DOOM Eternal Review

[Remilia Scarlet]

RIP AND TEAR

DOOM Eternal has quickly made me realize two things; first, I was extremely wrong when I said DOOM couldn't possibly be surpassed in what it did; second, id Software has completely changed the face of the modern FPS, and probably gaming as a whole.

 

Doom has a long and storied history in the gaming industry. While it was not the first FPS, it did more to popularize the genre than any other game. When Doom first released in 1993, John Romero and John Carmac, the creators of the first game, did something ingenious - instead of releasing the game as a full priced title they dropped it as shareware; basically a free to play version of the game that anyone could download, with the option to buy the full version on their website to be mailed to them. You could argue it was one of the first examples of a playable demo. Through the use of this method and their open book policy towards player made .WADs, Doom quickly became a popular game, and not without reason.

 

Doom's fast paced, gory, intensely violent gameplay struck a chord within the community and industry. By the time Doom II had released the original had surpassed over 1 million sales and hundreds of thousands of custom .WAD levels had been generated by players around the world. Doom had become a cultural phenomenon and remains so today.

 

DOOM Eternal continues that legacy in the best way possible.

 

Immediately the first thing you notice when you start playing is that the janky little pistol from the previous game is gone. It has been yote into the bowels of hell. No, you have only the big toys to play with now. And they are truly incredible. Even the basic combat shotgun has been totally revamped. More power, more force, and more boom with every shot. With the gatling mod attached I would even go so far as to say it even surpasses the super shotty as it just completely eviscerates even the toughest enemies in mere seconds.

 

And this game is very, very tough. 

 

Enemies take more shots and deal more damage, and they come at you in hordes. The AI is utterly relentless in its pursuit of the Doom Slayer. When you initially start up a new campaign the game warns you that even on the lowest difficulty setting you will die. A lot. Luckily, id has been kind enough to include 1 Up tokens in each level to give you extra lives should you die. When a token is used the screen goes into greyscale to signify the token has been used, instead of restarting the encounter. This allows the combat to continue flowing smoothly with no interruptions. Try not to get to that point, because tokens are limited in each level; but luckily for the player, 1 Ups can be stocked by revisiting past levels they have beaten, and as far as I can tell there is no limit to how many can be stocked - I currently have 34. However, before this happens the game will enter a slowdown once the player reaches a critical HP threshold to allow them time to glory kill an enemy so as not to have to use the token. It's a welcome change from the previous game because Eternal is brutally difficult at times. Of note is the buff totem, a hidden item in some of the combat arenas that must be destroyed. As its name says, it provides a considerable buff to enemies, increasing their damage resistance and output, and it spawns enemies infinitely until destroyed.

 

Despite the difficulty it rarely ever feels truly unfair. In the 20 or so hours I played of the campaign I only encountered 2 or 3 fights that I would truly call unfair, and they all involved a Marauder mixed into the horde of enemies, or the unbelievably annoying Archvile. 

 

DOOM Eternal adds a lot of new mechanics to the bag of preexisting ones. Jumping has been upgraded to allow two consecutive dashes (plus an extra with midair dash refill pick ups). Glory kills have been revamped significantly to have more variety, and now make use of the brand new Doomblade, a wrist mounted retractable, serrated combat knife. The Doomblade is incredibly powerful, capable of instantly cutting through a demon's body no matter how thick its hide or bone structure is. The Doom Slayer will use it to decapitate, eviscerate, bisect, and gouge out and saw off multitudes of body parts. The brutality and creativity of the glory kills never ceases to amaze and disgust at the same time. Included among the new arsenal is the shoulder mounted equipment launcher. This is a multipurpose tool that will save your butt a lot. It works as a flamethrower that makes enemies drop precious armor when killed, a frag grenade that deals impressive splash damage and a freeze grenade thats enemies in their tracks, allowing you more breathing room. No weapon or tool ever feels out of place or useless in DOOM Eternal; everything has a purpose, and they serve that purpose well.  In addition to the various tools and weapons in your arsenal, power ups can be found in the world to give an extra edge during combat. One major addition to the combat is the absolutely brutal blood punch, a single melee attack the just utterly devastates any enemy unfortunate enough to be subjected to it. Blood punch, as its name suggests, is a brutal punch that instantly kills all non-heavy enemies by obliterating them on contact, dropping health and ammo in the process. On heavies it does heavy damage, destroying armor and weak points.

