Every classic DOOM campaign is going on one cartridge

Blaze announced The DOOM Collection yesterday, and the contents list is the story. DOOM, DOOM II, TNT: Evilution, The Plutonia Experiment, Master Levels for DOOM II, No Rest for the Living, SIGIL, SIGIL II, and a new DOOM: Deathmatch Pack of maps built for local competitive play. Nine entries, one cartridge, £24.99 / $29.99 / €29.99, out October 30 with pre-orders open now. I struggle to think of a more complete physical release of classic DOOM, and the presence of both SIGILs is why. Those are John Romero’s own megawads, made decades after he left, sitting on a licensed cartridge next to the official expansions as though they always belonged there. Which they did.

The other detail worth pulling out of the press release: this is a native port, not emulation. Evercade’s whole model is emulation on bespoke carts, and Blaze has gone the other way here, porting DOOM and DOOM II from the PC versions with widescreen support, high-resolution output and what it describes as smooth frame rates. There are three soundtrack mixes, which is Bobby Prince’s music, and I will note without labouring it that POCG wrote about him in June when he died. There are also scanline options and per-device control schemes, because this cart has to work on everything from an Evercade handheld to the Alpha bartop, and on HyperMegaTech’s Super Pocket as well.

Then there is the part Blaze clearly had fun with. New Evercade-exclusive Game Modifiers include Turbo Monsters, Double Monsters, Vampire Mode, Explosive Deaths, Revenge Barrels and a No Monsters mode. Violence settings can crank the blood, or turn on Shotgun Close Encounters and Chainsaw Massacre. Multiplayer gains Chaosmatch, Instagib and Tag alongside Deathmatch and co-op. On a Nexus this matters more than it sounds, because EverSync connects consoles directly to each other with no Wi-Fi network involved, and Blaze’s line at announcement was that only one cartridge is needed. It works in supported games, and a DOOM cart with a purpose-built deathmatch map pack is about as supported as it gets.

The collector’s item is the Limited Edition Evercade Nexus DOOM Edition, 3,000 units worldwide, exclusive to Funstock, £199.99 / €239.99 / $249.99, pre-orders opening at 3pm UK, 10am ET, 7am PT today, shipping October 30. You get a DOOM-themed Nexus, exclusive packaging, a big-box version of the cartridge, a DOOM hard shell case, a DOOM comic, a keyring, a double-sided poster and a numbered certificate of authenticity.

Worth knowing what the console underneath is, since 3,000 people are about to buy one on the strength of a paint job. The Nexus is Evercade’s first handheld built for 32-bit and 64-bit games, which is why it is also the first with dual analogue sticks, and it runs a 5.89 inch 840×512 IPS panel at 500-plus nits, a quad-core 1.5GHz chip, 4GB of memory, Wi-Fi 6 for updates, front-facing stereo speakers, both wireless headphone support and a 3.5mm jack, and a 5000mAh battery Blaze rates at five hours plus. It plays the 80-odd cartridges and 700-odd games in the Evercade catalogue.