E2M7: Gateway Labs (No End In Sight)

E2M7: Gateway Labs is the seventh map of episode The Depths of Doom of No End In Sight. It was designed by Emil Brundage (NaturalTvventy).

Essentials
Go up the gray staircase in front of you then turn left (east) to go through a doorway under some red warning signs. Continue heading east through a narrow hallway until you reach a door between two red UAC logos and open it to reach a room with an X-shaped light - this is the central hub and you will return to it several times over the course of the level. The three doorways on the east side of the hub will lead you to the three keys; they can be collected in any order. Each time you collect a key and return to the hub, the surrounding areas will open to reveal a wave of monsters as well as items of interest.

Blue key
Go through the south doorway on the east side of the hub to find two zombiemen and two shotgun guys guarding a green door. Go through it to a room with a blue floor, proceed east and south to confront a baron of Hell then head west into a dark passage with red and blue circuits on the ceiling. Follow the passage south into a room with three lit alcoves and flip the switch in the south alcove, which will open the walls of the north alcove to reveal a baron and three spectres. Go into this closet to find another switch and flip it, then head west across a damaging pool of blood to enter a room with skull and skin walls.

Head south up some steps into a neighboring room; some of the skull walls in this room will become bloodied and monsters will emerge from behind them. Head west down a hole into a blue-floored room and climb the steps to a skull switch guarded by two demons and a cacodemon, then press the switch to raise a staircase visible through the vine-covered windows. Use the lift by the east wall to climb back up to the skull room, then walk through the bloody skull wall in the south-west corner and climb the marble stairs you just raised to the top. At the top you will see three hatches; two of the hatches are sealed, but you can use the lift behind the third hatch to reach a blue keycard.

Red key
Go through the middle doorway on the east side of the hub and follow the passage to a wide door next to a niche with armor. Go through the door and follow the passage north until you enter a room with some large tan platforms; the door will close behind you and you will need to deal with some demons that teleport in behind you as well as cacodemons on moving platforms behind vine-covered windows. Climb up the steps and flip the switch in the north-east corner, which will open the wall next to it and reveal more demons; step through the open wall and turn right, then step into the teleporter you can see at the top of some blue steps.

The teleporter will send you to a platform that lowers you into a room with red and blue steps. Head east until you reach a water pool containing a chaingun then go north-east up the steps to a skull switch, which will lower a number of blue platforms and reveal several cacodemons. Go back to the entrance room and head north through a doorway that has now opened, then proceed east up a steep staircase to see three small hatches on your left; two of the hatches are sealed, but you can use the lift behind the third hatch to reach a red keycard.

Yellow key
Go through the north doorway on the east side of the hub, pass through a door then head north into a gray room - three spectres (plus a baron on Hurt Me Plenty skill level or higher) will teleport between the dark areas of the room, so be ready to fire weapons at a moment's notice. Press the switch on the north column in this room to open a nearby door and step through it to a room with a square platform over nukage, then look through either of the doorways in the west wall to see two cacodemons on the other side of a wide nukage pool. Cross the pool, collecting ammo and an armor from islands on the way, until you reach a passage on the west then follow it round to three hatches; two of the hatches are sealed, but you can use the lift behind the third hatch to reach a yellow keycard.

Exit
With all three keys, go through the middle doorway on the east side of the hub and proceed east up some steps to three locked doors. Go through all three doors and follow the passage north until you reach the exit door. Kill two or three demons waiting behind the door then flip the switch in the corner to finish the level.

Other points of interest
Before entering the teleporter in the north-east corner of the level, head west to find a megaarmor on a computer terminal.

With the blue key, you can enter a room on the east side of the map that has a walkway over a lava pit. A chaingun and plasma gun can be found on the east side of the walkway, but approaching it will release a cacodemon and spectre into the area. Do not fall into the lava or you will be unable to escape.

After collecting two keys and returning to the hub, deal with the monsters that are revealed then head north-west to a curved staircase with lights; a rocket launcher and ammo can be found at the top. With all three keys, more areas will open north and south-east of the hub containing partial invisibility powerups.

