An Unreal Engine developer was able to get the classic FPS Doom running inside Fortnite, adding yet another entry to the ever-growing list of “Things That Can Run Doom.”
Released in 1993, the original Doom from Id Software would go on to become one of the most popular video games ever made. And thanks to the shooter’s source code being released in the late ‘90s, many people have created ports of Doom for practically every device and platform you can think of, including cash registers, lawnmowers, and ATMs. And now we can add Fortnite to that massive list.
On July 7, Jackson Clayton shared a video on Twitter showing what at first just appeared to be someone playing the OG Doom. But then Clayton hops out of a window in Doom’s classic opening level, E1M1, and begins building structures straight out of Fortnite’s battle royale mode. It’s a wild thing to see and I had to know how Clayton got Doom in Fortnite.
The UEFN dev and programmer told me that they hopped into Ultimate Doom Builder and exported E1M1 as a 3D model that could be ported into Fortnite’s Unreal editor.
“Then it was mostly removing Unreal’s fancy effects to make everything unlit and unfiltered,” explained Clayton. “I used Unreal’s material system to give the Doom Marine [sprite its] choppy spinning effect, and a PostProcess material to pixellate the screen and show the gun.”
According to the dev, the programming language UEFN uses is currently “too high-level” for him to simply translate code from Doom into Fortnite, so he had to “get creative” to make it look like Doom was running in Fortnite.
“It also helps a bunch that I have released a number of Doom-inspired games on Steam in the past before moving over to UEFN, so I have experience with replicating its visual and gameplay style,” said Clayton.
As to why the fan developer ported Doom into Fortnite, knowing that he can’t publish the level due to copyright restrictions, Clayton says it was mainly a way to learn more about UEFN. Oh, and he wanted to mess with his friends, too.
“I wanted to put together a video to trick my friends, so I ported the map and created the post-process materials, and they really liked it,” said Clayton.
They later told him to post the video on Twitter where it went viral among Doom fans who found Clayton’s creation both impressive and highly cursed. Personally, I’m just happy to see that even younger people who enjoy Fortnite can still appreciate the original Doom. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go update the giant tome of Doom ports and things that can run the classic game with another odd entry.
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