(This review was written a couple of weeks after Doom Eternal's launch, so some things mentioned might be outdated.)
Since it’s been out for a while now, here's my review of Doom Eternal. Get ready, because I have a lot to say about this game. Tl;dr: great game with top tier gameplay with nice amounts of ripping and tearing. The visuals are amazing. Story is not bad. Mick Gordon outdoes himself with 10/10 scores that perfectly matches the tone of the game. The multiplayer is okay. This is a game where the developers clearly had a lot of fun making, and certainly put a lot of love into.
The previous installation of Doom was already great and jam packed with action, but this one turns that high octane action into 11. Rather than starting you with the standard pea shooter, your starting weapon is the combat shotgun which maintains its usefulness throughout the entire game. Like the last game, you eventually accumulate more weapons for your arsenal, and there are some changes in them, the most notable being the fact that you have much less ammo than in 2016. To mitigate that ammo shortage, your chainsaw regens once in a while, so it encourages you to use it more often. For me, it’s a welcomed change and definitely makes every encounter more intense and engaging. I’d write a review for each of the weapons, but since I’m not getting paid for this, I’ll just summarize by saying that all of them are useful in their own way.
As for the Slayer himself, he’s certainly gone through a huge change. Early on in the campaign, you gain a shoulder mounted equipment launcher that launches frag grenades and ice bombs, and a “fire belch” that is basically a flamethrower, where burning enemies drop armor. The Slayer also has the “Doomblade”, and as the name suggests, it’s a retractable blade attached to his left arm that allows more creativity to glory kills. He also gains an ability called the Blood Punch, a powerful AOE strike that can one shot weaker demons. You gain charges from glory kills, and eventually when you have a surplus of health and armor.
Not only do you begin with the double jump (an ability that you had to wade through 3 missions in 2016 to get), his movement abilities have expanded significantly. He can dash, climb, and swing on bars like a ripping and tearing chimpanzee. Crouching is removed, however (for better or for worse). These certainly help make moving in the battle and include much better verticality in the maps. Oh, speaking of which, maps are much bigger and there are no empty, boring spaces.
The visuals of Doom Eternal are much more vibrant than Doom 2016’s gloomy atmosphere. There’s also a lot more open spaces where you can see the hard work that artists put into designing the backgrounds. There are also a lot of secrets scattered throughout the game, as well, including cheats (yes, cheats codes!), collectibles, lore, extra lives, and upgrades. Items and enemy designs are obvious callbacks to the original Doom games, and rather than trying to make items “fit” with the world, they’re glaringly obvious, with floating question marks and extra lives littered around the maps. The atmosphere of each level is amazing to travel through, with demonic Titans trudging around hell on Earth, ancient ruins of the Night Sentinels, and we even get to revisit Mars. Each level gets progressively more complex and magnificent as you go through the campaign.
An addition to the game that I find really refreshing is a hub, the Fortress of Doom. In it, you can show off your collection, listen to music, and find extra upgrades. It’s a giant floating castle in space, and the Slayer even has his own man cave, where I’m sure he spends most of his time when he’s not ripping and tearing. There are so many little references you could find in the Slayer’s quarters, and there are too many to mention. Most notably are: a rabbit cage and treats (his pet rabbit Daisy is confirmed canon), an old desktop where you can play Doom 1 and 2, artifacts referencing to previous games (Soul cube, old Praetor suit, Argent storage unit), and lastly, pieces of reading material (for the Slayer; you can only see their spines) neatly tucked in a bookshelf, all referencing either classic literature (but with a Doom twist), other games, and even famous YouTuber Markiplier’s father, Clifton M Fischbach, was referenced. You can tell that the creators paid a lot of attention to detail.
The story isn’t the best; it has its flaws, but it does finally tie in the previous games. It progresses in a very straightforward direction, but there are some references that people who aren’t familiar with the lore won’t get. Personally, I didn’t have much of a problem since all I cared about was ripping and tearing through demonic hordes. To me, the plot is more of a backdrop for the main meat that is the gameplay. As for where it fits into the timeline, it’s a sequel to Doom 2016, but it also connects to Doom 1, 2, and 64.
Spoilers to the plot start here:
Yes, the Doomslayer is actually Doomguy/Doom Marine. The game explains how Doomguy became the Doomslayer, and how he has earned the fear of every single demon in Hell. I won’t go too much into detail about his backstory, because it would be worth a whole other essay.