 

Every weapon with the exception of the BFG-9000 and Unmayker has mods you can unlock to improve their capabilities. Most of them have two mod slots, both of which have a mastery challenge to overcome. My favorite mod in the game is the full auto gatling mod for the combat shotgun. As stated before the full auto mod completely obliterates all enemies in mere seconds, and even works pretty well on the Marauder if you're fast enough. Once all mods for a particular weapon have been upgraded, you unlock the mastery challenge, which pushes you to use the weapon in a certain way to unlock its full potential. Doing so maxes the weapon out. However, if you find yourself struggling there exists a bypass - mastery tokens, a gold coin that you can find later in the game or trade excess praetor tokens for in the Fortress of Doom, that allows you to bypass the challenges instantly. It's a nice addition for those players who are struggling with their mastery challenges, though I haven't had much issue with them.

 

Combat is a brutal, bloody ballet of chaos and destruction. Arenas have been designed to allow for a constant and seamless flow of movement. Monkey bars and climbing ledges allow for an unparalleled level of verticality that games like Unreal Tournament and Quake could only dream of. Jump pads, switches, floor plates and the like litter the levels to add even more options to your liking. Once the adrenaline gets pumping it is relentless and unceasing. Attention to your surroundings is paramount to survival but you never really feel outmatched.

 

Until the Marauders and Archviles show up. As far as negatives go, these two enemies are just about the worst aspect of the game. They completely ruin the flow of combat and pacing. The Marauder has no weaknesses. It is immune to the Unmayker and the BFG-9000. When you get close it blows you away with a shotgun. If you stand too far away it unloads an energy wave at you. If you go midrange like the game tells you to do, it just combos you to death. Your only option for attacking and surviving is to stock up on 1 Ups and shoot the ballista in the literal 1 second time frame you have to attack when its eyes glow green. It has an energy shield that blocks all attacks and a wolf that it summons to harass you when you go too far away. The Marauder is utterly broken and completely destroys the pace and flow of gameplay.

 

The Archvile is similarly annoying with many of the same problems. When first introduced in Taras Nabad, the Archvile does not get a pop up warning like every other enemy. No, instead the fight starts out with all enemies buffed, so you run around the arena for 30 minutes trying to locate the buff totem when in actuality, an Archvile is hiding behind a wall of hellfire summoning demons all over the place. The fire wall is impenetrable, soaking up all your ammo. The Archvile itself doesn't really attack much, instead opting to summon a horde of demons to attack in its stead, and as long as the Archvile lives these demons deal massive amounts of damage. The Archvile is a complete bullet sponge. You will easily go through hundreds of rounds of ammo just to kill it.

 

As far as problems go, those are the two only major gripes I have with the game. There are some very minor nitpicks, though. Dashing in the air can be somewhat imprecise and general lack of ammo can be a bothersome annoyance if there's no fodder to chainsaw. Some textures can be muddy if the camera gets too close but that's few and far between. I did witness a demon fall through the level so I was unable to kill it and had to restart the encounter to progress.

 

Now the combat stuff and negatives are done, let's move on to the rest of the game.

 

Mick Gordon has once again proven that he is master of all and second to none when it comes to hair raising, frenetic, absolutely ridiculous and insane music. The soundtrack of DOOM Eternal is an energetic, stroke inducing, experience that sends shockwaves shooting through you, fueling that already adrenaline charged rush. I said when DOOM was released that he could not possibly outdo that soundtrack, but I was wrong. He did. Although no particular track stood out the way BFG Division did, the album as a whole takes what the previous game did and ramps it up 11. The absolute heart pounding, mindfuckingly loud and outrageous levels of heavy metal and doom synth outperform even the hardest rock concerts I have attended. It really puts the DOOM in DOOM Eternal's title. It really gives credence to the meme that Doom Slayer doesn't have boss fights - he is the boss fight. 

 

In addition (I've been saying that a lot) to the game's basic soundtrack you can unlock numerous tracks from id Software's past games. Scattered throughout the levels are various collectible albums that can be found hanging in the Fortress of Doom, complete with their own art. Accessing these in the hub will change the ambient music for the Fortress. It's a really nice touch to id's past.

 

There's a lot of secrets to find. Ranging from toys of the monsters you encounter, to hidden and out of reach praetor suit upgrades to the albums and even cheat codes, there is no shortage of things to find. Exploration yields great bonuses from extra 1 Ups to mastery tokens later in the game. I even found some areas that use the original Doom textures similar to the secret levels in the previous game, though this time it's limited to a wall or specific item.

