DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods - Part Two is the second DLC expansion released in 2021 to the first person Doom Eternal that was released the previous year. A sadly disappointing finale to the storyline that was set up in the first part also taking a step back in the overall gameplay quality as well.
The Doom Eternal gameplay loop is still fine and well here really. The new platforming element is a tiny nice touch here and despite the complaints with the hammer, I do like that they gave the doom slayer something new here at least. The music is also improved a little bit compared to TAG1 but it still doesn't reach the base game at all. The levels feel a bit uninspired except the last level even though it's essentially the penultimate level but in red which I did like from an art design perspective.
Despite the gameplay loop still being Doom Eternal, it's marred by a lot of awful gimmicks and new enemy designs that feel annoying and felt like created for the sake of making other weapon mods viable. They also decided to bring back slime for some reason in this expansion to the point I'm sure there's more of it in this 4 hour campaign than in the entire 20 hour base game. The hammer is definitely way too overtuned for normal play and provides way too many resources and long time stunning that along with the much lower difficulty in this expansion compared to the first makes this a much easier experience than TAG1 and it feels really disappointing considering the first expansion pack nailed several things right. The final boss while interesting in concept felt extremely anti-climatic with a lot of waiting around to really do anything along with being way too reliant on the hammer to even do anything substantial as well.
I feel like the time at Id used this expansion as a beta test of new enemy mechanics for the future game or something because it felt like they didn't have time to really play test how it would feel for the player and see if it actually changed the way you played unlike with the turrets and spirits in TAG1. The final boss took way longer than it had to and it felt like it was extremely dragged out to the point it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for the next game.
The Doom Eternal gameplay loop is still fine and well here really. The new platforming element is a tiny nice touch here and despite the complaints with the hammer, I do like that they gave the doom slayer something new here at least. The music is also improved a little bit compared to TAG1 but it still doesn't reach the base game at all. The levels feel a bit uninspired except the last level even though it's essentially the penultimate level but in red which I did like from an art design perspective.
Despite the gameplay loop still being Doom Eternal, it's marred by a lot of awful gimmicks and new enemy designs that feel annoying and felt like created for the sake of making other weapon mods viable. They also decided to bring back slime for some reason in this expansion to the point I'm sure there's more of it in this 4 hour campaign than in the entire 20 hour base game. The hammer is definitely way too overtuned for normal play and provides way too many resources and long time stunning that along with the much lower difficulty in this expansion compared to the first makes this a much easier experience than TAG1 and it feels really disappointing considering the first expansion pack nailed several things right. The final boss while interesting in concept felt extremely anti-climatic with a lot of waiting around to really do anything along with being way too reliant on the hammer to even do anything substantial as well.
I feel like the time at Id used this expansion as a beta test of new enemy mechanics for the future game or something because it felt like they didn't have time to really play test how it would feel for the player and see if it actually changed the way you played unlike with the turrets and spirits in TAG1. The final boss took way longer than it had to and it felt like it was extremely dragged out to the point it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for the next game.