The big picture: The "but can it run Doom?" meme may be a bit stale at this point, but developers keep finding new ways to breathe life into the joke. We've seen the game crammed onto everything from calculators to ATMs, proving if a device has a screen, it can probably run id Software's seminal shooter. However, one ingenious creator has taken things to a whole new level of cursed by somehow shoehorning Doom into the world of Fortnite itself.

The responsible party is one Jackson Clayton, an indie game developer who creates mods and even entire games. In a video posted to Twitter earlier this week, Clayton shows off his creation – Doom's classic first level, E1M1, created within the world of Fortnite.

It just looks like regular Doom gameplay at first. The creepy corridors, pixelated textures, and even a (rather tame) green Zombieman are all there in their retro glory. But then Clayton hops out of a window, only to start throwing up wooden ramps and slapping down floors – basically Fortnite's building mechanics transposed into the pits of Hell itself.

Now, it's worth highlighting that this isn't the first time Doom – or at least a part of it – has ended up in Fortnite. Back in 2022, the Doom Slayer was added as a skin. The bottom line is, everything you cherish and feel passionate about will eventually get absorbed by the game.

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However, things are different this time. As if enraged by the idea of being reduced to a cosmetic emote, the OG Doom marine has manifested in Fortnite while also taking a part of his world with him.

Clayton explained to Kotaku how he managed to pull it off. Despite appearances, this mod isn't actually Doom natively running atop Fortnite's engine. The developer stated that the programming language used by Unreal Engine's Fortnite toolset is "too high-level" to directly translate the original 1993 game's code.

Instead, they exported the level as a 3D model into Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). From there, it was a process of stripping away modern rendering techniques like lighting and texture filtering to achieve that classic aesthetic.

The developer explained that they did this to mainly learn more about UEFN but also to trick their friends. Sadly, unlike previous mods, this one hasn't been released for others to try out, likely due to copyright reasons.

But whether you think it's genius or blasphemy, you've got to respect the craftsmanship that went into making "Fortnite x Doom" a reality – even if it is just a one-off video gag. You can check out Clayton's other works by visiting their X/Twitter profile.