So what strategies did this pioneering runner employ? DraQu says his most reviled enemies were the rhino-like charging Pinkies and the Possessed Soldiers with shields. 'It was a miracle that I was even able to complete the game.' So I really didn't remember what was going on,' he laughs. 'On my first successful attempt I hadn't actually gotten past the Cyberdemon, so I'd only done the section after that once during my first Nightmare playthrough. One might assume that surviving Ultra-Nightmare comes down to pattern recognition and memorising spawn points, but that really isn't the case. Your arsenal gets bigger, you can take a few more hits, so you don't need to worry about that as much.' It changes a bit as you progress because you pick up more upgrades and more weapons. 'Especially early on because you die in one or two hits, so you have to be aware of where your enemies are going.

That's a big deal when you're trying to avoid damage,' the speedrunner says. 'I have experience with arena FPS games so I kind of know how to track an enemy. When asked how many attempts it took, DraQu says he didn't keep track, but estimated about 20 with approximately 11-16 tries on day one followed by a mere three on the second day.ĭraQu says the most important skill is tracking enemy positions, particularly in the early game when you start out relatively weak. After that, he jumped straight into Ultra-Nightmare. Speaking over Skype, DraQu tells me that he practiced for this run by first attempting the game on Nightmare mode. Only six hours later a different player, DraQu, who currently holds many speedrunning records for this latest Doom reboot, also completed this insane gauntlet. The first was Zero Master, who holds a speedrun record for Doom 2.

Yet diligent players were able to best this test within two days of the game's release. One wrong move and a six-hour play session can be wiped clean in an instant.

The premise is simple: Take the game's most punishing difficulty setting, Nightmare, then apply permadeath to it. Doom's Ultra-Nightmare mode is so difficult that nobody at developer id Software was able to complete it.

How many levels are in doom