Base game review

The first of the two DLC campaigns for DOOM Eternal that serve as the conclusion not just for Eternal, but to this modern era of DOOM’s story that began with DOOM 2016. Eternal was a game that pushed its mechanics and overall scale to astronomical levels. With Part One of The Ancient Gods (TAG for short), iD Software aims to push things even further. Despite their efforts, I’m a little bit mixed on their attempt to do so. While I ultimately believe the good things about TAG1 outweighs the bad, the things that are bad can lead to some degree of frustration that dampers the enjoyment.

While the DOOM Slayer might have put a stop to the Khan Makyr and halted the demonic invasion of Earth, his work isn’t done. With the Khan Makyr gone, Hell’s forces have taken over her homeworld of Urdak, and with the planet’s resources in their control, they now have the means to invade and conquer all of reality. With the help of Samuel Hayden and the UAC, the DOOM Slayer sets out to find the Seraphim, an ally from his past that can provide him the means to return to Urdak, so that he can finally end the demons once and for all.

The Ancient Gods continues the base game’s storytelling approach, meaning it still lacks a lot of context in regards to what’s going on. You do get the gist of what’s happening, but there are a lot of terms that can be difficult to keep up with and aren’t explained very well. That being said, it’s a DOOM game, so you really only need to know the bare minimum when it comes to story anyway.

The DLC comes with three additional levels: UAC Atlantica Facility, The Blood Swamps, and The Holt. These levels have some of the most intense combat encounters in the game (outside of the Master Levels, which are re-worked levels from the base game made to be even more challenging). After its original release, TAG1 was actually updated in order to reduce its overall difficulty, and even with the changes made, these levels will still give you a run for your money.

Atlantica is without a doubt my favorite level in the DLC and possibly the entire game, depending on how my replay of Ancient Gods Part 2 goes. The design of its combat arenas is excellent, memorable and feels like a very natural progression from the level of difficulty you experience at the end of the base game. They’re wide, with a lot of room to run around in. The Marauder controversy after the base game’s release had been going on for a while at this point, so when you get towards the end of the level and you have to fight two of them at the same time, it very much feels like the devs are paying attention to what fans were saying at this time, and that they trusted them to be able to overcome these enemies.

Atlantica also introduces a new environmental hazard: Turrets. These are mystical eyeballs sitting on top of a podium that shoot energy blasts at Doomguy from their position. You can’t get too close to them, otherwise the eyeball will retreat into the podium. They need to be destroyed using fast and powerful long distance projectiles like the Quick-Scope mod for the Heavy Assault Rifle, or a shot from the Arbalest. While these can initially be annoying, they’re pretty easy to take out once you’ve memorized their locations and gotten your aim up to snuff in order to take them out quickly.

The Blood Swamps are next, and for the most part, it’s a very strong level, with some of the most intense combat arenas in the game. It’s actually kind of flooring seeing the amount of super heavy demons the game throws at you during combat encounters, but it’s also really thrilling stepping up and taking them all on. This level also introduces a new enemy: The Spirit. The Spirit is a ghost demon that possesses another demon on the field, increasing that demon’s damage, speed, and resilience, making them a lot harder to kill and evade. After killing the possessed demon, the Spirit will exit that demon’s body, where it’ll be stunned for a moment, before it begins to possess another demon. The only way to kill a Spirit is to use the Microwave Beam mod for the Plasma Rifle, which shoots out a beam that holds demons in place before causing them to explode after a period of time. I don’t really like this new demon very much, and encounters with it really got on my nerves.

The Spirit feels like it was made solely for giving the Microwave Beam an actual purpose. Prior to the DLC’s release, the Microwave Beam was widely regarded as one of the least useful weapon mods in the game. It’s a slow method of killing demons, and using it hinder’s Doomguy’s movement, making him a sitting duck. Since combat in Eternal is designed around you constantly moving, this mod is inherently antithetical to that idea, so being forced to use it here kind of sucks, especially given how intense the combat arenas are. When the Spirit possesses a Hell Knight or a Baron of Hell, then it will hound you, and seeing either of those demons charging at you with their increased speed is genuinely terrifying. Furthermore, killing a possessed demon doesn’t mean it’s over, as you now have to use the Microwave Beam to finish off the Spirit, or risk it possessing another demon.

