Base game review
The Ancient Gods Part One review
Part Two of The Ancient Gods serves as the finale to the story of the modern DOOM games, and it concludes that story in a bombastic fashion that you’d expect from iD Software. In The Ancient Gods Part One, iD pushed the mechanics and scale of DOOM Eternal’s combat even farther than in the base campaign. It introduced by far the hardest levels and combat encounters in the game, which tossed an overwhelming amount of unrelenting and difficult to kill demons at you. This caused it to receive some mixed reception, as a lot of people found Part One to be too difficult. It even got to the point where it was patched to be a little easier. It seems that iD Software took the reception and criticisms of Part One to heart and dialed things back in Part Two. There are still a number of intense combat encounters, but overall, Part Two feels way more tame and easier to handle compared to Part One. While I would say that it’s overall a more consistently enjoyable experience in comparison to Part One, at the same time, I couldn’t shake a slight nagging feeling of regression after playing through it.
The DOOM Slayer has put his plan for eradicating Hell’s demons forever into action. During Part One of The Ancient Gods, he learns that the only way to rid the universe of demons is to summon their master, the Dark Lord, into a physical form, and then kill him. After summoning him, he discovered that the Dark Lord’s physical form was in fact Hell’s version of himself. The Dark Lord tells the Slayer that if he can survive, then he will challenge him to ritual combat in Hell’s city of Immora, before transporting the DOOM Slayer to the planet Argent D’Nur, the world of the Night Sentinels. The stage has been set for the fate of the universe, as the DOOM Slayer sets out to recruit allies to help him lay siege to Hell, so that he can kill the Dark Lord and finally rid the universe of the demons once and for all.
There’s honestly not a whole lot to say about the story, as there’s not much story here. It’s a very straightforward conclusion to modern DOOM’s narrative. I think that the storytelling approach of leaving all of the important worldbuilding context in optional collectibles really comes to bite Eternal in the ass here. By the time we reach the climax, and the finale begins, I am just not super invested beyond the surface level appeal of “aw sick, Doomguy’s gonna whoop major ass”, and I can say that about the entirety of Eternal’s story. In-between my reviews for both parts of The Ancient Gods, DOOM: The Dark Ages, a prequel to the modern DOOM games was announced. The game is supposed to take place during Doomguy’s time with the Night Sentinels that’s written about in the codex entries for DOOM 2016 and Eternal. Depending on how the story in that game goes, maybe it’ll recontextualize things in a way that enhances Eternal’s story and makes the events that happen in it feel a lot more impactful and have a lot more weight. As it stands, unless you did your homework and read all of those codex entries, Eternal’s story as a whole, even with the DLC, is pretty much weightless.
Once again, this DLC comes with another three levels: The World Spear, Reclaimed Earth, and Immora. The final boss is also given its own level titled The Dark Lord, but it just consists of the final boss battle and nothing else. All three levels are really good, I don’t have anything negative to say about any of them. As I mentioned, the overall difficulty for TAG 2 has been reduced from TAG 1. It’s not at all a walk in the park, but the combat arenas for all three levels feel noticeably less intense and don’t throw quite as many demons at you. I never felt the kind of stress I felt during the trials of the Blood Swamps. This isn’t a major criticism of TAG 2, as it is still quite challenging. It just kind of sticks out after playing through the rest of Eternal as well as TAG 1, which both felt like they had a really tight sense of ascending difficulty all the way through it up to this point.
That being said, if you are the type of player that misses that kind of challenge, each level has one combat arena that is triggered by activating a Gore Nest. This Gore Nest gives you an opportunity to engage in an optional second battle in the same combat arena, which is referred to as an Escalation Encounter. This second battle throws a lot more demons at you, and is much harder than any of the combat arenas you’re required to complete. Since I was trying to get through the DLC relatively quickly while still playing through the game’s Nightmare difficulty, I ended up not completing them, but from what I’ve played, they’re absolutely as hard as they sound, and I’d like to come back and clear them when I have more free time.
