iD Software should probably go down as one of the best set of devs in history, because they have made a work so excellently crafted in its design and innovative in use of arena fps mechanics that it's easily the best game that has come out of this year so far as well as one of the best of all time. It manages to take every single lesson that needed to be learned from Doom 2016's failings and applied a perfect fix from a top-down level.
I've never played a singular fps that kept my adrenaline pumping at full blast for most of the way through, with encounter design so phenomenally set teeming with particular enemies that make true on its core gameplay loops. Doom Eternal juggles loops of resource management, enemy prioritization, and utilization of movement all intertwined to each individual enemy. From the Arachnotron, probably the best enemy of the lot that forces you to utilize its weak points while it dodges your fire and pressures you down, to the Cyber Mancubi, each enemy makes use of your weapon variety and asks for the best play you can muster especially on Nightmare difficulty (which I played on the whole way through). The waves are also set perfectly to where as you take heavy enemies down there's new challenges to surprise you, with especially the slayer gates and later levels showing the best of this wave design.
The weapon balance and depth is also excellent, with two alt fire mods you can swap with that each bring their own costs and benefits, as well as the resource grind constantly asking you to use your entire loadout. Good play isn't just tuned to dodging enemy fire and spacing yourself correctly, but also utilizing every single weapon to their fullest extent while keeping track of loot pinatas to keep yourself in the midst of carnage. You'll know when you're in the zone when you're hook jumping into the air and constantly keeping yourself up above them dashing and jumping as you pelt rocket damage down upon your foes. If you have a single thing not on cooldown you're not using everything that you have.
That's probably the most ridiculous component that iD managed to do, the huge complexity that the game slowly eases you in before letting you become a walking one man army of rip and tear. The pacing of unlocks is fine tuned to where you're always getting something new from level to level to play around with, with excellent tutorializing that makes sure you have the knowledge you need to play efficiently and work on mastering your kit.
Music and aesthetics are also fantastic, with every single level looking amazing compared to Doom 2016's mostly same-y color palette. This is probably Mick Gordon's best work too banging in the background, especially with its remixes of 2016's great hits and the final level keeping that blood pumping. Probably going to be listening to it long after I'm done replaying the game.
There are of course, some miscellaneous and weak components for a game so ambitious in its design and extremely accessible. The platforming serves as nice downtime to let your blood cool down, although some of it especially the swimming portions being kind of boring if not impeding on the nonstop joyride. Ideally I'd probably layer the mostly-and-intentionally-nonsensical codex-loaded story to be cutscenes between combat to give you downtime if you need it and allow them to be completely skippable, with some walking if out of dev time. Not that I don't appreciate some of the environments and sense of scale that you walk through, but one specific level i.e. Sentinel Prime seems almost like a weird pacebreaker that could've used way more over time development.
There's also some overtuning and balance issues in some places. The Marauder, while I can find him somewhat inoffensive, makes you play a different game. When you've killed all the rest of the heavies and he's the last one left, you play Sekiro and just time your shit to kill him. He's not an interesting enemy and I'd prefer better use of Archviles to force you into a "deal with this enemy while you fight the others" instead. Also some of the weak point exploits are too powerful, with Cacodemons especially taking one sticky or rocket to make them nothing. The bosses also ALL SUCK, and either need complete reworks or wayyyy more dev time to make them interesting and fun to fight. I give a pass to the Icon of Sin for being an amazing spectacle but even his fight is twice as long as it needed to be, serving as a bfg dump that's one phase too long.
Other combat issues: The BFG, Unmakyr, and Crucible are underdeveloped, although at least they're easily ignored. I can kinda get it with the BFG and Unmakyr, one's pretty much a get out of jail free card that requires no skill to use other than uhh don't hit a wall loser, and the other is a close range meltbox. I just wish the ammo was either one per level at MOST or in a different mode entirely (like a survival mode! they'd work like shmup bombs), because while they don't exactly make encounters entire jokes they do undercut the design by a significant margin. The crucible especially is probably the biggest disappointment. You have a whole level building up this sword that you craft over time, and all it does is IK for 3 pips, a get-this-heavy-off-me weapon with only one move. It could've been a way more fleshed out weapon with more utility and less breaking the game.
