[Jehar]

There is a critical gap between the sensibilities of Doom/Quake/Duke and Painkiller/Serious Sam: level flow. The latter camp is in varying degrees a series of rooms you get locked into as enemies spawn in waves. The former involves navigating a highly varied environment as you attract the attention of pre-existing enemies.

Sure, on the avatar scale, they play at a similar level. The environments are what really set the earlier generation apart, and in that respect very little approaches that sort of design.

[Mithaldu]

Painkiller sometimes does that, but other times it gives you levels like Docks, where as much vertical traversal is expected as horizontal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-0yJ2V41Jk

[Jehar]

I'll happily agree that Painkiller has some more variation then SS, but on the whole it's much more focused with wave-based arenas. This isn't a knock against Painkiller at all, it's a favorite of mine - yet it's still a bit inaccurate to regard it as classical level design.

[Mithaldu]

Yeah, you're right. I went and watched the entire video and while they hide it well by having really big arenas, it's still just kill rooms.