Atonement
By Moustachio - 33 Maps
Format: Vanilla
[Download]
Started: September 3rd 2026
Finished: September 30th 2026
Status: Completed
Ever since I saw Atonement appear in the Maybe One Day section of Dean of Doom Season 3's Graduation it stuck in my mind as something I wanted to get to eventually. A more relaxed IWAD-like set of maps with a rust tinted visual aesthetic and some chilled out midis sounded like a great time, but unfortunately I walked away from Atonement feeling very disappointed. Moustachio's standard for map design is fairly concise and low in detail, and his layouts are fairly clean and uncomplicated, but Atonement's very clumsy combat balancing and somewhat generic-ness hurt it pretty badly. The opening two episodes are fairly solid, and the city episode isn't too bad either, but beyond the halfway point things noticeably begin to drag a bit. Having two hell episodes especially doesn't help this, with them easily blending together visually and having some of the least enjoyable maps in the entire wad. The critical flaw with Atonement is Moustachio's approach to combat balancing. These simple and minimally textured layouts would be perfect for classic run-and-gunning, but you're fairly limited in terms of health pickups, which makes reckless play very unviable, and can end up putting you into some pretty frustrating scenarios being stuck at single digit health for long stretches of time. Enemy placement also gets excessively sloppy towards the end, with an especially strange fascination with placing random Spider Masterminds in obnoxious places to waste your time. This wad's singular custom enemy, the Hell Paladin, isn't used especially well and tends to just be plopped down wherever without much fanfare. The custom final boss also dies pathetically, and you spend most of the final boss map on random side tangents after he's dead which makes the finale especially underwhelming. Playing this wad at a one map per day basis as part of a Doom wad club with a few others might've affected the pacing a bit, but even playing through it unrestricted wouldn't really avoid many of the overarching design issues. There are a handful of highlights early on, the first episode's rusty brown Mars bases are pretty fun, especially Map 4 "Hydro-Extraction Zone", and the first map of the second episode, Map 7 "This Earth: Unknown" is a great execution of what I was hoping for when I started playing this wad. A tightly designed city block that mixes explosive fights with low key exploration, tied together by a fantastic midi that shifts between chilled out ambience and the chirping of birds and a determined guitar and synth combo to drive you forward. Overall Atonement gives me hope for other projects made by Moustachio, I'm still interested in his two community projects (Interception and Interception 2), but for Atonement specifically I have a hard time recommending it.
Rating - ⭐⭐⭐½
Favorite Map - Map 7: "This Earth: Unknown"
Least Favorite Map - Map 28: "Entropy Pool"