VKDoom is a ZDoom-based source port with a focus on Vulkan

Well this is pretty fun to see! The ZDoom / GZDoom family is expanding with VKDoom, a new source-port that has a focus on expanded Vulkan support and modern rendering. Now it's worth noting that GZDoom already supports Vulkan, but VKDoom has a focus on making the Vulkan support much more modern with advanced rendering features for modern GPUs.

Currently the official site doesn't go into a lot of detail about it since it's quite new. What we do know is that VKDoom is being synced with the main GZDoom as they work on it, so all the GZDoom modding and editing features should work out of the box.

Pictured above is DISDAIN an upcoming fast-paced, visceral retro-styled first person shooter built on VKDoom by the people making VKDoom. It's launching sometime "soon" with Linux support.

Some features it has from their Wiki:

• All features from latest version of mainline GZDoom (ACS, ZScript, ZMusic etc)
• Vulkan based renderer:
  • Raytraced baked lightmaps (produced from ZDRay)
  • Raytraced dynamic shadows
• Support for the DEHEXTRA standard
• Unreal Engine 1 style light coronas
• Modified defaults as per community feedback (like None - Linear texture filtering and more optimized defaults to better represent the IWAD games - full list here https://github.com/dpjudas/VkDoom/commit/896102c1793e565cb9832d4b2ecc5edf0e41a5c6)
• Hitbox rendering with r_showhitbox
• Alternate mouse cursors for the IWAD games
• ZScript extensions related to save games and automap access
• New MAPINFO property NoAutoSaveOnEnter, and a CHANGELEVEL_NOAUTOSAVE flag for ChangeLevel (both ZScript and ACS) - that disables the hardcoded saves when entering a map

They said they will also continue to push code back to GZDoom so "eventually GZDoom will inherit much of the technology on display in VKDoom". For now, it seems it was easier to get all the advanced features done in a fork.

In regards to a question about Linux builds being available or needing to be built manually the official VKDoom account on X replied: "There will be, eventually. There's still lots of work to be done on other parts of the engine currently, so we can't spare enough manpower to take care of Linux and Mac yet. Stay tuned!"

See more on the official site and GitHub.