November 25, 2023: We’ve just got word that there will be a stream of the Husqvarna Doom tournament finals, so updated the article below with the times.
We’ve all heard those kinds of stories about people playing the 1993 classic Doom in all sorts of weird ways: Doom on a tractor, Doom inside of Doom, and, of course, the famous Doom on a pregnancy test. However, all of those things have one thing in common: they focus on the single-player game. During my time at Dreamhack 2023, behind closed doors, I got to try out not just Doom on a robot lawn mower, but Doom multiplayer.
This collaboration between Bethesda and Husqvarna (the Swedish outdoor power product company) celebrates Doom’s 30th anniversary and came about because of the team’s admiration for the classic FPS game.
However, the development team wasn’t happy with just a straight-up port. By connecting two of their Auto Mower 430X Nera lawn mowers, which cost a cool $3,800 per unit, the team can run Doom’s multiplayer mode in a 1v1 setting. The best part is that I was able to try it for myself.
Looming over the tiny screen, I had a few buttons and knobs to manipulate Doom Guy’s movements. There was a knob that I could turn to slowly rotate Doom Guy like a tank, while a big black button made him shuffle forward. Pushing the knob made his gun fire, while the massive red button handled strafing and opening doors.
It’s not a full conversion, as I couldn’t switch weapons on the fly, but otherwise, it was a highly playable version of the game. After a few minutes of getting used to the controls, I effortlessly gunned down my opponents while finding the secret rocket launcher in the E1M1 map.
It’s all well and good saying that there is such a Doom mod, but the best bit is that, for a select few, you can play it too. If you happen to be at Dreamhack this weekend, you can visit the Husqvarna team at Booth Four, where some lawn mowers are set up for 1v1 deathmatches.
There will also be a small tournament at the expo from 3:30am PST / 6:30am EST / 11:30am GMT / 12:30pm CET. We’ve just got word that the Husqvarna Finals will be streamed live on the Dreamhack Twitch channel from 10:30 am PST / 12:30pm EST / 6:30 GMT / 7:30 CET.
If you want to test some other videogame icons on random devices – or even, god forbid, your PC – we have a list of the best old games. Alternatively, if you’re looking for something a little more modern, we have a rundown of all the best PC games ever.
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