MAP30: Threshold of Pain (PlayStation Doom)

MAP30: Threshold of Pain is a map exclusive to the PlayStation and Saturn versions of Doom. It uses the music track "Steadfast Extermination" in the Sony PlayStation port and "Mutation" in Sega Saturn by Aubrey Hodges. It serves as a conclusion to the Ultimate Doom portion of the game, ending with a phenomenal arena battle against a large group of Hell knights and pain elementals, and being followed by a text screen.

Walkthrough

 * Letters in italics refer to marked spots on the map. Sector numbers in boldface are secrets which count toward the end-of-level tally.



Bugs
During the final battle, lost souls may easily be spawned outside the boundaries of the level. Should this happen, and the souls move far enough outside the boundaries of the map, the level will become corrupted in memory and, if the game does not immediately crash, it will become gradually distorted, with linedefs moving out of their normal positions and properties of sectors changing unpredictably. While this bug can happen on any PlayStation Doom map containing pain elementals, it is particularly prone to happen here. Care should be taken to try to contain the pain elementals to the center of the room to avoid this.

Trivia
The end of this level is one of only two text-based intermissions in Playstation/Saturn Doom (marking the transition between Ultimate Doom and Doom II). Interestingly, the text itself is used, rather freely, from the intermission after MAP11: Circle of Death, pertaining to "your victory" enabling "humankind to evacuate Earth and escape the nightmare", with absolutely no mention of the events of Ultimate Doom itself. The Marine then has to find the "source of the alien invasion", placing him at MAP01: Entryway (marked as "MAP31: Entryway") with a pistol start instead of MAP12: The Factory.