REKKR: Sunken Land | REKKRSL.IWAD
Matthew "Revae" Little + various
REKKR is as pure a total conversion as it gets — everything has been replaced, from weapons to monsters to decoration objects. It’s effectively a whole new game, and well might it be, as developer Matthew Little saw fit to release an updated version of the game as a commercial product — more on that later. With three canonical episodes and a fourth bonus episode, REKKR presents the following story: you are a rekkr, a warrior from some nameless Nordic country. Returning home from a failed campaign, you discover your homeland in flames, overrun with walking corpses and monsters from the realm of the dead, and your wife and child murdered. Demanding revenge against the dead, and the monstrous king who unleashed them upon his kingdom, you wage war across first the countryside, then the capitol city, and finally the realm of the dead itself. Each episode has its own vibe, but by the end of the first episode, it becomes clear that this world isn’t quite the generic medieval fantasy we expect it to be, but more of a magitek setting that seems to power itself on mysterious flying mana sprites. What’s odd, then, is that the fourth episode’s penultimate level seems to directly imply that this is indeed Earth — perhaps an alternate history, or even a glitch in the timestream, soon to be undone in the finale.
Being a true total conversion, complete with extensive DEHACKED magic, this isn’t a 1:1 conversion of Doom. Importantly, it de-emphasizes hitscan — only 3 out of your 8 weapons use it, and only the final boss of the fourth episode uses it against you. Your starting weapons are just your fists and a bow; the bow fires weaponized souls, which you get by killing the two main “zombie” types who populate the maps; they drop red souls, which last only a couple of seconds before fading. The faster-firing soul launcher occupies slot 4, though it seems to do slightly less damage? Don’t quote me on that. In between is the steelshot launcher, an oversized, hand-cranked firearm that functions like the Doom shotgun and eats two units of ammo per shot, with a lengthy reload sequence. The rune staff replaces the rocket launcher, the runes it fires behaving more like grenades with a definite downward arc. Rather than exploding on contact, they do a small amount of damage on impact then drop the ground, at which point they explode. The holy relic occupies the plasma rifle slot, and has a similar cooldown when you release the fire button, but otherwise functions like a weaker shotgun, firing hitscan shots in a row as opposed to the random cloud of the steelshot. The Blessing of the Gods is basically the BFG without the windup or plasma ball, making it potentially powerful if only ammo wasn’t so limited. You also get a heavy axe as the chainsaw replacement, though it’s not nearly as useful.
With such a complete change of assets, REKKR is unrecognizable as a Doom mod; the community recognized this, and it was suggested repeatedly that it be sold as a commercial product. To this end, a few years after its initial release, Little would create the fourth episode (replacing the bonus episode,) tweak the initial maps a bunch, and put the whole thing out on digital distros like Steam as REKKR: Sunken Land. The fourth episode centers around a large facility built over what appears to be Yggdrasil, the mythical tree of Norse legend and — it seems — a gateway into another reality altogether. I couldn’t tell you what all has changed between the mod release and the commercial version, though Little would later put out another bonus episode, the VR-themed “VR-R3KKR.” The commercial release does however come bundled with a standalone copy of GZDoom (I’m not sure what version it’s based on, as it shows as “unknown version” in the console.) This version comes with some pre-made settings such as an enforced lack of mouselook, though it does feature the expanded choice of sector light modes that was recently removed. If you find this to be a bit constraining, and/or you want more out of your REKKR, there’s always the REKBONUS.WAD mod — dev-approved! — that adds more features to the options menu and reinstates the bonus episode in the episode select.
That’s not to say I had a bad time with REKKR; I would still highly recommend it to fans of boomer shooters and especially fantasy boomer shooters. I’m just saying that perhaps it’s a little too limited by DEHACKED, a little too rooted in legacy.
E1M1: Sinking
Revae
Short little intro map. Linear with relatively few monsters, but spooky,
giving a hint of the devastation. Without cutscenes or really any sort of
pathos on the part of the player character, we kind of have to guess from
context clues as to the tragedy of the final room.
