While I still have a ways to go before I actually "complete" DOOM: Eternal, I have finished the campaign and done a select amount of side activities (enough to know how they all work).
DOOM: Eternal has been one of my most anticipated games since I ran the credits of DOOM's 2016 reboot all those years ago, and the wait was worth it. DOOM: Eternal does what ANY sequel should do: use the previous entry as a launching point to further refine and add on to what you had before, and not breaking anything down that didn't need any fixing.
Eternal brings us exactly what you'd expect for a sequel to the previous DOOM, for better and sometimes for the worst.
For the better: DOOM: Eternal adds onto the already solid foundation of monsters presented last time around with a more robust assortment of demons to annihilate, some totally new to the series, and some returning from games of the past. I was admittedly terrified to see that both Pain Elementals and Arch-Viles made a return in DOOM: Eternal, because those two enemies alone made my experience with the classic DOOM II a totally nightmare, ultimately leaving me more frustrated with that game than I wanted to. Thankfully, the way that they're both implemented into the experience makes them much easier to deal with while still maintaining a fair level of challenge to fight against them. Both enemy types have seen dramatic changes in how they operate this time around to relive a lot of the anxiety I had heading into this experience.
With the overall roster of enemies this time around, there's enough of them that helm different tactics to take on the player that combat encounters feel rather fresh whenever you engage in one (which is all the time). Demons will helm specific similarities between each other, but have distinct abilities that cooperate with other demons in any single combat encounter to make every single killing frenzy that of a complicated and brutally fast game of chess, figuring priorities in what needs to be taken down first and with what weapon, calculating weaknesses, and how the layout of the area you're in is going to support which tactics. This is where DOOM: Eternal shines the brightest; thinking on your toes while strafing and jumping around everywhere like a mad man while fifty different projectiles are being hurled your way.
DOOM: Eternal's level design is also fantastic, mixing together tight corridors with open arenas, building consistently different yet still ultimately similar combat scenarios, mixing in the usual secrets to incentivize exploration.
Unfortunately, this is where DOOM: Eternal's issues begin to creep in. While for the most part, the level designs are rather straight forward on where you need to go and what you have to do at any point in time, some of the earlier levels of the game can be obnoxious gauntlents of samey coridors that you can get easily lost in; there's a map to relegate this issue, but having to constantly pause the game to figure out where you're going on the frequent severely kills the pacing of the game. The later levels never felt to have this issue, which could either be the fact that they're possibly designed better, or I adjusted myself to think the way the game was thinking, but nevertheless, the first few missions of the game were constant ups and downs.
On top of the progression issues in levels, there's newly added swimming sections added to the experience, which suck big time. While being ultimately brief, any time you're required to swim around in any given area because of a puzzle or you just need to get from point A to point B is a total hassle in how it controls, and again, kills the pacing of the experience. This obnoxious change in controls and pacing is also not helped my a large majority of swimming sections being pools of "tainted water" that do chip damage to the player, making you have to continuously swim around to get the necessary hazmat suit charge-ups or deal with a constantly annoying barrage of chip damage; neither of which are any fun to deal with.
A lot of people have levied complaints towards Eternal for the newly added platforming sections of the game, which I can sort of understand where they're coming from, but I never found them to be that big of an issue. There are certain platforming-heavy levels towards the later half of the game, but the game is pretty forgiving on any mistakes that are made during platforming, so I didn't find it too big of a problem; they're still not the best designed things in the world, continuously propelling the truth that first-person platforming is stupid difficult to nail down properly, but they're functional nevertheless.
The last of seemingly small complaints is that of the end of the experience, which is really cathartic to reach, culminating with a rather typical "video-gamey" final boss that's rife with the typical cliche's early 2000's boss battles had, however, the fight is still really fun to pull through thanks to the fluid movement mechanics at DOOM: Eternal's core. The boss isn't the issue, though, but that the experience just sorta... ends, like out of nowhere. As soon as the boss falls you get a brief cutscene, a rehashed song back from the previous DOOM game, and we go to credits. I'm not expecting some sort of explosive finale of an ending, especially considering the fight that leads up to the end, but the narrative cuts out so quickly without you ever seeing the heroics you pulled getting any sort of real-world payoff. Abruptly ending the experience was also a huge problem in the previous game,and I was hoping to see that remedied this time around, but it was only made worse.
Besides all that jargon I previously spouted, there's two actually serious issues I have with DOOM: Eternal.