The Spirit might be a bit less frustrating on lower difficulties, I decided to play through this on Nightmare, the game’s hardest difficulty, since I’ve played Eternal so many times and wanted a challenge in order to keep my adrenaline up. On Nightmare though, the Spirit is a major threat even if it possesses fodder demons simply because of how much stronger the buff makes them. This is what makes the Spirit impossible to ignore, and why trying to kill it is so frustrating. If you end up killing the possessed demon in the wrong place at the wrong time, there’s nothing you can do about the Spirit without risking all of the other demons jumping your ass. Even if it seems like you’re okay to take it out with the Microwave Beam, another demon or a projectile might swoop in outta nowhere and take you out. There might be some strategy I’m not familiar with that makes the Spirit easier to kill, but I don’t know for sure. All I know is that I never really found a consistent and clear cut way of killing it, and a lot of my deaths came from trying to safely get rid of this god damned poltergeist.

Finally, there’s The Holt. The Holt is without a doubt my least favorite level in the DLC, and most likely the entire game as well. I really hate how The Holt’s combat arenas are designed. The arenas are usually multilayered and claustrophobic structures with tunnels that obfuscate demons and make it hard to keep track of who is on the screen and where they’re at. It also has what I feel to be the most extremely forgettable and boring music in the game. The Holt also introduces one more new series of enemies: the Blood Makyrs, and I’m not a fan of these guys either. They are flying, angel-like beings that protect themselves with an impenetrable shield of energy while shooting their own projectiles at you with their spears. They also have a melee attack they can perform that halts your momentum if you get too close to them. They’re completely invincible until they use a specific attack that causes them to drop their shield, after which, they can only be killed with a precise headshot from the Arbalest or the Quick-Scope for the Heavy Assault Rifle.

My dislike for the Blood Makyrs is partially a skill issue, while also tying in to why I dislike The Holt’s combat arena designs so much. Because of the design of these combat arenas, trying to get an accurate shot at a Blood Makyr when it drops its shield is a lot harder than it otherwise would be. This might have been the intention, but either way, it makes trying to kill it very aggravating. Once again, a lot of my deaths came from me missing their head and getting blown up by their attacks, or getting killed by other demons because I was focusing too hard trying to aim at them.

Despite being DLC levels, the team at iD spared no expense making them visually on par with the levels from the base game. Each level has a distinct look, feel, and atmosphere, thanks to their unique color palettes and themes. Atlantica is basically a giant oil rig out in the ocean with a lot of blues and stunning looking water and waves, The Blood Swamps are tinted in a sickening green shade with a lot of gas and fog, and The Holt has a reddish-purple color palette symbolizing the former paradise of Urdak’s fall to the demons. Much like the rest of the game, each level’s environments are absolutely stunning and have breathtaking scale to them.

I mentioned in my review of the base game that there was some behind the scenes issues regarding Mick Gordon, the composer for Eternal and DOOM 2016’s highly acclaimed soundtracks, that I didn’t have time to get into because of the review’s length. During Eternal’s development, Mick had to put the game’s score together under completely obscene degrees of crunch, and in the end, wasn’t even paid for a good chunk of his work. When Bethesda promised an official release of the soundtrack, Mick wasn’t consulted, and that soundtrack release was put together by an audio engineer who, with all due respect, didn’t do a very good job. The sound quality of Eternal’s formally released OST isn’t the best, and the music doesn’t sound quite as full as it did in 2016 OST release. After DOOM Eternal came out, Mick Gordon parted ways with iD Software. After Mick’s departure was made public, Marty Stratton, iD Software’s executive producer and the man responsible for Mick’s poor treatment, took to social media to slander Mick, calling him overly demanding and difficult to work with, and he used the power of NDAs to besmirch Mick’s name while he was unable to say a word in his defense. Years later, after those NDAs had expired, Mick Gordon was finally able to publicly defend himself with an extremely long blog post containing irrefutable evidence regarding how he had been treated during his time at iD Software. The fallout between Mick and iD Software is ultimately, very sad, as it was clear that Mick loved working on DOOM. I said it in my base review, and I’ll say it again here: Marty Stratton is a piece of shit, and the fact that he continues to work at iD Software today is disgusting.

With the departure of Mick Gordon, Andrew Hulshult was brought on board to compose the music for both parts of The Ancient Gods. Hulshult is an extremely respectable and skilled metal musician, and is well-known amongst the boomer shooter scene for his love of DOOM and other older shooter franchises. He did the music for modern day boomer shooter indie titles, such as Dusk and Amid Evil. He was the perfect person to replace Mick Gordon, and while I wouldn’t say that his work surpasses the base game’s soundtrack, his skills do shine here. Atlantica and the Blood Swamps’ music is very, very good, with a lot of heavy, yet catchy riffs that capture the game’s aggression and other-worldly feel. The Holt, like I previously said, is unfortunately rather lacking. There isn’t much guitar at all, and it's mostly just forgettable atmospheric bass and electronic noise, which adds further to the disdain I have for that level.