At the end of the day though I can't deny that this is not only the best fps game I've played but maybe even my all time favorite action game. These issues are something I can tolerate on my own, and the game gives free reign to fine tune a lot of the elements yourself. It's ridiculously accessible. I look forward to the dlc, and I think the rest of this year nay the decade has a lot to live up to after this. (10/10)
I've never played a singular fps that kept my adrenaline pumping at full blast for most of the way through, with encounter design so phenomenally set teeming with particular enemies that make true on its core gameplay loops. Doom Eternal juggles loops of resource management, enemy prioritization, and utilization of movement all intertwined to each individual enemy. From the Arachnotron, probably the best enemy of the lot that forces you to utilize its weak points while it dodges your fire and pressures you down, to the Cyber Mancubi, each enemy makes use of your weapon variety and asks for the best play you can muster especially on Nightmare difficulty (which I played on the whole way through). The waves are also set perfectly to where as you take heavy enemies down there's new challenges to surprise you, with especially the slayer gates and later levels showing the best of this wave design.
The weapon balance and depth is also excellent, with two alt fire mods you can swap with that each bring their own costs and benefits, as well as the resource grind constantly asking you to use your entire loadout. Good play isn't just tuned to dodging enemy fire and spacing yourself correctly, but also utilizing every single weapon to their fullest extent while keeping track of loot pinatas to keep yourself in the midst of carnage. You'll know when you're in the zone when you're hook jumping into the air and constantly keeping yourself up above them dashing and jumping as you pelt rocket damage down upon your foes. If you have a single thing not on cooldown you're not using everything that you have.
That's probably the most ridiculous component that iD managed to do, the huge complexity that the game slowly eases you in before letting you become a walking one man army of rip and tear. The pacing of unlocks is fine tuned to where you're always getting something new from level to level to play around with, with excellent tutorializing that makes sure you have the knowledge you need to play efficiently and work on mastering your kit.
Music and aesthetics are also fantastic, with every single level looking amazing compared to Doom 2016's mostly same-y color palette. This is probably Mick Gordon's best work too banging in the background, especially with its remixes of 2016's great hits and the final level keeping that blood pumping. Probably going to be listening to it long after I'm done replaying the game.
There are of course, some miscellaneous and weak components for a game so ambitious in its design and extremely accessible. The platforming serves as nice downtime to let your blood cool down, although some of it especially the swimming portions being kind of boring if not impeding on the nonstop joyride. Ideally I'd probably layer the mostly-and-intentionally-nonsensical codex-loaded story to be cutscenes between combat to give you downtime if you need it and allow them to be completely skippable, with some walking if out of dev time. Not that I don't appreciate some of the environments and sense of scale that you walk through, but one specific level i.e. Sentinel Prime seems almost like a weird pacebreaker that could've used way more over time development.
There's also some overtuning and balance issues in some places. The Marauder, while I can find him somewhat inoffensive, makes you play a different game. When you've killed all the rest of the heavies and he's the last one left, you play Sekiro and just time your shit to kill him. He's not an interesting enemy and I'd prefer better use of Archviles to force you into a "deal with this enemy while you fight the others" instead. Also some of the weak point exploits are too powerful, with Cacodemons especially taking one sticky or rocket to make them nothing. The bosses also ALL SUCK, and either need complete reworks or wayyyy more dev time to make them interesting and fun to fight. I give a pass to the Icon of Sin for being an amazing spectacle but even his fight is twice as long as it needed to be, serving as a bfg dump that's one phase too long.
Other combat issues: The BFG, Unmakyr, and Crucible are underdeveloped, although at least they're easily ignored. I can kinda get it with the BFG and Unmakyr, one's pretty much a get out of jail free card that requires no skill to use other than uhh don't hit a wall loser, and the other is a close range meltbox. I just wish the ammo was either one per level at MOST or in a different mode entirely (like a survival mode! they'd work like shmup bombs), because while they don't exactly make encounters entire jokes they do undercut the design by a significant margin. The crucible especially is probably the biggest disappointment. You have a whole level building up this sword that you craft over time, and all it does is IK for 3 pips, a get-this-heavy-off-me weapon with only one move. It could've been a way more fleshed out weapon with more utility and less breaking the game.
At the end of the day though I can't deny that this is not only the best fps game I've played but maybe even my all time favorite action game. These issues are something I can tolerate on my own, and the game gives free reign to fine tune a lot of the elements yourself. It's ridiculously accessible. I look forward to the dlc, and I think the rest of this year nay the decade has a lot to live up to after this. (10/10)