I played this on PlayStation 4, which is as functional as one would expect. There's rarely any performance issues, and having HDR support even on the base systems leads to a graphically beautiful experience, but the difficulty of the game does not take into account that you're at a severe disadvantage using a gamepad rather than a mouse and keyboard. DOOM: Eternal expects a ton of precision from the player in terms of how/where they're shooting, with tiny weakpoint areas on enemies coupled with the amount of damage they deal at any point in time. This means that a large majority of people are not going to be able to maneuver around the game like it wants you to. Aim assist is a thing and it mostly works for Eternal, pulling your crosshair around to get a general hit on enemies instead of missing all the time, yet you're more than likely rarely ever going to pull of the kinds of stunts the game is asking you to do. This all culminates to how the difficulty works overall, because if you're planning on playing this on console and on any difficulty either than the easiest, you're in for an absolutely chaotic ride. Setting the difficulty to just the "medium" setting had me getting reamed over and over again by common type enemies, which feels extremely embarassing considering my storied history of completing CoD and Halo campaigns on their highest difficulty, but when you look into how DOOM operates, in how fast it always wants you to go and how precise it wants you to be with its aiming, it's clear that the blame isn't that with a "bad" player, but that the game just isn't designed for a gamepad with higher difficulties in mind. Co-director Hugo Martin claims he's a big gamepad guy, rarely ever going for a mouse and keyboard, and if he honestly thinks the balance is where it should stay at right now, I'd like to see him try and play this on "Nightmare" difficulty with a gamepad and say it's perfect where it's currently at.
Thankfully, there is some additional difficulty tuning in the game by way of unlockable in-game cheats that don't stunt your progression, as well as a fail-safe option a player can take without having any hindrance put towards their progression that will add a ton of armor to the player, easing up on them severely. I only ever had to use this once (second to last boss of the game), and I was on the easiest difficulty when doing this, so I don't know if this becomes available on anything higher than just the easiest setting.
Eternal's last big issue is that it outstays its welcome. I know that a lot of people will find this blasphemous to state, but DOOM: Eternal did not need to be a twenty-hour game. Several levels feel really stretched for length to try and pull as much time as it can from the player, with the repetitious combat arenas that pop up in sometimes unlikely places, as well as the implemented platforming/swimming sections that add on to the length. The general "game flow" works wonders as you progress through it, but I started to feel the length of the whole experience bog down on me by the third-to-last level. I got to a point where the combat all just felt the same and the encounters just came at such a frequent pace and went on for so long when the end-goal was so close that a creeping sense of boredom began to shadow over me. I wouldn't say I ever got truly "bored" by the game, because its frenetic energy in all presentation/gameplay aspects keeps the pacing going considerably well, however, the facade can only last for so long. I've said this before and I'll say it again, but I would much rather play a four-hour experience that is tight, fun, and never had a dull moment, tan a fifty-hour one that's full of boring tedium; DOOM: Eternal really rides the line of that philosophy towards the end of its campaign.
So, I know I spent a ton of time complaining, but I would still highly recommend DOOM: Eternal. It's refreshing to get classic-styled FPS games out in the current market, especially with the kind of production budget this game has, but it sadly doesn't top its predecessor in any intriguing ways. DOOM: Eternal is still an overall more enjoyable experience than DOOM (2016), but it has enough tradeoffs to make it only a slight improvement than a leap into gaming perfection.
DOOM: Eternal has been one of my most anticipated games since I ran the credits of DOOM's 2016 reboot all those years ago, and the wait was worth it. DOOM: Eternal does what ANY sequel should do: use the previous entry as a launching point to further refine and add on to what you had before, and not breaking anything down that didn't need any fixing.
Eternal brings us exactly what you'd expect for a sequel to the previous DOOM, for better and sometimes for the worst.
For the better: DOOM: Eternal adds onto the already solid foundation of monsters presented last time around with a more robust assortment of demons to annihilate, some totally new to the series, and some returning from games of the past. I was admittedly terrified to see that both Pain Elementals and Arch-Viles made a return in DOOM: Eternal, because those two enemies alone made my experience with the classic DOOM II a totally nightmare, ultimately leaving me more frustrated with that game than I wanted to. Thankfully, the way that they're both implemented into the experience makes them much easier to deal with while still maintaining a fair level of challenge to fight against them. Both enemy types have seen dramatic changes in how they operate this time around to relive a lot of the anxiety I had heading into this experience.
With the overall roster of enemies this time around, there's enough of them that helm different tactics to take on the player that combat encounters feel rather fresh whenever you engage in one (which is all the time). Demons will helm specific similarities between each other, but have distinct abilities that cooperate with other demons in any single combat encounter to make every single killing frenzy that of a complicated and brutally fast game of chess, figuring priorities in what needs to be taken down first and with what weapon, calculating weaknesses, and how the layout of the area you're in is going to support which tactics. This is where DOOM: Eternal shines the brightest; thinking on your toes while strafing and jumping around everywhere like a mad man while fifty different projectiles are being hurled your way.
DOOM: Eternal's level design is also fantastic, mixing together tight corridors with open arenas, building consistently different yet still ultimately similar combat scenarios, mixing in the usual secrets to incentivize exploration.
Unfortunately, this is where DOOM: Eternal's issues begin to creep in. While for the most part, the level designs are rather straight forward on where you need to go and what you have to do at any point in time, some of the earlier levels of the game can be obnoxious gauntlents of samey coridors that you can get easily lost in; there's a map to relegate this issue, but having to constantly pause the game to figure out where you're going on the frequent severely kills the pacing of the game. The later levels never felt to have this issue, which could either be the fact that they're possibly designed better, or I adjusted myself to think the way the game was thinking, but nevertheless, the first few missions of the game were constant ups and downs.
