This DOOM Challenge Took 23 YEARS To Complete!

A pacifist giving his life to kill the icon of sin, is truly poetic.

Doomguy wins by starting a bar fight and hiding in a corner.

So basically - to beat the Icon of Sin pacifist-style, you have to let your enemies turn you into a living bomb and launch you into the boss...
That is very, very metal.

I think it's a nice thematic capstone that in order to beat the Icon of Sin in a pacifist run, Doomguy has to sacrifice himself.

•Came to be called an absolute legend
•Stayed for the amazing content

One wrinkle that was skipped is just how lucky ZM got with the infighting. In Doom, things "remember" what the last thing to injure them was. This includes barrels. During the run, at one point the shotgunner up above happened to nick an unexploded barrel. The barrel then "remembered" that it had been hit by that shotgunner. Then a little later when there are two imps left, one of the imps hits the barrel with a fireball and it blows up, killing one and injuring the remaining imp. The code looks to see what hurt the final imp, and then checks if the barrel "remembers" who damaged it. The barrel's "memory" is still of the shotgunner, because it's only updated when it is injured, not killed, and so the barrel tells the imp that it should be mad at the shotgunner instead!

It seems fitting that the last level of a Doom pacifist run requires the hero to sacrifice himself to stop the evil.

I can’t believe they turned Doom into a puzzle game...

11:29 Imagine you are the doom guy who is about to sacrifice his life in an ATTEMPT to end it all. You jump on the elevator and you are thinking "Will this work? Will my life go in vain and the whole universe remains overruled by this evil for ever?" You turn around while the platform is rising and the very last thing you see is the terrifying view on all those archviles raising their hands and are about to obliterate you in a few seconds. For a moment your skin freezes feeling the touch of death reaching it's arm to you and immediately after your skin starts to burn. You quickly jump as far as you can and the fireblasts rip your body mid air launching it across the room.... There is nothing more, only darkness. You will never know what happened next.

R.I.P.
Doomsguy
1993-2019
He saved Earth
from demon invasion
by sacrificing himself
and without harming
a single demon

Fun fact: Monsters in doom that are the same type cannot infight or even deal dammage to each other. The reason Zero Master was able to let the shotgunners/zombiemen kill each other is due to hitscan. If these monsters shot projectiles, like the imps fireball, they would not deal dammage/infight. There is a youtuber named Decino who has some annalysis videos looking into these sort of mechanics for DOOM if anyone is interested.

Man I don't comment often. But Karl, if you read this I just want to give you props. I instantly click your vids when I see them, especially the doom ones. It's so simple, yet you make it so entertaining and with very knowledgeable information. Keep up the amazing work bro! Of course I won't forget the editor either *cough* having to cut that many deaths off when you play haha.
Jokes aside, your videos are of quality. I really hope you become big

Favourite part of any of Karl's videos: "to achieve T H I S run"

It was thought impossible, then Zero Master happened.
-DOOM challenges in a nutshell.

I love how you approach to the topic and explain everything step by step!

Your content just gets better and better. Not only one of the best Perfect Dark/Golden Eye players ever, but a great content creator. Love your work.

I really enjoyed how in depth and informative this video was, you explained every bit of the run in ways that were easy to understand and get behind, and it's always interesting to see such insane runs be analyzed fully. Keep up the great work Karl

Kills - 10800%
Yep... that's Doomguy.

This is like a sports analyst breaking down an important game. I love it

I can't believe Doom had demo files back then, the third person view is great feedback.

I love how much detail goes into your videos. So much homework done, I dont even play Doom myself but you get me hooked. Thanks, you absolute legend!

Love your stuff, love your style. Please do more doom!

That icon of sin strategy by looper was breathtakingly beatiful.

Romero and Carmack should personally congratulate this guy. This took the length of my entire life for this dude to complete.

Speedrunners are truly above all other gamers. This Doom run is mind blowing

Zero master is absolutely a legend

I have to say that the way Karl is presenting these videos, their information, pace and the way how he speaks makes him sound a true, trustworthy professional. I mean, i would buy car from this guy :D

Love these videos man. Very informative and professional with the way you explain what’s going on, without silly jokes or cutaways.

As always, a fantastic dissection of speed running. If Zero Master is the master of speed running, you sir are definitely the master of analysis in a Clip-Share video.