The World Spear is probably the most visually appealing level in the entire game. Despite the fact that you’re fighting against the forces of Hell, the striking beauty of the bright, colorful and nature-rich environments you traverse through really stand out. There’s a lot of platforming challenges here involving the Super Shotgun’s Meathook, which are really fun and add a lot of freshness to the platforming. It introduces two new enemies: the Armored Barons and the Stone Imps, which are upgraded versions of the Barons of Hell and Imps respectively. The Armored Baron is coated in impenetrable armor and wields a spiked ball and chain. Similar to how you damage the Marauder, you have to wait for it to do a specific attack with the spiked ball and shoot it when it flashes green in order to remove the armor. The armor will regenerate after a short period of time, so you need to do as much damage as you can to it or kill it before the armor fully regenerates. The Stone Imps are… there. They’re just regular Imps whose bodies are encased in stone, and they can perform a charged up rolling attack that looks like a homing attack from Sonic the Hedgehog. Much like how the Spirit in TAG 1 was created in order to give the Microwave Beam mod for the Plasma Rifle an actual use, the Stone Imps were made in order to give the Auto-Fire mod for the Combat Shotgun a use. They can only be damaged by it, and damaging them will cause them to exclusively drop shotgun ammo. You usually face these in swarms, so it's good the devs thought to have them drop the ammo type you need in order to hurt them.
During the World Spear, you acquire the Sentinel Hammer, a new weapon to replace the Crucible, which was lost at the end of Eternal’s base campaign. When used, Doomguy will leap into the air and slam the hammer down, causing a shockwave that stuns all nearby enemies. If you’ve already stunned an enemy or froze them in place with an ice grenade, it will extend the duration that the enemy is incapacitated for. The hammer plays a big role in making TAG 2 feel easier than its predecessor. After using the hammer, you need to recharge it by glory killing enemies, which is fairly easy to do since there are plenty of fodder enemies you can exploit to charge the hammer over and over again.
Reclaimed Earth is another decent level, though I did find myself getting turned around a couple of times in it. The level is generally bright green, which caused me to miss certain switches I needed to activate or waypoints I was supposed to follow, both of which are also green and blend in with the environment. It honestly felt like the hardest of the three levels. Towards the end, there were a couple of combat encounters that I was really struggling with. Two more new enemy types are introduced here: the Cursed Prowler and the Riot Soldiers. The Cursed Prowler is a Prowler that, upon landing one of its attacks, will place a curse on you. This curse removes your ability to dash or jump and causes your health to slowly drain. Whenever the Cursed Prowler appears during a combat arena, it will let out a unique screech letting you know that it’s there. Once it shows up, as long as you’re looking out for it, it’s pretty easy to kill it before it can curse you. If it does curse you, you have to chase it down and kill it with a Blood Punch. It’s a little annoying, but I never had too hard of a time dealing with it. The Riot Soldiers are honestly pretty forgettable. They’re exactly like the Zombie Soldiers that carry shields, only their shields block all attacks, and you have to attack them from behind with something like a rocket or grenade in order to damage them. They don’t really show up very often though, which kind of leads me to question their inclusion altogether.
Immora is the final level of the game, and it’s surprisingly shorter than you’d expect. Compared to pretty much every other level in the entire game, Immora feels noticeably brisk. It does have some pretty intense combat encounters, but as a whole, I feel like they were easier than the last couple of encounters in Reclaimed Earth. It’s still extremely fun despite that though. It does kind of introduce one more new enemy type called the Demonic Troopers, which are literally just dudes in armor that shoot lasers. I feel like they’re an enemy type that was originally meant to be more fleshed out, but the devs’ original plans for them were scrapped and they were just left in the game as is. They’re a fodder type enemy that for some reason can’t be glory killed or chainsawed, but otherwise do very little damage. Immora is followed up with the final boss fight against the Dark Lord. I don’t really want to spoil it, so all I’ll say is that the fight itself is engaging, but it’s also uninspired.
Once again each level looks jaw droppingly gorgeous, to the point where it makes me a little sad that DOOM: The Dark Ages will be going with a brand new artstyle. The World Spear and Reclaimed Earth in particular look very bright and colorful, which is in stark contrast to a majority of the other levels in the game. I think this was done not just for the sake of visual variety, but to demonstrate that the demons are falling back and losing their grip on the universe. It also symbolizes the hope that Doomguy is bringing to the people inhabiting the two different worlds that he once called home. Andrew Hulshult had absolutely no misses with TAG 2’s soundtrack. All of the music throughout it is heavy and headbang inducing. I loved his work here, and I’m so excited to hear more from him when The Dark Ages drops.
With the conclusion of The Ancient Gods Part Two, modern DOOM has reached the end of its story. The only real criticisms I have towards it is that the ending suffers from the storytelling method that’s used throughout the entirety of the game, and that it’s a bit uninspired in certain regards, specifically the designs of the new enemies. Despite that, it’s still overall very satisfying, and an excellent series of levels to end the game with. During interviews for DOOM: The Dark Ages, it was revealed that game would be taking a new approach to gameplay from Eternal, and I honestly think that’s for the best. With both parts of the DLC, it feels like iD has done everything they could within the scope of Eternal’s core game design. TAG 2 ends DOOM Eternal on a high note, I’d even say a higher one than the base game. Despite a couple of hiccups, both parts of The Ancient Gods serve as a core part of and excellent finale to one of my personal favorite and most treasured games of all time.