E1M2: Down
Revae
Now this is more like it. It's a relatively open mining complex just underneath where you buried your wife and children; Revae helpfully gives you a bottle of wode to let off some steam on zombies down in the mines, but it quickly becomes clear that there's more than just the walking dead down here. It's a pretty interconnected series of tunnels and chambers, with a few interesting encounters (such as the teleport ambush when you throw a switch) and the use of surprise skeleturrets to catch you off-guard.
E1M3: Flurrious
Revae
A snowy, cold l'il canyon/fortress complex. While there are some big rooms in the fortress proper, most of your time will be spent outside, plugging zombies and other trash mobs. Revae teases you with a big health potion at the top of some ruins that you'll need to climb to reach, and the whole time I was thinking it was gonna be a mimic. (Thankfully it wasn't.) The secret exit area is a cute puzzle kind of deal with a cold-hearted GMOTA reference and a cute puppy you have to lead to his doghouse.
E1M9: Pop Some Hops
Revae
That's no ordinary rabbit. You're dropped into a cartoony, almost NES-looking arena. Shoot a nearby switch and prepare to fight a few hundred angry pink jackalopes who can tear you to pieces in seconds. You're granted a bunch of upper-level weapons to deal with the hungry hopping horde, but the steelshooter is probably the most efficient method of deleting these jacked up jackalopes.
E1M4:
Blade Swamp
SuperCupcakeTactics and Revae
While Revae did the deathmatch arena, SuperCupcakeTactics takes the lead on this naturalistic map that reminds me a lot of some of the middle levels of Shadow Warrior '97. It's a swampy forest type deal with a nearby watery canyon and some human structures here and there. It's cramped and a little spooky with all the former humans wandering around. I like the big open area by the blue door.
E1M5:
Fielding
Revae
A sprawling farm complex, this one has a lot of twisting and winding paths. Your ultimate goal is to raise a couple of stone platforms to reach the exit door, which means finding two separate paths to the switches that do the raising, then finding the path onto the platforms themselves. There's a particularly big brawl in the northeast that stands out to me, but the big fight by the mushroom cave is also pretty memorable.
E1M6:
Rampart
Revae
A proper castle level with a dining hall, armory, barracks, bedroom (complete with functional bathroom) and other facilities. You'll have a couple of large encounters in a few key points, like the big nukage room before the blue key, but nothing you can't handle. I like the repeated teasing of the red key on the dumbwaiter, having to fight your way into the kitchen to reach it.
E1M7: Dripstone Wharf
lupinx-Kassman and Revae
Now we're talking. We begin in a cave at the foot of a massive coastal fortress city; as we work our way up through semi-subterranean living spaces, we begin to see several hints about the nature of the city and the strangely advanced Nordic society that occupies it. It's a sprawling battle zone that takes us through waterways and urban centers, constantly changing elevations as we reach the heights of the fortress before descending down into a dark forest and then back up again, a true rollercoaster ride of a level with lots of big fights and twisting paths. I feel like lupinx-Kassman was the driving creative force behind this thing, given their work in TNT2: Devilution (especially "The New Technology.")
E1M8: Hazardous Coast
Revae
A simple arena level, you're on an island with a large central lighthouse situated on some rocks. The nearby dock has a sip that can take you to the city, but you need the key to access it, and raising the anchor triggers a large invasion. No real boss enemies in this -- just you and several dozen low to mid-tier monsters.
E2M1: On Fire
Revae
Welcome to Hell on Midgard. Episode two opens with the capitol city in flames. You'll be spending most of your time plugging away with the soul launcher as you work your way through a crumbling, burning city, paths constantly twisting back on themselves. With lots of eyeballs and grotesques it's a tough opener compared to "Sinking" but as long as you mind your ammo and make sure to get the secrets you should be okay.
