Doom Eternal Review

This is a cool looking game.

I don't think I've ever done a complete 180 on a game like I have with Doom Eternal. I was so disappointed with my initial experience with Doom Eternal that I returned the game after two hours. I had just replayed Doom 2016, and Eternal was such a poor sequel to that game both in tone and gameplay that I perhaps overreacted. The game seemed needlessly complex and over-designed. The perfect combat loop of Doom 2016 was replaced by extraneous button-pushes and old-school platforming. Fortunately, Doom Eternal went on sale for thirty bucks a couple weeks later, and for that price I decided to give it a try. Once I got over the fact that Doom Eternal was not just more Doom 2016, I started to embrace the game on its own terms and appreciate what it was trying to do.

This is a difficult shooter that expects the player to keep track of many things at once. You have your flame belch, a flame thrower that immolates enemies who then drop armor as you damage them. The chainsaw is your main method of ammo replenishment, rather than the optional tool it was in Doom, and if you don't want to constantly run out of ammo, you have to chainsaw fodder enemies regularly. Glory kills function just like in Doom, but perform two of them and you'll have the option of performing a Blood Punch, a devastating melee attack that can severely weaken powerful monsters. You also have a recharging grenade launcher that can shoot ice grenades, which really comes in handy for crowd control when you're juggling twenty-plus enemies at once. Finally, you have enhanced movement options--in addition to your double jump from Doom, you can now perform two quick dashes as well as grab on to horizontal poles in order to swing from them like Tarzan. Add in the fact that most powerful monsters have damageable parts--you can shoot the rocket launchers off the revenant and the gun hands off the mancubus, for example--you have a game that expects quite a bit from you during a firefight. Initially, it's a little much to handle--the beginning levels throw several tutorials at you, introducing most of your new abilities in a few seconds, and then send you on your merry way to deal with arachnotrons and hell knights--but around the midgame point, you finally start to get into the combat rhythm that Doom Eternal requires of you. This is due to level design improving, as well as your arsenal, while your fingers have finally figured out which buttons to hit during what moment. The supergore nest level was when I finally mastered Doom Eternal, and it's also a wild ride through a hell and guts infested earth city.

Tonally, Eternal is a departure from Doom 2016. Whereas that game seemed to be a mishmash of Doom 3's realistic spaces and horror aesthetic with the more frantic gameplay of Doom 1 and 2, Eternal goes full nostalgia. The enemies possess none of Doom 2016's grindhouse design--they look like updated renders of the original game's cartoons. The whole art style screams Heavy Metal (by which I mean the influential magazine as well as the music genre), and one of Eternal's best gags is that the Doom Slayer can find and collect records from the soundtracks of id's classic games. I don't know if I prefer the tonal changes to the style of Doom 2016, but I like what Eternal does.

So what does Eternal flub? The platforming, mainly. There are many platforming sections which serve as breathers between the combat and little else. Some require decent timing, but I can't think of a decent reason for their inclusion other than old school shooters used to have lots of platforming. Also, the new combat loop works when you are given a big enough arena in which to do battle. Several of the early levels have you in little spaces. When you get stuck in a corner, the Doom Slayer is sort of screwed, since he doesn't have the durability of previous games till later. As far as difficulty is concerned, there is a huge jump from Doom 2016 to Eternal. I played Doom on Ultra-Violence (hard), and that's what I started Eternal on, and I was getting my ass handed to me until I figured out how to play. That difficulty stems from the aforementioned weaker Doom Slayer, as well as the sheer volume of heavy hitting enemies the game thrusts on you. I got used to it, but I don't know if I prefer Eternal's combat to that of Doom's.

This son of a bitch is a chore.

If you're a fan of hardcore older shooters, then you'll probably love Eternal, with the caveat that it's not Doom 2016, which was a classic. I don't know if it is a better game that Doom 2016 (I greatly preferred Doom's wink and nod approach to story as opposed to Eternal's obsession with its boring lore), but it's already occupied 18 hours of my time, and I have several levels to go. It also caused me to abandon my playthrough of Titanfall 2, which was pretty good, so I think that speaks to Eternal's quality. So get it if you'd like to indulge in a little ultra violence.

Eat it, Mancubus.