The Ancient Gods Part One review
Part Two of The Ancient Gods serves as the finale to the story of the modern DOOM games, and it concludes that story in a bombastic fashion that you’d expect from iD Software. In The Ancient Gods Part One, iD pushed the mechanics and scale of DOOM Eternal’s combat even farther than in the base campaign. It introduced by far the hardest levels and combat encounters in the game, which tossed an overwhelming amount of unrelenting and difficult to kill demons at you. This caused it to receive some mixed reception, as a lot of people found Part One to be too difficult. It even got to the point where it was patched to be a little easier. It seems that iD Software took the reception and criticisms of Part One to heart and dialed things back in Part Two. There are still a number of intense combat encounters, but overall, Part Two feels way more tame and easier to handle compared to Part One. While I would say that it’s overall a more consistently enjoyable experience in comparison to Part One, at the same time, I couldn’t shake a slight nagging feeling of regression after playing through it.
The DOOM Slayer has put his plan for eradicating Hell’s demons forever into action. During Part One of The Ancient Gods, he learns that the only way to rid the universe of demons is to summon their master, the Dark Lord, into a physical form, and then kill him. After summoning him, he discovered that the Dark Lord’s physical form was in fact Hell’s version of himself. The Dark Lord tells the Slayer that if he can survive, then he will challenge him to ritual combat in Hell’s city of Immora, before transporting the DOOM Slayer to the planet Argent D’Nur, the world of the Night Sentinels. The stage has been set for the fate of the universe, as the DOOM Slayer sets out to recruit allies to help him lay siege to Hell, so that he can kill the Dark Lord and finally rid the universe of the demons once and for all.
There’s honestly not a whole lot to say about the story, as there’s not much story here. It’s a very straightforward conclusion to modern DOOM’s narrative. I think that the storytelling approach of leaving all of the important worldbuilding context in optional collectibles really comes to bite Eternal in the ass here. By the time we reach the climax, and the finale begins, I am just not super invested beyond the surface level appeal of “aw sick, Doomguy’s gonna whoop major ass”, and I can say that about the entirety of Eternal’s story. In-between my reviews for both parts of The Ancient Gods, DOOM: The Dark Ages, a prequel to the modern DOOM games was announced. The game is supposed to take place during Doomguy’s time with the Night Sentinels that’s written about in the codex entries for DOOM 2016 and Eternal. Depending on how the story in that game goes, maybe it’ll recontextualize things in a way that enhances Eternal’s story and makes the events that happen in it feel a lot more impactful and have a lot more weight. As it stands, unless you did your homework and read all of those codex entries, Eternal’s story as a whole, even with the DLC, is pretty much weightless.
Once again, this DLC comes with another three levels: The World Spear, Reclaimed Earth, and Immora. The final boss is also given its own level titled The Dark Lord, but it just consists of the final boss battle and nothing else. All three levels are really good, I don’t have anything negative to say about any of them. As I mentioned, the overall difficulty for TAG 2 has been reduced from TAG 1. It’s not at all a walk in the park, but the combat arenas for all three levels feel noticeably less intense and don’t throw quite as many demons at you. I never felt the kind of stress I felt during the trials of the Blood Swamps. This isn’t a major criticism of TAG 2, as it is still quite challenging. It just kind of sticks out after playing through the rest of Eternal as well as TAG 1, which both felt like they had a really tight sense of ascending difficulty all the way through it up to this point.
That being said, if you are the type of player that misses that kind of challenge, each level has one combat arena that is triggered by activating a Gore Nest. This Gore Nest gives you an opportunity to engage in an optional second battle in the same combat arena, which is referred to as an Escalation Encounter. This second battle throws a lot more demons at you, and is much harder than any of the combat arenas you’re required to complete. Since I was trying to get through the DLC relatively quickly while still playing through the game’s Nightmare difficulty, I ended up not completing them, but from what I’ve played, they’re absolutely as hard as they sound, and I’d like to come back and clear them when I have more free time.