This is one of my favorite channels, you do a great job explaining things!

Thanks for the great content Karl, in a time where my attention span is at minimal levels, I always watch your videos all the way through.

I learned about you and your videos when i watched the video about you doing the 52 in goldeneye dam, i have never played goldeneye, doom, quake etc but your videos are absolutely legendary
you break down everything while being entertaining and to the point, i can watch one of your 20 minute videos and it looks like i only watched a minute because of how good they are.
You are the true definition of a good content creator.
Do you have intentions of making videos about more recent games? I'm a big fan of games like bloodborne and dark souls and find watching speedruns of those very entertaining despite not being a speedrunner myself.
Keep being an absolute legend Karl, we'll all be here to support you.
PS: apologies for any spelling errors, english is not my mother tongue.

I have so much respect for the few speedrunners that are also content creators! You all do so much for the world of speedrunning making it accessable like this!

That strategy at the end is extremely impressive
I would love to see somebody do it while playing, but I know it's impossible
Seriously I have always loved doom runs, they'res just something about them that makes them unique to all others

Karl you are amazing at this type of content creation. Well done!

I'm getting right into these challenge vids at the moment, I just finished watching a Donkey Kong Country no enemies death attempt among others. This ones an incredible story, even with me not being a huge fan of DOOM I found it enthralling how far someone would go to figure out new ways of playing their old favorites. It's giving me ideas... Great work mate.

okay, I'll admit, having the demons kill each other is a pretty hilarious strategy

Another great video. Narration and presentation on POINT, and very interesting subject matter. Love it

I was literally waiting for some new video to come up and one from this absolute legend of a speed runner and Clip-Sharer pops in my face! Well only watched 10 seconds time to enjoy myself !
Yesss I am so glad that you did this topic! I actually watched his explanation video of this and the original run. But you make it so much clearer what's going on by explaining everything in great detail. Plus the icon of Sin bonus stuff at the end is absolutely insane. Thanks for another excellent video Karl!

I like to imagine that every playthrough of every doom game, doom guy experiences and remembers. That's why he's so good. He's had lifetimes of practice. As well as untold number of deaths.

Imagine the day this strat manages to be pulled off, that's going to be one of the greatest days in the history of gaming.

I think with the TAS that goes understated is so hard it is to just get the Archviles to spawn the numbers required to do the final launch. It's around 0.78% that an archvile would spawn and ZeroMaster uses 30 of them in the TAS. It's utterly insane for odds!

I remember the day each of these dropped. Zero Master blew my mind with each one. It's crazy how long Underhalls took, but it was gripping. It's insane that it requires a ghost camera to adequately explain it.
The TAS Icon of Sin was a thing of beauty. I don't know how long it took to get that created, but that might be the ZM's best work to date.

It always blows me away how people are still unlocking these secrets within the game that allow for faster/more optimized runs. Incredible.

Awesome content. I find it fascinating how true legends optimize games down to the very understanding of the code. That's dedication.

As a person with a casual interest in speedruns, I love your channel. Always interesting!

Excellent video! The trick with the Archviles is just too awesome... pure Doom oddity.

tool assisted accomplishments normally feel a little irksome but the exact mechanism that the level is conquered, where a swarm of the most powerful and hated monster in the game accidentally destroys the overlord monster by way of an incredible leap-death combination - is 100% excellence, for the first time ever Tool assist has given me rightful grins.

It’s crazy what really goes into this, isn’t it?!
And the Romero head isn’t on the enemy count I thought, just the starting revenant is the only enemy in the map at first (at least with GZDoom’s alternate HUD, which isn’t used for these runs). But I guess it still counts!

I didn't know that the door at 7:00 couldn't be manually closed. That makes the blue keycard room ten times harder than I thought it would be.

i love this because it doesn't rely on glitches but just massive amounts of trial and error.

> provokes mobs leading to them killing each others or themselves off of explosive barrels
> sleeps at night with clean conscience

Look foward to these vids everyday. I still play original doom on my xbox at least once a week and have actually found a few secrets recently on my own! Best feeling ever

Being a pacifist is the hardest mode in any game as well as life.
Pacifist doomguy knew this, and with his sacrifice he overcame mans basic instinct of rage, chaos and destruction and being a pawn of a weapon.
instead he became the element of evolution.
F to pay respects for Doomguy end boss sacrifice.

