.P.E.R. Natural was announced in 2013. In 2014 Pyroscourge posted a demo version at Doomworld forums. In 2020 they commented in the same thread that work on the mod had some troubles in 2016-2017 due to big changes in GZDoom engine and finishing it would require time.

Another WAD in the same series as Winter's Fury is Insanity Edged. Its first version under name Insanity's Edge was to idgames back in 2009. In December of 2022 Pyroscourge posted some information and images of new renamed version of the mod and said that final version will be ready in around 2 months.