The Shores of Hell

The Shores of Hell is the second episode in Doom/The Ultimate Doom.

The episode takes place in the UAC installations on Deimos, which is being overrun and infested by the demonic forces. To show this, its levels generally resemble UAC facilities that have been partially altered by the demonic invaders. The sky used for this episode's background consists of mountains against red clouds. The episode itself marks a transitional phase between Episode 1's techbase aesthetic and Episode 3's hellish aesthetic.

All of the maps in this episode are credited to Sandy Petersen, though many of them were first started by Tom Hall.

Story
After defeating the barons that were protecting the main gateway on Phobos and gaining access to the anomaly, the Doom marine finds himself caught in an ambush. After noting the stench of rotten meat, he realizes that his surroundings seem to resemble the lost Deimos moon base which earlier disappeared from the sky above Mars just before the demonic invasion began. Progressing into the base facility by facility, he finds that it too has been overrun by the forces of Hell, but also that its environment has become twisted and corrupted - wood, marble and stone inexplicably replace electronics, flesh hangs in sheets over walls, lava and blood flow and gather in pools, thorny vines overgrow large portions of the base, and various demonic artifacts and paraphernalia litter the corridors.

The marine meets more fierce resistance, in particular from enemies that were not encountered on the Phobos base, including the lost soul and cacodemon. Barons of Hell are now regular enemies. Balancing the equation somewhat is the marine's timely discovery of the plasma rifle, a UAC-developed energy weapon with a high rate of fire and equally impressive damage output. At the end of the episode, the marine must face the almighty cyberdemon lord who rules over the lost base from the newly constructed Tower of Babel. Upon his victory in battle, the marine learns the terrible truth - that Deimos now floats above Hell itself. Determined to trace the invasion to its ultimate source, he then rappels down to the surface of Hell to continue his battle.

Levels

 * E2M1: Deimos Anomaly (Petersen and Hall)
 * E2M2: Containment Area (Petersen and Hall)
 * E2M3: Refinery (Petersen and Hall)
 * E2M4: Deimos Lab (Petersen and Hall)
 * E2M5: Command Center (Petersen; Exit to secret level)
 * E2M6: Halls of the Damned (Petersen)
 * E2M7: Spawning Vats (Petersen and Hall)
 * E2M8: Tower of Babel (Petersen; Cyberdemon is the boss)
 * E2M9: Fortress of Mystery (Petersen; Secret level)

End of Episode Message
You've done it! The hideous Cyberdemon lord that ruled the lost Deimos moon base has been slain and you are triumphant! But... where are you? You clamber to the edge of the moon and look down to see the awful truth.

Deimos floats above Hell itself! You've never heard of anyone escaping from Hell, but you'll make the bastards sorry they ever heard of you! Quickly, you rappel down to the surface of Hell.

Now, it's on to the final chapter of Doom! -- Inferno.

Current records
The Compet-n records for the episode are:

Trivia

 * The episode's intermission screen changes from level to level, showing how E2M8: Tower of Babel is gradually built by the forces of Hell as the marine advances. It begins as a small nub upon completing E2M1: Deimos Anomaly, but appears as fully built upon completing E2M7: Spawning Vats.
 * Initially, the episode's secret level is not visible on the map. It fades in only after the player discovers the secret exit to it, and then disappears again after it is completed. Its location on the map is in very close proximity to the Tower of Babel's construction site.
 * Many of the episode's levels feature UAC locales that have alterations or additions of hellish origin. For example, while most buildings still use human-made keycards for locked doors, some others use demonic skull keys. E2M3: Refinery includes keycards for the player to pick up, but also has some skull-marked door frames. Some switches found in the levels are UAC-style push buttons, while others appear to be of demonic nature. To a certain degree this is because the levels were originally designed to be plain UAC facilities, as seen in the alpha versions of the game, but were later moved to a more hellish environment. This decision was made more believable by having Deimos teleported to a location over Hell's surface at the beginning of the game. Due to this, fan-made levels that mix techbase and demonic textures are sometimes referred to as Shores of Hell levels.
 * Similarly, the level names suggest that only four buildings (levels two through five) are UAC-built, and that the others are new hellish buildings (brand-new, in the case of the Tower of Babel).
 * In comparison with the previous episode, many maps of this episode have quite high ratios of summary monster hitpoints to amount of ammo pickups available to the player. This is because of increased difficulty, and also because the number of former humans (who drop their guns when killed) is smaller, whereas the majority of enemies are hellspawn, who drop nothing.
 * The plasma gun appears in all of the levels, with the exception of Tower of Babel.
 * Monsters making their initial appearance in the episode are the Cacodemon, Lost Soul, and Cyberdemon.