Starting a Game

DOOM Retro does not provide all the content you need to actually play DOOM. This content (in the form of an “IWAD”) first needs to be obtained by purchasing an official, commercial release of DOOM or DOOM II from Steam, GOG.com or the Epic Games Store. Once installed on your PC, you then need to let DOOM Retro know where this content is. You can do this by using either the WAD launcher or the command-line.

The most convenient way to start a game in DOOM Retro is to simply double-click on doomretro.exe. A dialog box will appear asking you “where’s all the data”.¹ DOOM Retro will do its best to find where DOOM or DOOM II was installed on your PC, but if it can’t, please navigate there yourself. Once you have, select one of the following IWADs that DOOM Retro supports:

DOOM.WAD	DOOM
DOOM1.WAD	DOOM (Shareware)
DOOM2.WAD	DOOM II: Hell On Earth
PLUTONIA.WAD	Final DOOM: The Plutonia Experiment
TNT.WAD	Final DOOM: TNT – Evilution

DOOM Retro also supports the countless number of third-party WADs — called PWADs (or “Patch WADs”) — created by talented members of the DOOM community over the past 30 years or so. Every PWAD needs a specific IWAD in order to work.² To open a PWAD, click on it, then CTRL-click on the IWAD from the list above that it was designed for. With both files selected, click the “Open” button.

If a PWAD is selected on its own, DOOM Retro will try to automatically open the IWAD it requires if both WADs are in the same folder, or if DOOM Retro has previously been shown where the IWAD is.

The next time DOOM Retro is run, the folder that you last navigated to will be open again.

Alternatively, you may want to create a shortcut for every WAD in your collection. To do this, right-click on doomretro.exe and then click “Create shortcut”. A new file called doomretro.exe - Shortcut.lnk will be created. Right-click on its icon and then click “Properties”. At the end of the text in the “Target” field, add the -iwad command-line parameter followed by the full path of your chosen IWAD file. For example:

doomretro.exe -iwad C:\DOOM\DOOM.WAD

To load a PWAD as well, use the –file command-line parameter, like in the following example:

doomretro.exe -iwad C:\DOOM2\DOOM2.WAD -file C:\Users\brad\Downloads\breach.wad

Double-clicking on the shortcut’s icon will then load the WAD(s) with DOOM Retro.

¹“WAD” is an acronym for “Where’s All the Data”.
²PWADs may not be loaded with DOOM1.WAD.