Lazarus Labs

Doom (2016) missions
Mission 01: Rip & Tear Mission 02: Know Your Enemy Mission 03: Meltdown Mission 04: Beginning of the End Mission 05: Argent Tower Mission 06: Into the Fire Mission 07: Hell on Mars Mission 08: A Brighter Tomorrow Mission 09: Lazarus Mission 10: Titan's Realm Mission 11: The Crucible Mission 12: I Am VEGA Mission 13: The Well

The Lazarus Labs is the ninth level of Doom (2016). It is the center of Hell studies at the UAC Mars Base, a location where experiments were carried out on captured demons and where most of the artifacts taken from Hell, including the Helix Stone, were stored. Olivia Pierce, as Head of Biomechanical Research, had sole oversight over all projects undertaken in the Lazarus Labs. The ninth mission, also simply called Lazarus, takes place here.

"You are at the heart of the UAC occult - the Lazarus Labs. This is where Olivia released the demons from their cells and activated the Lazarus Wave, turning UAC personnel into the unwilling Possessed. You're in search of her private offices where the Helix Stone is stored. Unlock the secrets of this sacred artifact to find out how to shut down the Well - the Argent Tower's energy source in Hell."

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Description

The Lazarus Labs are a sub-division of the Advanced Research Complex accessible only to those with the highest clearance level. It is an underground complex with high security, preventing both infiltration by outsiders and exfiltration of information from insiders. Members of the UAC working in the Lazarus Labs are stated to be highly secretive, and little information is available to outsiders of what goes on within the facility. All anomalies and artifacts from other dimensions are sent immediately to the Lazarus Labs for research, and will generally remain there. Promotion to the Lazarus Labs is considered a great honor, even though those being promoted do not understand in advance what they will be doing there.

Mission 09: Lazarus

To find information on closing down the Well, the Doom Slayer proceeds down to the Lazarus Labs in search of the Helix Stone, kept inside Olivia Pierce's private archive. Activating the stone triggers a psychic vision relating to a demonic artifact which Samuel Hayden identifies as the Crucible; VEGA confirms that it is located in an uncharted region of the Titan's Realm, but getting there requires rupturing another Argent accumulator to create a portal and the only remaining accumulator is stored in "Specimen CD587". Samuel is apparently amused by this revelation and states that the Slayer will have to "remove" the accumulator. The Slayer fights his way through the lower levels of the facility until he discovers the Lazarus Project's most dangerous creation - a heavily-armed Baalgar demon known as the "cyberdemon", which is powered by the accumulator that the Slayer needs. After ripping out the accumulator and using it to transport himself into Hell, the Slayer finishes off the cyberdemon and proceeds to the Titan's Realm.

Summary

A detailed walkthrough is available for this level.

Objectives

Shut down the portal

Access the Helix Stone

RECLAIM THE CRUCIBLE

Challenges

Variety is the Spice of Death II

Perform five different glory kills on possessed soldiers.

Possessed security and Hell razers count towards this challenge as well; approach enemies from different angles, including from above, to trigger different glory kills.

Thread the Needle

Kill eight demons with a single shot.

The BFG-9000 will easily complete this challenge if fired into an area full of enemies.

Time Well Spent

Play a game of Demon Destruction.

This game can be found on a computer in Olivia's office.

Special items

Item	Amount
Argent cells	1
Combat support drones	1
Praetor tokens	4
Rune trials	2
Secrets	9
Datapads	5

Areas / screenshots

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  The first arena of the level, among crates and demonic containers.

• 

  A laboratory with a partially dissected mancubus.

• 

  The Helix Stone archive.

• 

  The Helix Stone inside its containment device.

• 

  Olivia's office.

• 

  The Soul Cube in Olivia's office.

• 

  A human sacrifice is recorded within the unholy chapel.

Inspiration and development

According to concept artists Jon Lane and Colin Geller, the player would originally reach the Lazarus facility from the edge of a volcanic crater. The level itself was initially designed as a vertical descent, progressively leading the player down towards a Hell portal at the base of the facility.

Level design document

The accessible part of the level design document reveals more things about the development and the initial concept of the level itself, which was very different from the final version.

In terms of gameplay, there was supposed to be a power relay mechanic and red plasma gates, and their overload, which did not make it into the game. Also, two types of enemies shared the same fate: the scanner drones, which, after noticing the player, would activate the lockdown, and ceiling turrets, which would attempt to kill the player; in one area of ​​the map, the Slayer would have activated them as allies to fight with the hellspawn.

In terms of story, the Lazarus Labs were the first Mars base, which operated without the assistance of additional facilities, but after it stopped being the primary base, it was adapted to conduct secret research.

The level had completely different areas and even started in a different way, beginning near a disabled industrial fusion reactor and in a flooded office sub-level, where the player could swim, and hide from a lonely cacodemon who followed him from the surface by entering small areas. Then the Slayer, after victories over escaped cacodemons from stasis tanks, would have gotten into the old and abandoned tram tunnel. Where the original construction of Lazarus was, and also in the Lazarus cavern, there would have been the excavation site of a metal dome structure, where the artifact known as the Hell Beacon would have been located, and the other map's areas, through which the player progressively passes deeper and deeper into the underground.

The cyberdemon fight was originally in the shipyard, which was the quickest route to the equatorial teleportation station, and connected to the cavern. After defeating the creature, the Slayer went to the dome to obtain dark matter to return to Hell.

Pre-release

• According to unused strings, there was supposed to be a level after this one in which the Slayer would use the Argent Accumulator to open a portal to the Titan's Realm called the "Electro-magnetic tower".

In other games

Doom VFR

In the VR spin-off, it is the second level, and covers only the second half of the level from Olivia's archive to an unholy chapel, and a circular pit as the level's exit.

Trivia

• The name Lazarus is taken from a story in the Bible which describes the death of Lazarus of Bethany and his subsequent miraculous resurrection by Jesus. The use of this name by the UAC is thus sacrilegious and a crude mockery of its scriptural origins, considering that a chief focus of the Lazarus Project is the reanimation of dead demons.
• This level is actually divided into two parts, with a loading screen between them - the first part covers the start of the level until the elevator leading to the Helix Stone archive, and the second part covers everything from the archive to the cyberdemon's pen. When playing this level for the first time, the loading screen is replaced with a psychic vision of Olivia and the Spider Mastermind.
• In the game files like in folders the level is named just "Lazarus" and "Lazarus 2", due to the mentioned fact that it is divided into two parts, and also in some strings as "Olimpiya Lazarus".
• According to Game Director Hugo Martin the pinkie fight in the hall with tablets on walls was inspired by the Erebus archive fight scene from the first Blade movie.