A complete free replacement for Ultimate DOOM — 4 full episodes with 36 original levels, all-new art, music, and sound effects. Everything is released under the BSD license, meaning it can be freely reused by any project.
About
The Freedoom project was started in 2001 by Simon Howard and Jon Dowland, originating from a Doomworld forum thread titled "barn-raising: open iwad project." The community set out to recreate every asset in DOOM from scratch — sprites, textures, sounds, music, and levels — producing a complete, standalone game that requires no commercial data files.
Phase 1 replaces Ultimate DOOM with 4 episodes of 9 levels each (36 total). Enemy designs differ from the originals but fulfill the same gameplay roles. The project remains under active development and is compatible with most classic DOOM WAD mods. It runs on the PrBoom+ engine compiled to WebAssembly.
Controls
- W / ↑ — Move forward
- S / ↓ — Move backward
- A — Strafe left
- D — Strafe right
- Mouse — Aim / turn
- Left Click — Fire weapon
- E — Use / open doors
- Space — Jump (PrBoom+)
- 1–7 — Select weapon
- Tab — Toggle automap
- Shift — Run (hold)
- Esc — Menu
Gameplay Tips
- Different enemy designs — Enemies look different from classic DOOM but fill the same roles. Learn the new sprites.
- Explore all 4 episodes — Each episode has its own theme and difficulty curve. Don't stop at Episode 1.
- WAD compatible — Most DOOM WAD mods work with Freedoom, giving you access to decades of community content.
- Use the automap — Press Tab in maze-like sections to keep your bearings.
Did You Know?
- Freedoom has not yet reached version 1.0 and remains under active development since 2001 — making it one of the longest-running open source game projects.
- All Freedoom content is BSD-licensed, meaning any project can freely reuse its assets for any purpose — commercial or otherwise.
- After version 0.13, Freedoom shifted to vanilla DOOM compatibility, meaning it can even run on the original 1993 DOS executable.
See Also
DOOM (Arcade) · DOOM: Knee-Deep in the Dead · Freedoom: Phase 2 · FreeDM · Chex Quest · HacX · REKKR