Eraser
By Matt Eldrydge - 1 Map
Format: Boom
[Download]
Started: February 12th 2025
Finished: February 13th 2025
Status: Completed
This a wild one. A single-map doom wad primarily focused on exploration with some survival-horror style ammo deprivation early on, Eraser was not something I thought I'd enjoy when first playing it. Your first 20 or so minutes here will be confusing and stressful, there's so many paths to take, not a lot of ammo, and some tricky enemy placements. But if you overcome your fears and venture into the unknown there's a whole lot more out there for you. The map just keeps opening up more and more as you slowly learn your way around it, finding new weapons, shortcuts to earlier sections and taking on bigger and bigger fights. It's unlike anything else I'd seen in doom, and in some ways comparable to Eviternity's map 32 in terms of navigation feel. Unfortunately it does drop the ball slightly around the end. Finding the red key is a pain, and once you're near the end a lot of paths start closing back up again, and you'll be relying a lot on very hidden one-way paths to get back to the starting area, and this becomes more of an issue if you're going for the true ending of this map. Very well hidden around this massive complex are 3 nodes you need to destroy to open a barrier back at the start that unlocks this wad's namesake weapon and the real final battle, but finding these nodes is frustratingly tricky if you don't know the trick to how they're hidden. If you're looking to play this yourself: keep an eye out for flickering ceiling lights. The true finale is well worth finding, but you'll have a good time regardless of if you bother with it or not. Eraser is a wholly unique experience, and I only found it thanks to a fantastic list I encountered (https://backloggd.com/u/Elassirish/list/pwads-you-should-try-out/), and I eventually got fed up with the fact that this wad didn't have it's own entry on backloggd and got it added myself so hopefully more people will find this thing. I highly encourage you to check this one out, it's a fantastic experience and doesn't get nearly enough attention for how cool it is.
Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