The characters aren’t much to write home about, since this game is purely focused on ripping and tearing. Your favorite AI assistant VEGA is back, since the Slayer backed him up around the end of DOOM (2016). Samuel Hayden makes an appearance as well, but because he was reduced to just a head and a torso from a previous encounter, he comes back as an exposition machine, which, to his credit, does give more information and context on each location and comments on certain things. Due to the demonic invasion, you don’t get to see a lot of humans, but when you do, they either soil themselves at the sight of you, or they revere you like a god. As for the main villain, the Khan Maykr is the leader of the Maykrs, an angelic looking race of aliens that basically bless civilizations with promises of unlimited power. Unfortunately for them, due to the disappearance of their progenitor The Father, they have resorted to making a deal with the Devil to use mortal souls to produce a powerful energy source to extend their lifespans. She’s the kind of villain who thinks that she’s the hero of her own story, but lacks in other areas, as she is rather inactive in the story. But then again, she’s just another face to be Blood Punched.
Doom Eternal’s OST is absolutely amazing. I’m glad that id Software let Mick Gordon take full control of the music production. As someone who is pretty picky with metal, I can say that the mix of between electronic and metal is intense. All of the songs are expertly crafted, and there is not a single one that is boring or lacking of any substance. Hell, even the main menu theme is intense. I can say confidently that my favourite part of the OST is that Gordon got metal vocalists to do a choir, so far as to even recruit a Mongolian throat singer (“Kar En Tuk”, and Gladiator boss theme). RIP Nature Ganganbaigal.
I’ll quickly (probably not) address the multiplayer, and it takes the form of “Battlemode”. In Battlemode, two players play as demons (Revenant, Mancubus, Marauder, Pain Elemental, or Archvile). As a demon, your goal is to kill the Slayer, controlled by a single opposing player. You can spawn lesser demons, summon the obstacles, and generally make the Slayer’s life a living hell. As the Slayer, your goal is to kill both demons within a certain timeframe, because any slain player demon respawns in 20 seconds. It’s mindless and intense fun, but if you communicate with your teammate, it can also be strategic. I’ve had a lot of fun playing as the Marauder, a demon specialized in pressuring and close ranged combat, equipped with a shotgun, axe, and wolf summon.
I’ll now address Doom Eternal’s flaws, starting with the multiplayer. As fun as Battlemode was, there are a few issues that hopefully will be fixed in future patches. There are a limited amount of maps, and there isn’t a lot of customization options for the demons. Another issue is that during the demo in QuakeCon, they showed that player demons could invade the Slayer’s campaign, which is such a fun concept with possibilities of much tougher and intense gameplay that was unfortunately cut. Another issue is that the multiplayer is only limited to Battlemode, whereas Doom 2016 had PVP and different game modes. Hopefully, the developers add more to the game’s multiplayer, which could extend its replayability so much more.
There is so much potential in Doom Eternal’s multiplayer, and I can think of some game modes that could fit the lore. One game mode I could think of, is a co-op mode, where players team up as members of the Night Sentinel. Each player can pick a loadout with different kinds of Argent powered weaponry, and face the countless hordes of demons. This game mode could serve as a visualization of the Night Sentinel’s history. There could possibly even a way for players to vie for the chance or playing as the Slayer himself. The developers should definitely bring back classic multiplayer modes like death matches or horde mode. Doom Eternal is still relatively young, so I’m hoping the developers have future plans for the game.
I’m just going to briefly address one glaring issue with the single player: it’s too short. Sure, you can replay the campaign over and over, but I can easily get tired of going though the same levels. I hope to see an endless horde mode, where you fight to reach a high score, and there would be leader boards where players could fight to reach first place.
Doom Eternal is a love letter to the shooter genre and the Doom series. It is a masterpiece that any fan of shooters can definitely enjoy. The gameplay is intense and visceral, and there is so much to do. The game has one simple rule: don’t stop moving or you die. The art, both visual and musical, are masterfully crafted, and no details were spared. Doom Eternal is, in every sense of the term, a video game, and proudly so. It is pure fun, and does not try to hide its mechanics on the pretense of fitting within the universe. By no means is Doom Eternal is a perfect game, as it has its own shortcomings, but it oozes love for the series and the legacy it has on the video game world, and hopefully the developers continue to add more features.
This game has earned its spot on my list of my favorite video games of all time. I highly recommend this game to anyone who loves the series (but I’m sure by now you’ve already played it), or just shooters in general. 9.5/10.
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