Crossing Acheron

Crossing Acheron is a single-level PWAD designed by John "Dr. Sleep" Anderson. As part of their 10 Years of Doom feature, Doomworld named it one of the ten best WADs of 1994.

At least four versions of the map are known to exist: The first two WADs replace E1M3; the other two replace MAP03. The level also appeared in Maximum Doom as ACHERON2.WAD, as MAP15 of R.WAD, as MAP15 of RALPHII.WAD, as E2M7 of RALPHNEW.WAD, and as MAP25 of WADPAK4.WAD.
 * Version 0.0 (ACHERON.WAD), released June 10, 1994.
 * Version 1.666 (ACHERON6.WAD), released September 23, 1994.
 * Version 2.0 (ACHERON2.WAD), released October 12, 1994.
 * Version 2.2 (ACHRON22.WAD), released July 5, 1995.

Essentials
Go forward to the marble benches in the church room, get up on one of the left ones and jump through one of the windows, go right and onto the second teleporter on the right, go right, right again, straight, before going to the teleport at the end push the button to the right to rise a bridge to the red door, go through the teleporter, make a 180 degree turn and take the yellow key, go back to the windows that you dropped through at the start, go up the lift, open door, step towards the lights to lower and reveal a teleporter, step onto the teleporter, open the symbols to the left, go to the church room and open the wooden door, turn right and open the marble icon, go across the pillar and into the further wall to rise the bridge with the red key on it, take the key, get out of the room, get to the other side of the room and open door, take the chaingun to get into the underground teleporter, step onto the teleporter, make a 180 degree turn, turn left and go upstairs, open the marble icon and step onto the teleporter behind it.

Secrets
Version ?:
 * 1) Entering the red door room to fetch the yellow key is counted as a secret.
 * 2) When you grab the red key, go on your left. Open the fake wall (sector 220), open another fake wall (sector 218) on the left.
 * 3) Follow the corridor and go up a lift. (sector 268)
 * 4) In the tunnel with nukage in its beginning, open the wall (sector 163) after the demon+chaingunner trap. You will be teleported far away.
 * 5) Open the back wall (sector 63) in the platform with the barrel. Follow the teleporters, get plenty of goodies.

Version 2.2:
 * 1) At the south end of the main passage (with all the teleporter pads) is a lift up to a room (visible from the start room) which contains several monsters including (on hard skill) an arch-vile.  The middle part of the south-western wall is an unmarked secret door leading to a teleporter that leads (via a room south of the start) to a room with a chainsaw and a partial invisibility. (sector 63)
 * 2) The red door (leading to the yellow key) counts as a secret. (sector 82)
 * 3) The red key is on a lift which lowers into a room with a berserk.  The west end of this room has an unmarked secret door leading to a room with 2 short green pillars (which mark a lift with a partial invisibility).  On the north wall of this room is an unmarked secret door leading to a lift to a room overlooking a room with a rocket launcher.  Both the sector after the second secret door and the lift count as secrets. (sector 233)
 * 4) See #3. (sector 268)
 * 5) From the nukage pool north of the exit, take the passage leading out to the north-east.  Turn a corner, go through one door, and continue to the end.  There is a secret door here leading to a teleporter that takes you to the north-east part of the level. (sector 163)

Current records
The records for the original map on the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:

The records for v2.2 of the map on the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:

Things
Crossing Acheron contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Technical information
An alternate release of version 2.0, labeled 2.0a, occurred on December 5, 1994. The two WADs are identical apart from the ENDOOM lump.

Inspiration and development
Crossing Acheron is the sequel to Dante's Gate. Although released singly, both were originally conceived as part of a full episode replacement. E1M3 was chosen over E1M2 as the map slot because E1M3's stock music better fit the overall theme.

At the time, Dr. Sleep said that the original release of Dante's Gate was too easy, and he wanted Crossing Acheron to have a faster pace (in addition to his customary emphasis on texture placement and atmosphere). Subsequent revisions added new areas and monsters, increasing the difficulty further.

Trivia
is a river in hell, according to (and the Greek spiritual traditions preceding it). Dr. Sleep tried to create a river as an architectural feature in this map, but couldn't come up with one which looked sufficiently realistic.