Pretty metal.
114 minutes in, I'm starting to think that Doom Eternal is this generation's Crysis 2. The original Crysis established a successful formula--hunt soldiers with a superpowered nanosuit in a brilliantly rendered jungle environment--and threw it out the window for the sequel. Gone was the thick jungle, replaced by the crowded linear streets of apocalyptic New York. The four modes of the nanosuit (speed, strength, armor, invisibility) were reduced to just armor and invisibility. The free-roaming nature of Crysis was chucked out the window for scripted encounters and small battle areas. The plot, which they hired a sci-fi writer for, was only tangentially connected to the original. How does this compared to Doom/Doom Eternal? I had the same feeling playing Doom Eternal as I did playing Crysis 2. This is not what I expected. Why the disconnect? I'll tell you why.
Doom 2016, like Crysis, established a winning formula. Glory kills and weapon/suit upgrades were the big additions, but the main gameplay was still shooting demons, like Doom 1/2/3. Tonally, it was also a success. The Doomslayer didn't have time for the po-faced machinations of first-person shooter narratives. All he wanted to do was rip and tear. He knew that the plot didn't matter, and that the player didn't give a shit.
Doom Eternal, in contrast, is loaded with lore and cutscenes. You can skip all of it, but I wonder why it was included in the first place, considering that Doom 2016 was praised heavily for its wink and nod approach to story. The tone is different too. Doom 2016 was played straight; the Doomslayer's over the top violence made it comedic, but it wasn't parody. Doom Eternal is Doom taken to 11. We got skyscraper-sized Demons, giant mechs littering the landscape, bright colors and bobbing pickups that remind me more of Mario than Quake 3. It looks good, but it feels like a sequel to a totally different game.
My main complaint, however, is the sheer amount of needless tweaks to the core gameplay loop. In Doom, glory kills and chainsaw kills were frequent, but not essential. You had plenty of armor, health, and ammo pickups littered around the maps. Not so in Doom Eternal. If you're not chainsawing a demon every other kill, you will run out of ammo. If you're not glory killing every other enemy, you will run out of health. With the addition of the flamethrower, you also have to worry about lighting enemies on fire for armor. Instead of killing demons, you're constantly preoccupied with conserving resources. It changes the whole gameplay loop considerably. I've started to get used to it, but I don't understand why they fucked with perfection. Movement has also been complicated with a dash move and parallel bars that the Doomslayer can grab on to and swing like Laura Croft. He can also cling to certain surfaces, which is weird as fuck. Am I playing a platformer or a Doom game? The upgrade system is also needlessly complicated, made even more frustrating by the mess of a UI, which is a puke-green shade that reminds me of Quake 4.
It's too soon to come to a conclusion after only two hours of gameplay, yet I can say the Doom Eternal is not the sequel I expected, nor is it likely to be better than Doom 2016, which I just replayed. Did a different team at id make Doom Eternal? Hopefully it gets better.
This looks like a map from Quake Champions, not Doom.
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