22 years ago today id Software released Doom for MS-DOS, and to mark the occasion Doom enthusiast community DoomWorld announced the winners of its twelfth annual Doom modding honors: the Cacowards.
Beyond the simple pleasure of seeing people continue to be excited about a game that’s over two decades old, this is a nice opportunity to remember that many modern game developers got their start in the vibrant Doom modding community.
Now, 22 years on, developers are still pushing the limits of the Doom engine. This summer someone published a mod that allowed Doom players to play Doom on an arcade cabinet inside Doom, and you can find lots of other creative modwork — as well as a heartfelt eulogy for Doom mod community pillar Ty Halderman, who passed away this year — over on the Cacowards website.
Incidentally, it’s also kind of neat to look back at the archive of the Cacowards winners for the past twelve years. And if you’re curious about how id actually developed the game that started it all, check out our classic feature on the making of Doom.