What is Hell Revealed exactly? It's a wad with a simple story, you are a Doom marine, you end up in a megawad by two sadistic WAD creators, and you just kill what you have to kill. And that's basically the story, as the two authors of Hell Revealed knew there's not much story in the classic Doom games to go by. It's funny in a few ways, because it describes a "visible status bar" along with a "pistol and 50 bullets" as if they expect every player to actually believe you'd wake up with that stuff on you. And then you start playing the levels of Hell Revealed, and the thing to take notice as to why this particular megawad is so (in)famous is its apparent difficulty. Hell Revealed is highly accredited with being a pinnacle to the "slaughterfest" WAD genre.
Said slaughterfests that came after Hell Revealed did many things different than what the originals did today, offering larger monster hordes, forced arena fights, better detail, and these are basically the things that Hell Revealed itself fell flat on. You're not gonna find good examples of detail in Hell Revealed, because even the best detailed maps don't go far from the traditional Doom IWAD architectures. There are quite a few instances of monster hordes in Hell Revealed, but they all differ and many of them were done significantly better in future wads. In most cases, like the middle maps, the areas are all open so the monsters have free-roaming and that basically is the gist of the monster hordes for the most part. Other cases cause monsters to just be behind cages, or in particular perches, the kind of stuff that proves the turret tropes that followed this WAD. The WAD definitely is hard, there is no questioning this fact, but the gameplay isn't as comfy as it may have been back in the day.
I'm not sure where to really start on how poorly Hell Revealed aged, but a map that comes to mind is one of the usual least favorites, MAP07.
Yeah, it's certainly innovative in what it is. A mostly open arena in the shape of a spider and sure enough, every enemy is an arachnotron. Neat for its time, but it doesn't hold up later on since all you're doing in the map is super shotgunning every arachnotron, getting on the step, and fighting a (completely optional) spider mastermind. That's literally the whole level and it's a fine example of something that did not hold up well.
I guess a few other maps do the concepts well for their time, but there are more interesting things to do in the wad than some might think. The optional rooms in Top Hell (MAP28), especially the reverse Tricks and Traps room, were quite funny back then, but are pretty meh now. The layouts of Core Infection (MAP05), and Great Halls of Fire (MAP12) featuring lots of orthogonal walls, something that I've seen people continuously frown open for reasons. Great Halls of Fire even features a weird super shotgun room where you can apparently practice your super shotgun shells on individual barons one at a time. Too bad in this day and age, you can just get the gun, leave, then come back and fight them all at once for a more fun challenge. Mostly Harmful (MAP32) does its course as an evil slaughtermap, but it compounds it by an easily accessible exit and complete symmetry.
Gates of Hell (MAP15) has one of the better concepts, going to different sections while fighting off slaughter-like setpieces in each one. The Hell knights and barons on the walls are kinda lame though. And then there's this silly little level...
Yep, that's Everything Dies, a map where you are given everything and must basically make do with it. A quick and dirty level. But it also follows a very egregious level and one of the more infamous ones...
Hard Attack (MAP18), one of the nastier levels, as if the cyberdemon at the start is more than enough to prove that point. The paranoia of this one lost soul who keeps perpetually teleporting and making it seem like there's always more, being surrounded with chaingunners upon getting a super shotgun, a weird winding hallway containing a secret with some strange teleporting enemies and that's just the beginning. The headaches of getting onto the ring walkway around the center arena rear their ugly head as you basically fight off mostly revenants along with other monsters that can't stop using the damn lift. The inside arena has the nasty arch-vile trap once you collect the BFG, not to mention the monsters already present inside, and outside. The side areas to the north and west with the teleportation gimmick to the north, and the spiderdemon criss cross to the west, are poignant. The room with reserve arch-viles for the cages, and one last nasty trick summarize this one. It's oddly one of the nastier levels in the entire wad, but it brings me to a notable point.
For those of you who play this on lower settings, you may find certain parts a lot harder than on Ultra-Violence, and this level is a blatant example. On Hurt Me Plenty, the western section replaces the spiderdemons with arch-viles, impossible to dodge in that open space and even harder to hit given how small they are. There's a few other instances of arch-viles replacing bigger enemies, such as in MAP31, but this is the one that makes me think that certain difficulties were somehow made harder than Ultra-Violence.
So these particular maps I mentioned are pretty memorable for the most part, but for all the reasons that make it rather nasty to replay over and over again. MAP18 in particular. The good maps are definitely good maps, including the standout slaughtermaps, stuff like MAP14, MAP22, and MAP24 hold up, and MAP26 has lots of memorabilia to it. However, all of Hell Revealed's creative children beat it in many ways, and there's no denying that. So much that its legacy got ripped for the better wads itself.
Even though it's quite sad that Hell Revealed is easily surpassed, one thing remains. It was a megawad by speedrunners for speedrunners. No wonder the WAD is one of the Compet-N WADs and also the one with the most attempted runs on it on DSDA. Casual players, however, are more concerned with fighting hordes strategically, but also nitpicking on the problems that Hell Revealed had.
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