E2M2: Drained
Revae
We take a dive into the capitol city's vast sewer system. It's a sprawling, confusing maze that frequently doubles back on itself, with sections divided up based on whether it's lava, nukage or water. The ultimate goal is to find switches that raise a walkway to the exit and there's one in each section. Lots of former humans wandering around in here, but the abundance of eyeballs is enough to drive anyone crazy.
E2M3: Sequester
Revae
We're back on the surface and deeper into the city, a sprawling medieval metropolis full of dark alleys and high roofs. The streets are crawling with monsters and there don't seem to be any survivors. It's a real snakenest of a map with some interesting height variance and a few distinct sections, such as the terraced garden steps and the canal. Combat is more incidental than anything else, encounters arranged in such a way as to feel like you're walking into an invasion in progress rather than an ambush specifically for you; like a lot of the maps so far, this is the kind of design I appreciate as a liker of Build engine games.
E2M4: Metal
Jaws in Space and Revae
Another urban level, this one is dominated by a rather large weapon manufacturing facility (I use "large" both in terms of real estate and the size of the weapons being made) complete with old-school lava forges. It's mostly low level trash here though there are quite a few skelespiders floating around. Don't fall into the forges because there's no way out (bad!) Standout encounter for me is probably right at the beginning as the streets fill with hordes of former humans.
E2M5: Marketplace
Angry Saint
Compared to
the packed populaces of previous maps this one is practically deserted, a
sprawling marketplace complex occupied by a small garrison of the living dead.
It's not as mazelike as usual, generally the setpieces are arranged in a
fairly simple loop that culminates in an encounter in the large caged-in space
in the west. A nice bit of a breather. Like the last episode, finding and
rescuing a puppy is the way to the secret exit. What a cute doggo.
E2M9:
Addle
Revae
I hope you like puzzles. Aesthetically it looks like a church or something, but there are several puzzle rooms nearby. Complete the puzzles and you get bonus items. Fail the puzzles and you get ambushed. You do have some context clues that you can use to help give you the answers -- one's a sudoku puzzle, another's a "follow the path of the symbols" type puzzle, and so on. The real toughie is the last one, requiring figuring out an 8-bit number to open the way to the exit. I won't lie, this one had me stumped and I just looked at the map in SLADE to figure out what buttons to push. You might have more fun, I don't know.
E2M6: Magnus Avenue
Velcrosasquatch
This one's a sprawling, but rather flat, urban zone that centers around what appears to be a kind of courthouse. Combat is mostly incidental, random groups of monsters here and there, though there are plenty of grotesque snipers and crowds of zombies. It's surprisingly light on the tougher enemies, though imps make frequent ambushes and I had an angry tree corner me in the stairwell at the courthouse. Fun level, just feels a little more low-key.
E2M7:
Mistory
Revae
Reminiscent of "Smithsonian Terror" from the classic Duke It Out in D.C. expansion for Duke Nukem 3D, "Mistory" is a sprawling museum with a couple different sections ranging from an art gallery to recreations of other cultures to an entire prehistory tour with flimsy wooden dinosaurs. The weird thing is that there doesn't initially seem to be a way to progress, unless you press one of the colored switches in a nearby room which will permanently open the otherwise locked doors of the associated color -- which would allow you to grab one of the keys in this fairly open-ended maze of a map. You could also find the secret entrance through the vent if that suits your fancy better.
E2M8: Audience
Revae
An enforced bow start ensures that the boss fight isn't a pushover, but I don't know if that's better than just being able to steamroll the boss. He's got a lot of goons to help him out but the circular shape of the level makes it easy to circle-strafe them into infighting. More seriously he packs a punch and can take a beating, and just when you think you've got him licked his skeleton comes after you instead. Yikes!
E3M1: Isolation
Revae
Welcome to the world of the dead. Revae gives us a creepy little series of disconnected chambers, crawling with enemies and linked by teleports. It reminds me a little of the detached design of "Deimos Anomaly," but aesthetically it's all grey stone and flowing purple lines and lava. It's a cool look, albeit pretty abstract. The opening is pretty scary, just you and a horde of former humans in an island of safety -- you take damage if you step into the darkness.
