DOOM Alpha v0.5

When it first fired up on a floppy in the nineties, you knew this was something completely different. DOOM Alpha v0.5 isn't the finished game — it's a fragment from a workshop that was just being born. Before it became a legend, you needed to see it right here.

This is an early prototype of the first Doom from 1993, when the game was still taking shape. It's not yet the infamous bloody chaos with demons from hell — more of an experimental shooter skeleton that the creators were testing on PC. The environment is raw, texturing is minimal, enemies are in their infancy. But the goal is clear: move through 3D space and shoot at everything that moves.

The controls are clunky — movement with keys, firing with mouse or keyboard. The view doesn't rotate as smoothly as you'd like. Jump and fall physics are harsh. There's no polish or refinement anywhere. Weapon physics, their sounds, basically everything feels provisional. And that's exactly where the magic lies — you see how a game that was meant to be groundbreaking was built. The graphics are pixelated and raw, but the idea itself — a person in a space that can move in full three dimensions — was a revolution for PC.

This fragment of history isn't playable in today's sense. It lacks a story mode, variety, any accompanying entertainment. But that's precisely why it's worth exploring. When you then see how this rough skeleton hatched into the phenomenon we now call Doom, you get goosebumps. It's like seeing a sketch of Michelangelo's David.

Who should play it? Mainly historians and fanatics of the original Doom. Those who want to understand where it all started. It'll take a while to fire up in a browser or DOSBox, but for a gamer who had the nineties in their blood, this is essential. It might not be fun, but it's a memorial.