Summer 2019:

Ion Fury is finally out, and I'm happy to report that it's just as good as expected! Check out the review here.

As is old news by now, John Romero released a new Doom episode, SIGIL, some months ago. Check out the MSDN review here.

Also, brace yourselves for the impending release of Ion Fury this Thursday, brought to you by some of the best talent the Duke3D community has to offer!

There are a few old Zaxtor maps out there that I never reviewed, mostly because I got stuck and never bothered to finish them. Now that Zaxtor has passed away (see the previous update), it's only fitting that I should get around to reviewing some of these neglected maps. We'll start with Secret Base.

I also finally remembered to review Duke Mansion, a spooky map released last Halloween. Some probably noticed that the review was uploaded already with the previous site update, but I didn't see it fit to mention it then.

News broke earlier today that Cedric Lutes, more commonly known by his alias "Zaxtor", a dear and long-time member of our little community, passed away in late June. The circumstances surrounding his death are not clear to us, and his family probably wants to keep any details private. Zaxtor was an avid French-Canadian environmentalist who had a fascination with all things nature and space. Since my own views have always been closer to those of Scrooge McDuck, we could not quite see eye to eye on many issues, but I could always rely on having civil debates with him. He'd often talk of eclipses and his many visits to zoos where he could catch a glimpse of his favorite creature, the fossa. Zaxtor was always troubled by the amount of damage mankind was inflicting on our planet. He opposed pollution, hunting and treating the natural world as a commodity.

Zaxtor's maps were known for their unique ideas and sadistic difficulty (often unrelated to combat). He liked to build big machinery and, particularly in recent years, made extensive use of spritework and true-room-over-room effects. His most recognizable works remain Oblivion, a massive 50-map Total Conversion, and Trequonia, his most recent project that you can easily squeeze 20 hours out of.

At the time of his death, Zaxtor was actively working on remastering his classic Oblivion TC. While it is now extremely unlikely that we'll ever get our hands on it, you can still view his plans and some screenshots here. His character will also continue to be featured in the AMC TC, and the AMC team intends to honor his memory in upcoming releases.

While the man is dead, his spirit remains. You can get a good idea of who Zaxtor was and what he believed in by playing something like Trequonia or Oblivion. If playing through these massive Total Conversions seems like too much work for you, try out his usermaps such as Arc_Nova Base, Alien Sanctuary, West Alien Train and Phantasm. More recently he released Dark Temple and Floating Isle, but they were too demanding on my AMD hardware. Zaxtor is also a playable character in the AMC TC, to which he contributed two maps. He also had a Youtube channel and a website.

Rest in peace, Zaxtor. You'll be missed.

UnderTaker is back after a six-year hiatus; check out Blink of an Eye in Hot Maps.

In response to a request, I've made a slight quality-of-life improvement concerning this website: all Hot Maps from 1999-2001 and 2011-2018 are now available as packages (see the Hot Maps section). This should be useful especially if you're looking to build up a collection and/or play everything without having to download every map individually. It should also help in case you come across a broken link. Years 2002-2010 will be made available later.