E3M2: Claustrophilia
Revae
As the name suggests, this one is primarily a series of narrow corridors and small, dark chambers. While at a distance it feels stringy, it plays pretty well, with most encounters being in the bigger chambers, with the glow of lava as a backlight. Most of your enemies are going to be zombies, but it doesn't make this dark, cramped level less scary, especially with the janky, weird music giving the whole thing a Quake (or perhaps Silent Hill) flavor. Spooky!
E3M3:
Dungeon
Revae
This is a weird one, a generally abstract, thematically-incoherent maze that reminds me of nothing so much as Witchaven. The opening room is very reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D, however, which makes me smile, but most of the time you'll be running around killing zombies and dodging imp explosions. Aside from the skelly belly hanging out near the start, a fully-fleshed former duke is wandering around on the path to the exit, so watch out!
E3M4: Acrophobinox
AD_79 and Revae
With the
music, the abstract, open-air design of the level with lots of raised
platforms and paths, and the overall texturing choices I can't help but get a
bit of a fantasy Marathon vibe from this map -- something out of Marathon Infinity,
perhaps. Maintaining your footing isn't too hard, but there are a lot of
flyers taking advantage of the fact that there's not a lot of ground for you
but plenty of airspace for them. Two former dukes guard the blue key on
difficulty 4 and while it's certainly possible to just grab the key and run,
they pose a threat the entire time you're working to raise the walkway that
lets you jump the gap onto their platform.
E3M5: Shine On
Revae
Musically this follows on from the last level, but gameplay-wise and aesthetically it couldn't be more different: a darkly lit maze of red and grey stone block, with a few lava pits and pitch-black rooms that can be turned on by nearby light switches. With less than 80 monsters, most of them trash mobs, this one is short and sweet.
E3M6: Seeing Red
Revae
True to the name, this map forcibly gifts you a wode from the start, but you're otherwise free to use whatever you want in this sprawling, lava-flooded maze that resembles nothing so much as hell itself, shadows of the living world looming in the upper margins of the map. The action comes fast and furious, with at least one duke for you to kill. The music definitely helps give it something of the vibe of Doom's third episode.
E3M9: Begin
Revae
This is cute. It's pretty much every opening room from every official idTech1 engine game (including Chex Quest and Strife) glued together and given the REKKR aesthetic treatment. Don't expect monster placements to be anything recognizable, though -- while it doesn't get near the slaughterfest that is the traditional super-secret map in Plutonia and its followups, it's still full of bad guys, and as you progress the place starts to fill up with eyeballs to undo all your hard work. Rude!
E3M7: Siege
TerminusEst13,
Jimmy, Revae
We get a touch of slaughter in this map. The opener has you
running across lava to push buttons in the wings of the opening area (the
starting building feeling a little like something out of Blasphemer) but then
you're dealing with a very large fight in a sandy arena before moving on to
another big fight in a lava cave. The finale has you dropping into the lowest
point of the realm of the dead, where the corpse of your wife awaits you --
and then, death...
E3M8: Rok
Revae
The end of the original mapset is suitably epic -- you're given some health to top up and some weapons and ammo and then it's off to the final arena. The final boss is a nasty thing who, aside from summoning a horde of former humans and a few giant skeletons, sorrows and eyeballs, also throws ghosts at you as well as fireballs that drop exploding runes. The arena is well-detailed if a bit cramped; I don't know if the ending is any different in the mod version of REKKR but it's pretty neat.
E4M1: Postern
Revae
The retail episode of REKKR starts off looking like some kind of Nordic vaporwave until you descend into the level proper, at which point it turns into something out of Heretic. Two wings stretch out from the initial room and you'll have to explore them both. As usual you're going to be a bit short on defenses for a while but it's nothing you can't handle at this point. The finale introduces the flammenwerfer, spindly weird dudes who spew blue flame. They're pushovers for how intimidating they are.
