Dante's Gate

Dante's Gate is a single-level PWAD designed by John W. "Dr. Sleep" Anderson. In an era when level editing tools were fairly primitive, it distinguished itself by a strong emphasis on theme and mood, as well as by technical soundness. It is now considered an all-time classic.

At least five versions of the map are widely available: The first three WADs replace E1M1; the other two replace MAP02. The level appeared in Maximum Doom as DANTE2.WAD, DANTE21.WAD, and DANTES2.WAD.
 * Version 1.0 (DANTES.WAD), released May 17, 1994.
 * Version 1.2 (DANTE12.WAD), released July 16, 1994.
 * Version 1.666 (DANTE666.WAD), released November 23, 1994.
 * Version 2.0 (DANTE2.WAD), released October 17, 1994.
 * Version 2.5 (DANTE25.WAD), released February 21, 1996.

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.

Current records
The records for the original map on the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:

The records for v1.2 of the map on the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:

The records for v2.5 of the map on the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:

Things
Dante's Gate contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Technical information
Version 1.666 of this map was created to accommodate an obscure engine bug in Doom 1.666, which affected floor triggers tagged to multiple sectors.

Inspiration and development
The following additional releases of Dante's Gate have been reported:
 * Version 1.1 (June 14, 1994).
 * Version 2.1 (December 15, 1994).
 * Version 2.2 (July 5, 1995).
 * Version 2.3 (August 8, 1995).
 * Version 2.4 (November 11, 1995).

Trivia
In the readme file for version 2.5, Dr. Sleep lists no fewer than eleven editing tools (and two image processing programs) as having "had a significant effect" on the WAD.