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Play Doom's premium maps for free (if your friends bought them)

Try new maps before you buy them with the 'PartyPlay' feature.

Jessica Conditt, Engadget

Id and Bethesda want to make sure that the action never stops in the new Doom's multiplayer. That's regardless of whether or not you're buying the recently announced premium map pack, "Unto Evil." With PartyPlay, so long as someone in your party has bought the add-on, everyone can keep playing together and vice versa.

It's a very welcome measure of goodwill from the development team, and one that will likely pay off dividends. Bethesda and id aren't the first to do this, of course -- Crackdown and certain modes of Gears of War 3 included a similar feature as well -- but it's definitely a cordial addition to Doom.

This strikes a fan-friendly balance between giving away all of a game's add-ons and splintering the player-base between DLC haves and have-nots. It also still allows a publisher to recoup costs after a game ships, so it will probably (hopefully?) become more common as time goes on. Where might we see it next? This fall's Gears of War 4 on Xbox One.