Cacodemons are probably my favorite enemies from Doom. They just look so cool.

With Karl and Decino I feel like I know everything there is to know about Doom and yet there's still more being discovered today.

hands down. that got to be the most epic way to beat a video game ever in history

When there is a level in a game with a ton of enemies I usually find it easier to just ignore the enemies and just run past them ( but usually I die at the next part because my HP have been drained by the first horde)

I was 3 when I first played this, it scared the living shit outta me, I can still feel a little fear from back then inside me now while watching it

I watched Decino cover this topic a while back. It's always cool to see someone else's view. Thanks for the continued Doom content, Karl. Keep it up!

Another amazing video man! Loved it! Keep up the great work :D

Watching doomguy in the third person view is hilarious. His legs and body are just so fast compared to the demons.

Nice to see doom speedrunning get more attention. Thanks for that karl!

Yes! Love the Doom videos! Keep them coming you absolute legend!

Pacifist runs are like the best set up for an Old Man Doom Guy story.

I am a complete outsider to Speedrunning (but a doom fanatic), thanks for making an unknown genre understandable and awsome!

KarlJobst is an absolute legend

Zero Master is an absolute legend

Just found recently your channel. All videos are very interesting and I always watch to the end. Keep up the good work! 😀

Great run, or should we say - absolutely legendary. :)

Playing Doomguy "True Pacifist" style is like trying to force Wolfwood to live by Vash's philosophy.

The fact that Karl does videos on my two favorite speed games (Doom 2 and Goldeneye) makes him my tied for first speedrun content maker. Goose is tied with him

Finally! Was buzzing for another Doom or Quake speed running video, more of these please!

I had so much fun playing that last level as a kid.

Good stuff as always. Love the attention to detail.

Some of these strats are absolutely insane.

your videos are so entertaining, love watching them

i love this channel,so much info in a well made video! what a legend ;)

Yo, that first challenge was completed on my 23rd birthday. Not the final boss, but the first one you showcased. That's pretty crazy.

Just a silly question, are there other enemies that could harm romero's head if their projectiles passed through the icon's brain?

That clip in itself is a great achievement. I enjoy that. And I'm not a fan of Doom, but its growing on me now since the skill of speed runners. Doom gets alot of flack, I did some flackin', now i'ma be lackin' the flackin'. Fucking good runs bois. Game is sick as fuck.

Watching doom guy quickly running away from the enemies looks so hilarious to me 😂

Wow that's just amazing. Reminds me how good the older games are

The fact that this is a catagory shows you how good it feels tomove in doom

Rather embarrassingly I didn't realise this took so long despite looking at the Doom II database on Compet-N several times! I just assumed it had been done, and I only discovered it hadn't when it was discussed on the Doomworld forums

zeromaster is undoubtly a living legend... i mean, the guy breaks his own records every f*cking day, that's insane!

My jaw fucking dropped when I saw that TAS. I thought he was just gonna get in the hole so he could punch John Romero to death but using the fire from the Archvilles is genius.

Watched zeromasters run and linguicas explanation but still coming back for more on this insane run

I really do enjoy how your viewers are the absolute legends

Do you think that its possible that someone with enough luck and patience actually makes the pacifist icon of sin or do you think no one would have the will power and patience to do it?

Probably should've mentioned the theoretical probability of getting that many archviles to spawn. I believe on MAP30, it is 3% per archvile?

I've had one of the worst things of my life happen to me last night, so waking up, trying to recover this morning and seeing a new video? It makes my shitty life a little bit better while I try and keep my mind off of things and onto things I love.
Thank you, Karl, for making such incredible videos

These Doom videos are amazing.

I don’t even play doom but I loved that you included the answer to the title question in the thumbnail and the video was great!

Seeing the title and "pacifist" on the thumbnail made my mind jump straight to map02. Great video!

Awesome video, keep up the great work!

So ejoyable to watch :) Thank you Karl!

Yet another impeccable KJ vid. And congrats on the family news!

We may be legends, Zero Master is pure GOD of DOOM

Isn't there another level that is pretty much impossible to beat pacifist? Stronghold from TNT if I remember correctly. It was at one point deemed impossible to even simply finish the level with no restrictions on the nightmare difficulty, and it took a really long time before anyone actually did it.
So doing a pacifist run of that seems pretty much on the same level as the icon of sin part :)