Part One of The Ancient Gods is a decent start to the conclusion of modern DOOM’s story. While it begins with a huge bang and some of the best content Eternal has to offer, as it goes on and the game experiments a bit more with enemy and level design, it unfortunately produces some mixed results that involve a lot of frustrating moments that detract from it a bit. I do think that the highs outweigh the lows though, and that it’s still worth a playthrough. I just don’t recommend playing through it on Nightmare difficulty like I did, unless you’re a completionist that really wants to master the game.

The Spirits are just way too overtuned for me. I usually refrain from talking about balance, but... the fact that they're completely immune to staggering AND have a lot of health AND require me to have a lot of plasma ammo once their host is killed is just... too much.
The super Drone angel thing is also kinda forceful in the sense that headshots are almost the only thing that kills it, and you have to wait to do so.
And look, I sound like a Marauder-hater, but I'm actually not - I do like him! Yes, there's a parry window, but you can use almost any weapon to do so. Plus, I can stagger with bomb.
I don't know, this was way too stressful for me, and kept pushing me out of the fun zone. There's a difference between difficult fun and difficult frustrating - TAG 1 crossed that line for me, unfortunately.

a POX upon whoever made the electric pillar room encounter in Horde Mode 2:trial of da dark lawd.... You did play it right, fellow DOOM™ fanatics.? surely, let me know in the commmentS Below, read all of them just like Gaben does with his emails I promise! wear my backloggdcowbell around my neck like all goodest boys who listen to the Crusader No Remorse/Regret OST while doing other things, like say playing DOOM Eternal, UH OH!!!!!!!!! nonpositive amirite or amirite my fellow consumers... but I confess, I love being forced into doing the needful with the microwavebeam, GhostBusting Makes Me Feel Good! TYVM Hugechungus Martin, cannot wait to purchas all the new DOOM Dork Age merchandise, new bionicle dragon looks so cool, Exciting Gameplay Imminent fellow DOOM fanatics!! but I doubt the Punch-Out portion will be as good as the one in Wonderful 101, a better wackycartoony toyetic "superhero" character action game than this, incidentally.......

The ancient gods parte uno me gusta porque es más doom eternal. Mantiene el núcleo jugable prácticamente intacto, ya que si algo es perfecto para que lo vas a tocar ¿verdad? Pese a todo, esperaba un poco más de novedades en este DLC. Tres enemigos nuevos, junto a sus respectivos tres niveles es prácticamente lo único nuevo que trae consigo. Me parece algo escueto, además de que el concepto tras esos nuevos enemigos me parece regulero. Sobre todo el espíritu, nacido con la idea de darle uso al disparo secundario más infrautilizado del juego base. Reconozco que está bien intentar buscarle un uso viable a las partes menos poderosas del juego, pero creo que el rayo microondas tiene problemas desde su nacimiento. No puedes pretender que esté quieto varios segundos en un juego como eternal. Por eso creo que el espíritu debía de haber venido con un cambio directo a ese accesorio del cañón de plasma. Se hace muy frustrante matar al demonio controlado por el espíritu en un lugar equivocado, ya que posiblemente no lo puedas rematar por la naturaleza lenta del arma. Sobre todo en dificultades altas se incrementa esa frustración que se podía haber solventado de otra manera.

Quitando eso, creo que el resto de Ancient Gods es bastante bueno. Hay una buena progresión en cuanto a la dificultad respecto al juego base , y el diseño de niveles sigue destacando como de costumbre. No solo el diseño puramente jugable, si no de nuevo, el diseño artístico de escenarios sigue siendo sublime. Es simplemente precioso.

Por otro lado es difícil hablar de Ancient Gods sin entrar en el mal trato que recibió Mick Gordon por parte de Bethesda, que tras no recibir parte de la compensación económica por su trabajo, fue difamado y acabó abandonado ID software. Es genuinamente una lástima y le deseó suerte en sus próximos trabajos. Sin embargo, creo que han encontrado a la persona perfecta para hacer este trabajo en la ausencia de Mick. Andrew Hulshult entrega una banda sonora absolutamente sublime, caracterizada por ese heavy metal industrial que casa perfectamente con Doom, y en especial este DLC. Es alguien con experiencia en este género de videojuegos y se nota.

En definitiva, Doom eternal : the ancient gods parte uno me ha gustado. Echo de menos más novedades y las que hay no me emocionan precisamente. Pero sigue siendo más doom al final del día. Me alegro de haberlo rejugado con un ordenador capaz de cargar la cantidad de demonios del juego de forma fluida, ha mejorado un poco mi impresión de este título.