 

The automap has been greatly improved this time around. Instead of just giving you the general layout of the level it now provides a much more detailed map. While it is still possible to get lost due to the sheer size of the levels I never found myself wandering quite as aimlessly as before. When you access the automap ststion it will bring up a full map of the level and you can unlock a perk that reveals all collectibles, though secrets will still appear as question marks.

 

The praetor suit has 20 perks that can be unlocked. These are divided into five sections of 4 slots each - Environmental, Frag Grenade, Ice Bomb, Fundamentals and Exploration. Each of these provide bonuses to your suit and equipment - such as revealing the collectibles that I mentioned earlier, or increasing the damage done to frozen enemies. These perks are what  the praetor suit tokens will be used for. Don't worry about missing any tokens. There is a surplus of them in the game and you will most likely unlock all the perks by the time the point of no return is reached. The excess tokens are traded for mastery tokens.

 

As well as praetor suit tokens you have runes as well. Runes are used to further enhance your abilities. There are 9 runes and three can be active at one time. They don't drastically change gameplay but provide a slight edge such as slowing down time when using a mod in the air.

 

The story of the game has been expanded considerably. There are now cutscenes in the game that are third person but they're never intrusive and honestly I quite liked them because they show off the incredible skins you can unlock in the Fortress of Doom. I will not discuss any plot points of the game as it is actually quite intriguing and vastly expands the lore of the game, so you should experience it for yourself. Much of the expanded lore is contained within the codex, which holds information on various game mechanics, demons, weapons, locations, and history in the Doom universe. Be sure to check it out. It's fascinating stuff.

 

Challenges have also returned, pushing players to complete various mission constraints to earn rewards in the form of unlockables and sentinel batteries, which are used to unlock and power up various areas of the fortress. Each mission has three challenges. Completing all three unlocks a sentinel battery. Challenge progress is saved so you can go back into mission select at any time in the story to finish them.

 

Alongside these challenges are a new game mode called Slayer Gates. These are extremely challenging combat encounters that push you to the limit. Completing a Gate earns you an Empyrean Key. Obtaining all six keys gives you access to the Unmayker, a returning weapon from Doom 64. Slayer Gates disable cheats when used in mission select so bear that in mind.

 

Multiplayer has returned, this time developed in house by id themselves. It is all the better for it. This time an asynchronous mode called Battlemode, it pits a single Slayer against two enemies. It is frenetic and outrageous, and most importantly, fun. There's not a whole lot to it, but the simplicity works in its favor. You can choose from 6 demons to play as and the customization is really cool. As you progress you unlock more skins and options for your preferred character ranging from pedestals, victory poses and effects. 

 

Some final words, before I end the review. I meant it when I said I believed DOOM 2016 was the pinnacle of the FPS genre. It was as close to a perfect shooter as I had seen. The multiplayer was pretty bad but everything else was phenomenally well done. The soundtrack by Mick Gordon is my favorite of all time. The frenetic and gory gameplay is polished as hell. That said, DOOM Eternal has taken what id did with DOOM and improved it in every single aspect. Even the multiplayer is good now. While it has some annoyances in the Marauder and Archvile, it does everything it does so incredibly well that in the end, it's easy to overlook those as mere oversights id made in their passion for DOOM, and their passion for gaming as a whole. id Software's love for gaming shows in every aspect of DOOM Eternal's development. I was sad to see SnapMap go, but in removing that they were able to focus all their creative energy into making a well done multiplayer capable of standing on its own, and, in my humble opinion, the single greatest singleplayer campaign of all time.

 

10/10 - MASTERPIECE

Edited April 4, 2020 by Remilia Scarlet

[Gadrak]

This is probably the best FPS I ever played. 

[MikeCheck--]

Nice! Just completed the first one this past Friday. I aim to get Eternal here next week. 

[SHAZAM_SAVAGE]

Thanks for this review. It was a pleasure to read. 
 

Absolutely love this game, haven’t been able to put it down. 

[TENCHU_REPPA]

I've been on YoTube looking at Doom Eternal videos and man it makes me question why I never played Doom 2016... I knew about it, but I really "didn't look into it" extensively. Man oh man I plan on getting Doom 2016 down the line sometime in the near future. I want to start off with that one. The gameplay has really captivated me from both Doom 2016 and eternal. Well anyway have fun peeps playing it. Looks phenomenal and like a real blast to play.