UZDoom is now available, opening up new chapter for Doom modding

The first test version of UZDoom has been released. This modification is intended to be the successor to the iconic GZDoom, a project that modernized the engine of the first two installments of the Doom series. It supports both Doom and Doom II, as well as other games that use this technology from id Software, such as Heretic, Hexen, Strife, and Chex Quest.

The creation of this mod is the result of a dispute within the GZDoom development team, which led to its collapse. The conflict started when Christoph “Graf Zahl” Oleckers, the founding modder for this project, introduced untested elements written by AI into the mod's code, wqhich likely violated GitHub's licensing agreement. This is a big problem even for fan projects, but above all, it could have been a disaster for developers who build commercial games on GZDoom.

The development of UZDoom begins exactly where it ended in GZDoom..

The situation was exacerbated by the fact that Graf Zahl had not been particularly active in this project in recent years, and other developers were mainly responsible for its development. So they decided they had had enough and made a fork and thus UZDoom was born.

In practice, this project can be considered the future of this type of modification, as most modders have left the GZDoom team and it is difficult to imagine Oleckers continuing on his own. Especially since, before leaving, the developers were working on a lot of new features and fixes for version 5.0, and all these improvements will be included in UZDoom. The community is on the team's side, and many modders (for example the creators of the excellent Trench Foot) have announced that they will transfer their modifications to the newer project.

The just released version of UZDoom is not yet fully polished. The authors have made it available so that the community can help test it. However, it already offers most of the planned improvements. What’s more - texture filtering is not enabled by default (it is only an option), which was an element of GZDoom that many people had been complaining about for years. Of course, the project offers all the previous improvements, such as mouse control and support for high widescreen resolutions.

1. Download UZDoom

Doom II: Hell on Earth

June 15, 1994

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