2016’s Doom reimagined the classic shooter into a frantic but modern mold. The bloody escapades of the Doomguy were rife with bullets and guts. Doom Eternal is bigger and bloodier, almost to the point of excess. It’s the same hamburger dipped into a vat of delicious special sauce. Except the serving size is so big that it’s hard not to feel a little sick afterwards.
Nonetheless Doom Eternal is incredible. It is a bold step forward from the soft-rebooted series that will satisfy even the stodgiest of old school Doom fans. If you want to rip and tear, there’s arguably no better place than Doom Eternal. It also wants to juggle too many balls. There are additions to the combat system, online multiplayer (haven't done this yet) pitting man against demons, dozens of gun upgrades, a lot more ancient lore, and story connections to older games that offer surprising revelations. Doom Eternal operates on a single maxim: more, more, more. Much of this works, some of it is a harmless annoyance, and a few things are actively frustrating.
I just finished Doom Eternal I know been out a while and just now finishing it. But in my defense, I'm feeling anxious and exhausted. I've kneed the underside of my desk too many times to count from tensing up. My hands are soft from sweating and my knuckles crack when I try to make a fist. Doom Eternal is a celebration of excess. Excess in sin, in violence, scale, speed, and volume. I've never played a shooter this intense and demanding.
Doom Eternal also runs beautifully on a wide range of hardware and feels designed for a mouse and keyboard first. It's a modern classic, with a few caveats. Cheap deaths from getting stuck on geometry happen too often. There are six or seven layers of unnecessary progression. Doom's dark humor has mostly been traded in for deep lore and a high-fantasy cosmology. And the strain from a heavy focus on resource management is felt at every difficulty level. I worry that for some, it could be Doom: But Too Much.
But "too much" works for me as Eternal's guiding light. The moment to moment combat is distilled panic rather than empowerment. I live for the fleeting moments my head gets above water within the hurricane of light and noise and extravagant violence, and I pull off a feat of accuracy and reflex I never thought I was capable of before.
Allegedly the arenas are filled with dozens of demons at once, each one like their own bespoke muppet, each detailed and present in how they're put together and how they fall apart. The gore system breaks them up piece by piece, exposing gristle and bruised muscle and bones underneath. And Doom never skips a beat rendering all the demon bits and weapon effects and wild environments, my mouse whipping around so fast as if to dare it to all gum up. Nah.
Anything less than perfect performance wouldn't do, because Doom Eternal is one of the most demanding arena shooters I've ever played, a game that teases out and hones every muscle memory committed to my right forearm and left hand fingertips since they graced a mouse and keyboard. It's bright and loud, hyper violent yet tastefully refined, and absolutely draining. I can't recall playing a shooter where sensory overload was one of the most common reasons for death.
Does it matter if most players are just here for violence and good times, as opposed to all that other stuff? Probably not. Doom Eternal lives by the strength of its shooting, and with a few notable competitors like Titanfall 2, there’s nothing that comes close to delivering this level of excitement.
Doom Eternal is set two years after 2016’s Doom. Earth has been invaded by demonic legions who have wiped out most of the population. These forces are led by a strange angel-like being called the Khan Maykr and a trio of “Hell Priests” that are responsible for summoning and empowering the horde. The Doom Slayer, our ever-helmeted and mindlessly violent hero, returns to Earth to hunt down the Hell Priests and put an end to the invasion. His quest will take him through multiple dimensions and reveal secrets about the life he lived before he became a legendary warrior. Narratively, Doom Eternal has more going on than what came before. The lines between legend and reality become less blurred, and closely guarded secrets and plots get revealed in the process. Who is the Doom Slayer? What really fuels “argent energy,” the seemingly infinite power supply that corporations sought in the previous game, which the Khan Maykr also seems to covet? If you somehow wanted answers to those questions, Doom Eternal’s story will deliver them, and it will do so with a clumsy confidence.
Does it matter if most players are just here for violence and good times, as opposed to all that other stuff? Probably not. Doom Eternal lives by the strength of its shooting, and with a few notable competitors like Titanfall 2, there’s nothing that comes close to delivering this level of excitement.
Doom Eternal is set two years after 2016’s Doom. Earth has been invaded by demonic legions who have wiped out most of the population. These forces are led by a strange angel-like being called the Khan Maykr and a trio of “Hell Priests” that are responsible for summoning and empowering the horde. The Doom Slayer, our ever-helmeted and mindlessly violent hero, returns to Earth to hunt down the Hell Priests and put an end to the invasion. His quest will take him through multiple dimensions and reveal secrets about the life he lived before he became a legendary warrior. Narratively, Doom Eternal has more going on than what came before. The lines between legend and reality become less blurred, and closely guarded secrets and plots get revealed in the process. Who is the Doom Slayer? What really fuels “argent energy,” the seemingly infinite power supply that corporations sought in the previous game, which the Khan Maykr also seems to covet? If you somehow wanted answers to those questions, Doom Eternal’s story will deliver them, and it will do so with a clumsy confidence.
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