Randal Linden reworks his Super Nintendo Doom

Randal Linden’s official Super Nintendo port of Doom, released in 1995 by Williams Entertainment, showcased impressive technical ingenuity but was hampered by the console’s limits. The port suffered from a near-unplayable framerate in later levels, altered maps, removed floor and ceiling textures, and the fourth episode cut entirely, making its existence notable even if the experience was compromised.

For the original port Linden built a homebrew development kit: he bought Star Fox cartridges, replaced the ROM with RAM and a tiny boot ROM, hooked the carts to an Amiga, and wrote the boot ROM software. He also created a custom assembler, linker, and source-level debugger, and—using Matthew Fell’s “Unofficial Doom Specs”—reverse-engineered Doom to write a new engine, then presented the work to id, who agreed to let the project proceed.

The remake began after Linden released the SNES port’s source code in 2020 and Audi Sorlie of Limited Run Games asked if he would ever revisit it.

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