The Classic Episode

The Classic Episode is a nine-level Doom PWAD that replaces episode 2. It was made by Jan Van der Veken, Anthony Soto, Nick Baker, and Travers Dunne who also worked on The Darkening series. The Classic Episode is one of the few PWADs that Compet-n allows recording on. Two versions of WAD exist: the original version from 2000, which must be used for Compet-n demos, and version 2.0 released in 2002. Only the latter is uploaded on the idgames archive.

The Classic Episode was chosen as one of the Top 100 WADs of All Time entries for 2000. In 2006 it received a sequel: The Classic Episode, Part 2.

Origin
The Classic series of levels was an idea borne out of the The Darkening Episode 2 team as a reprieve from making detail-oriented maps using a custom texture set. As a side-project, three of the level designers (Jan, Anthony, Nick) made standalone PWADs meant to re-create the basic atmosphere of the original Doom levels by id Software.

After The Darkening Episode 2 v1.1 was completed in August 2000, Anthony Soto turned his attention to completing Classic as a 9-level episode. In December 2000 v1.0 was completed and in October 2002 he decided to release v2.0 to fix oustandanding issues.

Levels

 * by Anthony Soto
 * by Anthony Soto
 * by Jan Van der Veken
 * by Jan Van der Veken
 * by Jan Van der Veken (Exit to secret level)
 * by Jan Van der Veken and Anthony Soto
 * by Jan Van der Veken
 * by Nick Baker and Travers Dunne
 * by Travers Dunne and Jan Van der Veken

Soundtrack

 * E2M1: "At Doom's Gate" by Bobby Prince
 * E2M2: "I Sawed the Demons" by Bobby Prince
 * E2M3: "Kitchen Ace (And Taking Names)" by Bobby Prince
 * E2M4: "Waltz of the Demons" by Bobby Prince
 * E2M5: "Suspense" by Bobby Prince
 * E2M6: "Demons On The Prey" by Bobby Prince
 * E2M7: "Deep Into the Code" by Bobby Prince
 * E2M8: "The Demons from Adrian's Pen" by Bobby Prince
 * E2M9: "Sign of Evil" by Bobby Prince

Current records
The Compet-n episode records for The Classic Episode are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on June 21, 2020.

Standalone levels
Between July 1998 and September 2000, seven of the levels were uploaded individually to the idgames archive by their respective map author.

Version 1.0
On December 21, 2000 the completed nine level episode replacement was released. It contains the previously-released seven levels with some minor edits along with two brand new maps. Compet-n uses this version for its speedrun competitions.

Version 2.0
On August 31, 2002, on the idgames archive was replaced by a new version. Eight of the nine levels contain fixes to both gameplay and visuals. The ZIP archive includes text file with a per-map breakdown of the changes.