E4M2:
Tourist Trap
Revae
Something a little more normal. It's basically a festival with games, events, and lots of little rocks that sprout legs, run at you and explode in your face. And if that's not all, there's bigger rocks that float and throw exploding runes at you! After an entire episode of abstract underworld terror, it's nice to be back in something recognizable.
E4M9:
Layout
Revae
This one gets meta quick. It starts off looking normal, but soon the textures fall away to an all-white aesthetic that eventually reveals itself to be an "unfinished," untextured map, complete with lines where walls and other features should be, little circles for thing placement, and the final room is even helpfully marked TRAP. Gameplay-wise it reminds me a lot of Little Big Land from the original Thief, with it eventually transitioning into an oversized "Rats"-style bathroom before dropping you into a miniaturized village with a nearby castle. Some fun fights.
E4M3:
Culture Clash
Revae
Here's another hint at cultures outside of the magitek-Norse one that most of the game has revolved around. Divided into four different quadrants with a massive tree in the center, your job is to explore these four quadrants -- each a little slice of a different fantasy-flavored take on one culture or another -- and find the keys that unlock a gate in the center. It's not as 1:1 as you'd expect with, say, Hexen II, another fantasy shooter with fantasy depictions of real-world cultures -- the Nordic quarter is a city block with tall buildings akin to what we saw in "Dripstone Wharf", the Japanesque culture is probably closer to the real thing than the museum exhibit in "Mistory" was, the Mesoamerican-style one is a blocky pyramid (with sacrificial altar!) amidst a sea of lava (I guess that at least fits with the similar depiction in Hexen II...) and instead of an Egypt-style quarter the desert ruins seems to be more in line with Bronze Age Mesopotamia. REKKR doesn't really do much to world-build outside of purely environmental storytelling so this is at least an interesting cross-section of Revae's idea of the REKKR universe.
E4M4: Thaw
Revae
A vast, mostly-underground facility that seems to be partially frozen over, it's a sprawling adventure map that revolves around digging around in maintenance tunnels and the like so you can turn on (or off?) an HVAC system to thaw out certain parts of the map. Aesthetically it reminds me of "Dripstone Wharf," with its lived-in feel and sense that you're exploring some forsaken outpost, and though it's not quite the roller coaster ride of that level it does have its moments, with not one but two very Plutonia-like uses of the eyeball's resurrective ability to create unkillable enemies, including a pair of moderately-dangerous dukes who can't be put down until you're ready to leave the level.
E4M5: Powerhouse
Revae
Most of this level is a sprawling geothermal plant, complete with a dark, industrial maze full of valves to turn and flashing lights and pistons pounding, but there's an odd moment where the floor is sky and the room is ringed by crushers -- I'm not entirely sure what this is. The rest of the map is pretty straightforward though, just an enormous maze with plenty of dynamic encounters and ambushes. The flammenwerfers who teleport to you from the other end of a series of crushers is a pretty fun "ah, crap!" moment.
E4M6: Yggdrasil
Revae
We finally get a good look at the source of the strange roots that have stretched across the entire episode: a massive, mythical tree, sitting at the heart of a large seaport and industrial facility. The facility itself isn't that big, but you'll be exploring a large ship (seen at the beginning of "Postern") as well as dealing with a rematch of the episode 3 boss (without the extra goons, thankfully.)
E4M7: Ill Elli
Revae
Time travel shenanigans are the core of this map, as you'll visit four different time periods -- an Egyptian flavored one, a vaguely Roman/European style one, a visit to contemporary times (perhaps the 1990s?) and finally a moonbase in the future (maybe -- though that is definitely Earth off in the distance!) It's a really fun romp with a few different adventures packed into it, each one having their own conceit so there's little to make the player feel like they're just doing the same thing four times. And then...
E4M8: Gardien
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