Anyone can make a Doom mod. So long as you can draw a D&D dungeon map on some graph paper, you can make a level, and if you can doodle a funny lil' cartoon guy, you can create a custom enemy. Modder Dreunn has applied both these skills on their first ever publicly released Doom mod - Outer Pizza Delivery - and some small rough edges aside, it's a banger, with some really fun combat, breakneck pacing and a lot of silly cartoon charm. I was initially skeptical of the 'Doomguy hangs out with weird anime girls' vibe, but trust me, the energy is infectious, and the writing is earnestly charming. Plus, it's just good Doom.

Not convinced? Check out the trailer down at the bottom there. It's a good'un.

Canon is thrown to the wind here. Doomguy here works for a pizzeria in space, run by the affable Pizza Lady (the naming structure is consistent, at least), tasked with delivering a dinner to Earth. But things immediately escalate as a rival pizza company shoots him down, dropping him into the middle of an evil pizza-related conspiracy. It makes very little sense and is mostly just an excuse to run around and blast some surprisingly well-animated cartoon bad guys (and the girls who ordered the pizza), so you should just roll with it for the couple of hours it'll take you.

This is a very fun, piping hot slice of Doom, though. The levels are mostly old-school in their look and design, but the enemies and weapons are all new, and geared towards much faster, more arcadey combat. Enemies don't in-fight, often coming at you in huge swarms, so you'll be leaning on the apocalyptically powerful double-barrel alt-fire on the shotgun and occasionally using the stun grenade alt-fire on the machine gun to thin or stall the herds.

Things really escalate in the second half, and once you get the mod's rocket equivalent (pizza, of course), you can really start making a mess. The mod's super-weapon is just a pure power trip too, using only one plasma cell per shot but firing a high-powered, piercing, ricocheting homing projectile capable of clearing whole rooms in a single shot.

That isn't to say this is easy, though. Enemies still hit hard, and health is at a premium. On the mod's default difficulty, this is still a pretty stern challenge, and I was appreciative that the mod auto-saves at regular intervals. But for those really wanting to put themselves through the wringer, there's a hidden optional super-boss halfway through the campaign, plus a couple optional endgame challenges available after the credits. Plus, a heavily remixed Hard mode that throws HUGE swarms of enemies at you right from the start, so I can easily see this one eating up an entire evening if you want to snarf it all, crust included.

And now for the slightly fiddly bit: Actually running the mod! You'll need three things:

1. A copy of DOOM2.WAD, most easily found in the official Doom + Doom 2 collection.
2. The UZDoom engine. Required for most more advanced mods. The latest Windows version is here.
3. The mod itself, which you can snag via Dreunn's Google Drive here.

Unzip all of those to one place, and make sure you can see UZDoom.EXE, Doom2.WAD and Outer Pizza Delivery.PK3. Now just drag and drop Outer Pizza Delivery.PK3 onto UZDoom.EXE. And just like that, you should be in-game. Enjoy, and know that 99% of Doom mods can also be launched this way! This process should be very similar for the Linux crowd (Steam Deck folks, you'll have to drop to Desktop mode, sorry!), though you'll have to figure out the specifics yourselves.

As an aside, if you like this kind of high-energy cartoon Doom chicanery, check out Captain Wayne: Vacation Desperation, currently half off its normal £7.49/$10 price until October 1st.