Video Game / REKKR

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REKKR is a total conversion mod for Doom created by Revae.

The game takes place in a fantasy world that feels vaguely Norse or Celtic. You are a viking warrior, and your family and hometown were massacred by hellish creatures. Now you set out to find revenge.

It can be downloaded here, and requires a copy of Ultimate Doom or Freedoom Phase 1 to play.

In September 2020, this mod was added as one of the official addons, and later in 2024 it was listed among the downloadable mods for the Doom + Doom II Compilation Re-release.

In October 2021, it became a standalone game, available to buy on Steam, complete with a new 4th episode.

REKKR contains examples of:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: In E2M2, you explore the sewer of the city. It's huge and filled with water, poisonous liquid, and lava.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: The Secret Level of Episode 3 is an amalgamation of several levels that hail respectively from various first-person shooters from The '90s, including all classic Doom games (namely Doom, Doom II, both wads of Final Doom and Doom 64) as well as games that were made with the Doom engine like Hexen and Chex Quest. REKKR itself was developed with the Doom engine by way of a total conversion of its original assets, so this level serves as a Shout-Out to the aforementioned games.
• Bilingual Bonus: REKKR is Old Norse for "warrior", which fits the occupation of the Viking protagonist.
• Blood-Stained Glass Windows: E1M3 takes place in chapel, and this place is full of enemies.
• Censored Child Death: The protagonist's newborn baby was killed alongside their mother, but you can only see a destroyed crib in your home.
• Chest Monster: There are mimics that disguise themselves to health bottles.
• Control Room Puzzle: Two of the puzzles present in the Secret Level of the second episode are Control Room Puzzles. All the puzzles, including these two, are completely optional, but solving them will unlock passageways with lots of goodies to gather (and will also spare the player the need of facing hordes of enemies which appear in case a mistake is made).
  • In the first, there are five blue switches placed respectively in five columns, which in turn surround a 3x3 grid that displays special drawings, and in turn those drawings are also represented by the aforementioned columns. In the east and south sides of the grid are purple-colored luminous chevrons. Each drawing in the grid represents a number, and the chevrons displayed at the end of a line of drawings represent the sum of the numbers provided by the drawings. This effectively results in a system of equations where the player can figure out the value represented by each drawing, and therefore the number of times each switch associated with its column's displayed drawing has to be pressed.
  • The second puzzle makes use of a solution that can be figured out in a previous room that is otherwise unimportant. In that room, there are eight switches, and each one turns on a specific number of purple chevrons in the wall. It turns out the amounts are not random, as they're powers of two, going from 1 (2⁰) to 128 (2⁷). The player has to memorize how many chevrons are lit by each switch, because this indicates the order in which the eye switches in the room with the actual puzzle have to be pressed.
• Doomed Hometown: Prior to the events of the game, hellish creatures destroyed the protagonist's hometown and slaughtered its residents, and many of them were transformed to zombie-like monsters.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Averted, two of REKKR's weapons are the Steelshot Launcher, a shotgun with multiple barrels and a crank for loading new rounds, and the Soul Launcher, a gun that literally shoots souls at enemies.
• The Goomba: Former Humans are zombified and mostly naked residents, and they are the weakest enemy in this game. They have low health and their only attack is hitting you with their hands.
• Grenade Launcher: The Runic Staff works like a magical grenade launcher; It launches runes that explode.
• Herding Mission: Each episode has a Secret Level that can be unlocked by, in a certain standard level, luring a friendly dog to its house to open a secret exit. In the first episode, the path is very short and simple, and serves more as a showcase of the idea (which, for a Doom mod, is quite novel); however, in the remaining episodes, the paths are longer and it's recommended to dispatch all enemies and take the levels to a state of near completion so the luring part can be done without distractions. The episodes' respective levels which feature each a dog to escort in order to unlock the associated secret levels are: E1M3, E2M5, E3M6 and E4M2 (it's not a coincidence that these levels match the ones with secret exits in Doom, since REKKR was programmed with its engine).
• Horny Vikings: The protagonist looks like a typical viking. He wears a horned helmet, too.
• Humanoid Abomination: Before the protagonist returns into his home, residents in his hometown were turned into horrific monsters.
• Late to the Tragedy: Everyone in the home island of the protagonist was killed before the game starts. He travels to another island to seek help after the end of Episode 1, but he eventually finds that the same thing happened in said island, thus prompting him to head to the source of the problem and get rid of it himself.
• Mook Medic: Flying eyes can resurrect dead monsters by touching their corpse.
• Secret Level: Being a game built upon the Doom engine (specifically Ultimate Doom), it features secret levels accessible from hidden exits in the same level slots as in the 1993 game (namely E1M3, E2M5, E3M6 and E4M2). Interestingly, the hidden exits are unveiled by guiding a dog to its house in each case, as that's what triggers the exits' access.
  • The first episode's secret level, Bop Some Hops, puts you in a wide-open yard where you have to kill over 300 rabbits that look similar to Daisy (of Doom fame), only these look pink instead of orange. It's a lot harder than it sounds, since the rabbits are vicious maneaters.
  • The second episode's secret level, Addle, is a regal sanctum that eschews the usual action gameplay of the game in favor of solving puzzles, including Control Room Puzzles, in order to avoid messy enemy encounters (and for those aiming to kill all enemies in each level, the offscreen contraptions present in this one will automatically kill all non-summoned enemies, thus rewarding the puzzles' resolution and also helping the player spare their ammunition).
  • The third episode's secret level, Begin, is an All the Worlds Are a Stage endeavor that presents an amalgamation of starting areas from multiple Doom games, as well as a couple games built upon their engine like Hexen and Chex Quest.
  • The fourth episode's secret level, home.wad, is a recreation of the protagonist's hometown right before its destruction, having him defeat the enemies that have arrived there; however, clearing this level won't change anything as it's non-canon, as has been the entire episode since the release of the game's Updated Re-release, Sunken Land, which features a different, actually canonical fourth episode (and by extension a different secret level).
• Short-Range Shotgun: The Steelshot Launcher deals good damage, but it's inaccurate.
• Updated Re-release: REKKR: Sunken Land, a standalone version of the game on Steam, which doesn't require a copy of Doom to run, and adds a brand new fourth episode.
• Version-Exclusive Final Boss: In the original version of the game, the last level of the fourth and final episode consists of a fight against two Skelly Bellies (the flesh-less version of the Former King boss from the second episode) assisted by many eyeball enemies (and the Skelly Bellies can also summon their own eyeball mooks); fittingly, the level is called Eyebrawl. A later version of the game replaces the original Episode 4 with another one called Sunken Land, whose final level presents a brand-new final boss, the Gardien.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: There are wandering jackalopes. They don't attack you, but you can slaughter them for some health.
• When Trees Attack: Treebeasts are living tree stumps, and they shoot projectiles at you. They often disguise themselves as a normal-looking tree.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: You can harvest human souls from killed humanoid enemies. You can use it as ammo for your bow and soul launcher.