On top of the progression issues in levels, there's newly added swimming sections added to the experience, which suck big time. While being ultimately brief, any time you're required to swim around in any given area because of a puzzle or you just need to get from point A to point B is a total hassle in how it controls, and again, kills the pacing of the experience. This obnoxious change in controls and pacing is also not helped my a large majority of swimming sections being pools of "tainted water" that do chip damage to the player, making you have to continuously swim around to get the necessary hazmat suit charge-ups or deal with a constantly annoying barrage of chip damage; neither of which are any fun to deal with.
A lot of people have levied complaints towards Eternal for the newly added platforming sections of the game, which I can sort of understand where they're coming from, but I never found them to be that big of an issue. There are certain platforming-heavy levels towards the later half of the game, but the game is pretty forgiving on any mistakes that are made during platforming, so I didn't find it too big of a problem; they're still not the best designed things in the world, continuously propelling the truth that first-person platforming is stupid difficult to nail down properly, but they're functional nevertheless.
The last of seemingly small complaints is that of the end of the experience, which is really cathartic to reach, culminating with a rather typical "video-gamey" final boss that's rife with the typical cliche's early 2000's boss battles had, however, the fight is still really fun to pull through thanks to the fluid movement mechanics at DOOM: Eternal's core. The boss isn't the issue, though, but that the experience just sorta... ends, like out of nowhere. As soon as the boss falls you get a brief cutscene, a rehashed song back from the previous DOOM game, and we go to credits. I'm not expecting some sort of explosive finale of an ending, especially considering the fight that leads up to the end, but the narrative cuts out so quickly without you ever seeing the heroics you pulled getting any sort of real-world payoff. Abruptly ending the experience was also a huge problem in the previous game,and I was hoping to see that remedied this time around, but it was only made worse.
Besides all that jargon I previously spouted, there's two actually serious issues I have with DOOM: Eternal.
I played this on PlayStation 4, which is as functional as one would expect. There's rarely any performance issues, and having HDR support even on the base systems leads to a graphically beautiful experience, but the difficulty of the game does not take into account that you're at a severe disadvantage using a gamepad rather than a mouse and keyboard. DOOM: Eternal expects a ton of precision from the player in terms of how/where they're shooting, with tiny weakpoint areas on enemies coupled with the amount of damage they deal at any point in time. This means that a large majority of people are not going to be able to maneuver around the game like it wants you to. Aim assist is a thing and it mostly works for Eternal, pulling your crosshair around to get a general hit on enemies instead of missing all the time, yet you're more than likely rarely ever going to pull of the kinds of stunts the game is asking you to do. This all culminates to how the difficulty works overall, because if you're planning on playing this on console and on any difficulty either than the easiest, you're in for an absolutely chaotic ride. Setting the difficulty to just the "medium" setting had me getting reamed over and over again by common type enemies, which feels extremely embarassing considering my storied history of completing CoD and Halo campaigns on their highest difficulty, but when you look into how DOOM operates, in how fast it always wants you to go and how precise it wants you to be with its aiming, it's clear that the blame isn't that with a "bad" player, but that the game just isn't designed for a gamepad with higher difficulties in mind. Co-director Hugo Martin claims he's a big gamepad guy, rarely ever going for a mouse and keyboard, and if he honestly thinks the balance is where it should stay at right now, I'd like to see him try and play this on "Nightmare" difficulty with a gamepad and say it's perfect where it's currently at.
Thankfully, there is some additional difficulty tuning in the game by way of unlockable in-game cheats that don't stunt your progression, as well as a fail-safe option a player can take without having any hindrance put towards their progression that will add a ton of armor to the player, easing up on them severely. I only ever had to use this once (second to last boss of the game), and I was on the easiest difficulty when doing this, so I don't know if this becomes available on anything higher than just the easiest setting.
Eternal's last big issue is that it outstays its welcome. I know that a lot of people will find this blasphemous to state, but DOOM: Eternal did not need to be a twenty-hour game. Several levels feel really stretched for length to try and pull as much time as it can from the player, with the repetitious combat arenas that pop up in sometimes unlikely places, as well as the implemented platforming/swimming sections that add on to the length. The general "game flow" works wonders as you progress through it, but I started to feel the length of the whole experience bog down on me by the third-to-last level. I got to a point where the combat all just felt the same and the encounters just came at such a frequent pace and went on for so long when the end-goal was so close that a creeping sense of boredom began to shadow over me. I wouldn't say I ever got truly "bored" by the game, because its frenetic energy in all presentation/gameplay aspects keeps the pacing going considerably well, however, the facade can only last for so long. I've said this before and I'll say it again, but I would much rather play a four-hour experience that is tight, fun, and never had a dull moment, tan a fifty-hour one that's full of boring tedium; DOOM: Eternal really rides the line of that philosophy towards the end of its campaign.
So, I know I spent a ton of time complaining, but I would still highly recommend DOOM: Eternal. It's refreshing to get classic-styled FPS games out in the current market, especially with the kind of production budget this game has, but it sadly doesn't top its predecessor in any intriguing ways. DOOM: Eternal is still an overall more enjoyable experience than DOOM (2016), but it has enough tradeoffs to make it only a slight improvement than a leap into gaming perfection.