MAP31: The Descent (Hell Revealed)

MAP31: The Descent, designed by Yonatan Donner, is the first secret level of Hell Revealed. It uses a remix of the classical music piece "Adagio in G minor" composed for Rise of the Triad.

Description
According to the Hell Revealed info pack:


 * In this lift you will not be sure if you are descending into hell, or are in hell already. Enemies will fight you all the way down, and there more resistance awaits. You must get the ammunition in the start or you will never survive the descent. And you must be very good to get out alive. Your heartbeat might go very high when you expect the way out to show any moment... You can leave from the normal exit, which requires two keys, or the secret exit, which doesn't require any key. But to leave through it you will need to prove good maneuverability skills.


 * Size: small
 * Difficulty: very hard

Walkthrough
When the level starts, you will see a pillar in the middle of the room. Shoot it. This will open 4 doors at the sides of the room, all containing guns. Next, activate the switch on the same pillar you shot before. The floor will start to descend and monsters will spawn, starting with zombies, ending with arch-viles and barons of hell. You do not necessarily have to fight the monsters on the descending lift, you can also stay on the pillar platform. Alternatively, if you are fast enough, you can also avoid the lift fight by hitting the switch and quickly running into one of the weapon/ammo stashes.

After the lift has stopped moving and you are at the bottom, you will be confronted by chaingunners in the halls, and the halls lead to rooms with spectres in them. The secret exit is to the south and the normal exit is to the north. The keys are located in the west and east rooms. On Ultra-Violence and Nightmare every corner room will house a cyberdemon, making it hard to get to the soul spheres situated in the corners of the map. Picking up the red keycard reveals revenants and barons of hell around the map, while picking up the blue keycard makes an arch-vile teleport to the center, most likely resurrecting some of the enemies you had killed before. Be aware of your health, the level only includes few health pickups.

Note that the keys are only required if you are headed for the normal exit. If you are going for the secret exit, you can reach it right away once you descend all the way down. The southern part of the map holds the secret exit, and you must carefully navigate on top of small pillars to reach it.

Secrets
Press use on the walls behind the guns at the beginning to open them and reveal ammo stashes.

Speedrunning
See:
 * Hell Revealed at Compet-N
 * Hell Revealed at the Doom Speed Demos Archive

Current records
The Compet-N records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on June 22, 2013.