“Better than any modern game”: the modder added path tracing to Doom 2, transforming the legendary shooter beyond recognition

The legendary first-person shooter Doom 2 recently became even better thanks to a new mod that adds path tracing to the game and thereby transforms the appearance of its infernal locations and nightmare demons.

Image source: ModDB (shirokii)

Created by talented modder shirokii, Doom 2: Ray Traced is available for free on the ModDB site and is based on GZDoom, an extended engine of the classic Dooms adapted for modern operating systems.

By default, Doom 2: Ray Traced uses RTGL1 (see Half-Life: Ray Traced, Quake: Ray Traced), but shirokii went even further by adding several new features to the renderer, including:

• Particle-based fluid simulation – blood now dynamically smears the environment;
• Support for Nvidia DLSS 3 frame generation;
• AMD FSR 3 frame interpolation support;
• Support for HDR monitors;
• Simple heightmaps and performance improvements;
• Compatibility with RTX Remix – you need to download the shell, unpack the files into the game directory and run gzdoom_REMIX.bat.

Doom 2: Ray Traced features models from the Voxel Doom project

According to shirokii, real-time path tracing allows you to “create shadows, reflections and global illumination without pre-baking.” You can switch from the new renderer to the classic one at any time.

All objects have their own shadow, mirrors and glass correctly refract and reflect light, volumetric lighting simulates a dense atmosphere, and plasma balls of cacodemons illuminate their insides.

The release trailer for Doom 2: Ray Traced, attached above, left users impressed. “Better than any modern game. Absolutely amazing,” alinamast1229 does not skimp on compliments.

Bethesda recently released a collection of Doom + Doom 2 with improved versions of the first games in the series. A free upgrade for owners of at least one of the two 2019 re-releases (Doom or Doom 2) is included in the deal.