Legacy of Suffering

Legacy of Suffering (a.k.a LOS), is a Doom 3 themed mod for GZDoom and Skulltag created by Logan MTM, released on Saturday 28 of November 2009, and was updated on December 1 the same year. It received one of the 2009 Cacowards. The mod also contains artworks by Licinio Ribeiro de Souza and was playtested by Nigel Rowand (Enjay).



Story
The player assume the role of John Logan, one of four supersoldiers trained by the UAC militar division stationed on the Moon, having the power of regeneration and super strength. It's revealed on the introduction scene that the Moon Station was created on the year of 2045, which the main proposal was the production of Hydrocon and weapon experiments. When the game starts, on century later, the station is quite abandoned, working as weapon warehouse. It's also revealed that John Logan was one of many trainers of Space Marines, but he was arrested before the events of the game, being stuck on the infirmary due to allegations of hallucinations.

At the year 2145, right after the events of Doom 3, the Moon Station is invaded by hellspawn forces, quickly taking over the base, with all of it soldiers being possesed. Far away from the center of the invasion, John Logan manage to escape from the infirmary and searches for survivors, using his unique Cannon Shotgun and other weapons to defend himself from enemies. Not long after, he encounters a man using a chaingun coupled with a rocket launcher, killing monster, which he believes that is another super soldier. But, right after a quick conversation with him, John Logan is attacked, but manages to kill the man and takes his chaingun with him.

Knowing that he is the only living being on the Moon, John Logan struggle to reactivate the energy on the base and escape through the monorail. Passing by the sectors of the base, he has many interaction with a strange ghost of a woman, who appears to help him, sometimes by opening doors or by giving him keycards. He also learns from messages of former UAC employees some problems, jokes and the daily events of the base. One of this messages is from the moon's administrator to Ian Kelliher, saying that his worried with Dr. Betruger's teleport Mars and it's links to the Moon, hinting that the demonic invasion on the station is a consequence of the events of Doom 3. The message also hints that one of Elliot Swann's reasons to stop Betruger's experiments on Mars was because of the moon's administrator ordered him to Earth one month before November 15th, on an attempt to solve this case.

After reaching the Monorail Base, John Logan discovers that the monorail itself is actually gone and the only way to escape is using the teleport technology. While fighting with the monsters, John finds a Plasma Rifle with a BFG shot. After reaching the Teleport Experiments Sector, John battles with the Cyberdemon and struggle to fix the teleport's power. On the way, he discovers a old laptop, containing a secret message, which reveals that ghost who was helping him is actually a deceased Samantha Grimm, using a fake alias as "Sara Grimm". The message was written on 2048, stating that Samantha and her brother John Grimm were arrested by the UAC right after the events on Olduvai Research Station showed on Doom movie. John Grimm's fate is also revealed, as he was used as test subjetct by the UAC scientists on the genetic experiments with the C24. The message also explains the results of the use of C24 depends on the test's morality, so the subject may become either a demon-like mutant or a supersoldier, hiting that John Logan himself has C24, which gave him his regeneration power. The message also hints that John Grimm's regenerations power turn him ageless and the may actually be alive somewhere on Mars City, explainig that's the reason why the ghost is helping John Logan: to find her brother on Mars.

After activating the teleport, John Logan sees the ressurected rocket-chaingun soldier, but he is teleported before being shot. On the Communications Center, John discovers that the demonic force is being lead by the Shadow Knight, an enormous demon monster which is invisible and immune to all firepower except plasma energy. He also learns that the only way to escape the facility is to teleport to Earth. After getting the last keycard to the main teleport room, John Logan confronts the Shadow Knight.

After killing him, he has a vision of a unknown creature congratulating him from defeating the monsters and saying that they will meet soon. John Logan shoots the invisible monster with his Cannon Shotgun, and a scene of the main teleport room been closed is displayed, along with a message saying that the past teleport test subject's destination is unknown. Right after credits, it's revealed that John actually gone to Hell instead to Earth.

After killing many of the hellspawn forces thorugh the Hell rooms, John is trapped on a room with two Arch-Vile stone statues. As the screens fades to black, the sound of two Arch-Viles being activated is heard. The mod ends with a quote from the metal band Nevermore's music lyrics "My Acid Words": "Death and suffering all around me, no escape so why go on?". John Logan's ultimate fate is not revealed.

Gameplay
The mod consists of a new episode for Doom 2, with eight maps, each one serving as a Act for the story, plus a ninth map after the credits and a special Invasion map for Skulltag. The style of the maps evokes the Doom 3 atmosphere, with high-tech detailed rooms and corridors created through high-resolution textures and the use of 3D floors, brightmaps, dynamic lights and ACS scripts. All maps can be played in single player, cooperative or deathmatch.

