What Changed In The Big Doom Update

A massive new update for Doom has gone live in the form of update 6.66. The devilishly named update brings a slew of new fixes, improvements and some massive changes in the big patch. Most notably will be the way the multiplayer and the DLC has changed this time around.

Gamespot compiled all the big news items from the 6.66 update into a simple article, highlighting how the biggest change is that all previous season pass DLC is now free for everyone. What this means is that if you just bought Doom for the PS4, Xbox One or PC, you will be able to access the nine additional maps, three demons and the new armor, equipment and other perks... for free.

That's right, id Software just made the $40 season pass void by giving everyone access to all of the season pass content for free. Some people felt this was a huge slap in the face to the people who paid $40 for the season pass last year when purchasing Doom for home consoles or PC. Others were just happy that the DLC content is now free and felt as if other developers need to follow id Software's lead by making a quality game and only adding in DLC that's actually beneficial or an actual upgrade to the core experience.

Bethesda is usually pretty good at making the DLC for games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout feel significant and like a substantial boost to the overall gameplay experience. Maybe this is something we'll begin to see from id Software in future titles? One can hope.

In addition to that there have also been changes to the progression system. Those who have already unlocked most things in the game will have the option to retain their progress or reset their progress and start over with all the other players.

The reset of the progress is so that players can then proceed to unlock items and weapons and armor based on what best suits their play-style rather than it being linear.

The Hacking Modules have also been removed and replaced with Runes. The HUD has also been overhauled so to make it easier to spot out challenges, awards and scoring. The new kill card has also been turned over so that now players can see who killed them, how, and the amount of damage that was sustained.

A number of fixes and updates have also been made to SnapMap and the multiplayer, including being able to remove the network limitation in single-player maps, fixed a few crashes, freezing and some AI bugs where they would fall into blocking volumes.

All of these changes can be experienced in the full version of Doom. If you aren't sure the game is worth the price of entry, you can actually test out the game during the free weekend on Xbox One and PC right now, which will run up through July 23rd at the end of the weekend.

PlayStation 4 owners will also be able to check out the major new update for Doom starting next weekend between July 27th and July 30th.