Secrets

 * 1) In the room with the shotgun south-east of the start point, open the wall north of the shotgun to find a chaingun, two boxes of bullets, two rockets and two medikits. (sector 402)
 * 2) The wall in the central hub of the map where the dead marine is functions as a lift which leads to a rocket launcher. The switch here lowers the lift as well, but it also lowers secret #6 as well. (sector 23)
 * 3) From the central hub, take the north-east door, then press the wall immediately to your left. You will lower a lift containing an invulnerability and two health bonuses. (sector 166)
 * 4) In the south-east room with the three lit alcoves, when you approach the knife switch in the south alcove the main platform will rise. Ignore the switch for now and head into the east alcove to collect a plasma gun, which will lower you into a dark water room with a few monsters and a metal wall. Open this metal wall and hit the skull switch behind it; through the window, you will see some steps rise. After obtaining the blue key, return to the south-east corner of the map and open the two large UAC doors to reach this room, then take the stairs up to two energy cell packs (both items count as one secret). (sector 488)
 * 5) When you enter the metal room with skull walls at the south end of the level, some of the lit skull walls become bloodier, and enemies come out of these walls. Return to the previous room and through the bloody skull walls to the north. In this red room, use the lift between the two red beams to go up and flip the switch. This allows you to access the halls where the zombiemen were. (sector 852)
 * 6) After collecting one of the keys, go back to the hub and the walls around you will open revealing lots of monsters. Trigger secret #2 again, but quickly run south-west to the lowered platform that holds a chainsaw and a berserk pack. (sector 423) The switch in this secret will secret #7.
 * 7) After getting two of the keys, the central hub will further expand releasing more monsters. Return to secret #6 and flip the switch, then quickly run east then south-east to a closet with a plasma gun before it closes. (sector 425) Entering this secret also triggers secret #12 as well.
 * 8) In the room that darkens when you enter it (accessible from either blue key door), go to the north side of the room and press on a marble hall to the left of the north hallway to open it (note that this marble wall requires the red key to open it). Run west across the nukage and lowered lifts. For the next set of lifts, you need to time it so you can get across the lifts and the slow crushers. On the other side, ride the lift up to get a supercharge. (sector 696)
 * 9) After finding the red key, open either of the red doors in the north-west corner of the map to find a room with a fake exit door. After triggering the trap behind this door, open the wall in the south-east corner of the trap. You can see a block you can jump on here. Make a running jump so that you will land on this block, then turn east and jump through the window to the opening. A computer area map lies amongst all the gibs in this small room. (sector 397)
 * 10) In the room with multiple icky columns above nukage at the north end of the level, look behind the north columns to find a switch on one of them, which will reveal a radiation shielding suit in the east wall. (sector 36) Note that if you hit the switch in the middle of the room and lower the columns, you can still press the switch if you can find its location.
 * 11) After getting the yellow key, open up either of the yellow key doors on the west side of the map and you will spot a rocket launcher on a bridge. Do not go across this bridge yet, as it will lower and the secret will become inaccessible then. Instead, go to the south-west corner of this room, where you will see a switch next to a berserk pack. The switch will lower a lift behind where the rocket launcher is, so quickly hit it, then run across the bridge so you make it to the lift before it rises or the bridge lowers too far. Once you ride the lift up, follow the trail of rockets to the berserk pack. (sector 839)
 * 12) After collecting all three keys, return to the hub to expand it further and find more enemies. After dealing with them, go back to secret #7 and you will hear a lift lower. Run out of there, then head west and south to the lowering lift. The lift takes you up to a backpack. (sector 426)
 * 13) After collecting all three keys, return to the hub to expand it further and find more enemies. After dealing with them, enter the far southern part of the hub where secret #12 was located. Then, press the gargoyle switch on the eastern side to lower a lift. Stepping on this lowered lift causes another one to lower. Make sure to step on each subsequent lift quickly to reach this secret, containing four medikits and a box of bullets. (sector 247)

Current records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on December 21, 2021.

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