The arsenal has been modified and increased: the fists are faster and more powerful. the shotgun and double-barreled shotgun are quite faster than the original Doom shotguns; the chainsaw and chaingun are very similar with the Doom 3 versions, and chainsaw having alt-fire feature.

The new weapons include the quadruple-barreled shotgun called the "Cannon Shotgun", which has a reload feature, along with the option to fire one shotgun at time or four shots at once. A combination of Chaingun-Rocket Launcher is obtain after killing a sub-boss. The Plasma Rifle also is modified, by having the traditional shot and a BFG shot, which is a combination the Doom Movie's Bio Force Gun shot and the traditional BFG. All new weapons also make use of the alt-fire feature.

All enemies corpses burn with the exception of Zombie's corpses, like in Doom 3. Zombies have been resprited and their eyes now glow in the dark, also like Doom 3. Some new zombies are introduced, as the ones armed with super shotguns and others with chainsaws. The Arachnotron now looks halfways between the normal Doom 2 one and the Doom 64 one, and leaves a cell recharge behind when its corpse evaporates. Imps are more dark and have more spines. Monsters like Hell Knights and Barons attacks from both hands, and the Revenant now attacks two misiles at once. Other monsters, like Demons and Cyberdemon, are not modified but now has brightmaps.

New NPC characters are introduced, and some from Doom RPG, Doom 3, Doom Novels and the Doom Movie are referenced or make a appearance, joining the universes. The mod also use a lot of Doom 3 sounds and effects, which hints that possibly the ghost on Doom 3's Alpha Labs Sector 5 and the ghost on the mod are the same character.

The mod's soundtrack consists on only metal music, including tracks made by Marc Pullen, some tracks from the Painkiller game, and the Ultimate Doom's E1M8 remix by Sonic Clang used as the final confrotation music. When the music is not been played, the game use ambient sounds, many also taken from Doom 3.

The mod also has a lot of real world references: the Duke Nukem Forever game not been released on 2145 year, the Super Metroid reference and secret, and the brazilian satirical heavy metal band Massacration posters.

Development
The mod was officially announced in 2008 on the BrDOOM Forum called: "Legacy of Suffering - Episode One: Dark Base", a new version of Logan's old 2006 project with Maurício Rocks "Dark Base" 2007 project.The announce included a few screenshots and a game play video.

Both projects had the Doom 3 high-tech atmosphere, but the original 2006 LOS's story was supposed to happen after the events of Doom 3, has John Logan interacting with another survivor of Recon Zulu (possibly, the Doom 3's protagonist), and the gameplay was supposed to be a "cooperative single play" between this two characters on new areas of Mars City. On the other hand, Dark Base's story was supposed to happen on the the canceled moon base from the Nasa's project, with a anonymous marine fighting demon on this base. When the two projects were joined, the storyline was moved to happen at the same time as Doom 3 events, with only John Logan has a survivor on the moon station.

At some point, the mod was supposed to have more artwork to detail the story, incluing 3D models, but they were discarded because the project was getting too late to be released.

The mod was internationally announced on May 14, 2009 at the ZDoom community forums, followed by identical threads on the Skulltag and DRD Team forums.

Cancelled Sequel
Months after the release of LOS, Logan MTM posted on the BrDOOM Forum the sequel of LOS, called "Symphony of Destruction", and the only details revealed was that mod was suppossed to be a high-quality mod, using only high-quality textures, sprites, animations that improve the Open GL mode. The story was not revealed, but some rumors came around. One of the rumors said that sequel was the old 2006 story, showing John Logan's fate as he end up on Mars City. John Logan, then, would join John Kane (Doom 3's protagonist) and other Recon Zulu rescue team marines to fight the forces of Hell. At some point of the game, the marines were obliged to go to the old Olduvai Research Facility on the south of Mars, where they would encounter a alive John Grimm, who would join the other John's to escape from Mars. The new enemies would include a demonic verson of the "Sarge" who was played by The Rock on the Doom Movie; the return of the "chaingun-rocket guy" as a main antagonist (and with a name), and a apparence of a modified Spider Mastermind, which was the only Doom 2 monster who didn't made a appareance on the mod.

In 2011, however, the project was cancelled by lacking amount of people interested or capable to help the WAD. The project was then forgotten when BrDOOM itself was shutdown on December 2011.

Links

 * Official site (In both English and Portuguese)
 * ZDoom forum thread, started May 14
 * Skulltag forum thread, started May 17
 * DRD Team forum thread, started November 28
 * Gameplay video at YouTube
 * Gameplay video at YouTube