The World Spear is probably the most visually appealing level in the entire game. Despite the fact that you’re fighting against the forces of Hell, the striking beauty of the bright, colorful and nature-rich environments you traverse through really stand out. There’s a lot of platforming challenges here involving the Super Shotgun’s Meathook, which are really fun and add a lot of freshness to the platforming. It introduces two new enemies: the Armored Barons and the Stone Imps, which are upgraded versions of the Barons of Hell and Imps respectively. The Armored Baron is coated in impenetrable armor and wields a spiked ball and chain. Similar to how you damage the Marauder, you have to wait for it to do a specific attack with the spiked ball and shoot it when it flashes green in order to remove the armor. The armor will regenerate after a short period of time, so you need to do as much damage as you can to it or kill it before the armor fully regenerates. The Stone Imps are… there. They’re just regular Imps whose bodies are encased in stone, and they can perform a charged up rolling attack that looks like a homing attack from Sonic the Hedgehog. Much like how the Spirit in TAG 1 was created in order to give the Microwave Beam mod for the Plasma Rifle an actual use, the Stone Imps were made in order to give the Auto-Fire mod for the Combat Shotgun a use. They can only be damaged by it, and damaging them will cause them to exclusively drop shotgun ammo. You usually face these in swarms, so it's good the devs thought to have them drop the ammo type you need in order to hurt them.
During the World Spear, you acquire the Sentinel Hammer, a new weapon to replace the Crucible, which was lost at the end of Eternal’s base campaign. When used, Doomguy will leap into the air and slam the hammer down, causing a shockwave that stuns all nearby enemies. If you’ve already stunned an enemy or froze them in place with an ice grenade, it will extend the duration that the enemy is incapacitated for. The hammer plays a big role in making TAG 2 feel easier than its predecessor. After using the hammer, you need to recharge it by glory killing enemies, which is fairly easy to do since there are plenty of fodder enemies you can exploit to charge the hammer over and over again.
Reclaimed Earth is another decent level, though I did find myself getting turned around a couple of times in it. The level is generally bright green, which caused me to miss certain switches I needed to activate or waypoints I was supposed to follow, both of which are also green and blend in with the environment. It honestly felt like the hardest of the three levels. Towards the end, there were a couple of combat encounters that I was really struggling with. Two more new enemy types are introduced here: the Cursed Prowler and the Riot Soldiers. The Cursed Prowler is a Prowler that, upon landing one of its attacks, will place a curse on you. This curse removes your ability to dash or jump and causes your health to slowly drain. Whenever the Cursed Prowler appears during a combat arena, it will let out a unique screech letting you know that it’s there. Once it shows up, as long as you’re looking out for it, it’s pretty easy to kill it before it can curse you. If it does curse you, you have to chase it down and kill it with a Blood Punch. It’s a little annoying, but I never had too hard of a time dealing with it. The Riot Soldiers are honestly pretty forgettable. They’re exactly like the Zombie Soldiers that carry shields, only their shields block all attacks, and you have to attack them from behind with something like a rocket or grenade in order to damage them. They don’t really show up very often though, which kind of leads me to question their inclusion altogether.
Immora is the final level of the game, and it’s surprisingly shorter than you’d expect. Compared to pretty much every other level in the entire game, Immora feels noticeably brisk. It does have some pretty intense combat encounters, but as a whole, I feel like they were easier than the last couple of encounters in Reclaimed Earth. It’s still extremely fun despite that though. It does kind of introduce one more new enemy type called the Demonic Troopers, which are literally just dudes in armor that shoot lasers. I feel like they’re an enemy type that was originally meant to be more fleshed out, but the devs’ original plans for them were scrapped and they were just left in the game as is. They’re a fodder type enemy that for some reason can’t be glory killed or chainsawed, but otherwise do very little damage. Immora is followed up with the final boss fight against the Dark Lord. I don’t really want to spoil it, so all I’ll say is that the fight itself is engaging, but it’s also uninspired.
Once again each level looks jaw droppingly gorgeous, to the point where it makes me a little sad that DOOM: The Dark Ages will be going with a brand new artstyle. The World Spear and Reclaimed Earth in particular look very bright and colorful, which is in stark contrast to a majority of the other levels in the game. I think this was done not just for the sake of visual variety, but to demonstrate that the demons are falling back and losing their grip on the universe. It also symbolizes the hope that Doomguy is bringing to the people inhabiting the two different worlds that he once called home. Andrew Hulshult had absolutely no misses with TAG 2’s soundtrack. All of the music throughout it is heavy and headbang inducing. I loved his work here, and I’m so excited to hear more from him when The Dark Ages drops.
With the conclusion of The Ancient Gods Part Two, modern DOOM has reached the end of its story. The only real criticisms I have towards it is that the ending suffers from the storytelling method that’s used throughout the entirety of the game, and that it’s a bit uninspired in certain regards, specifically the designs of the new enemies. Despite that, it’s still overall very satisfying, and an excellent series of levels to end the game with. During interviews for DOOM: The Dark Ages, it was revealed that game would be taking a new approach to gameplay from Eternal, and I honestly think that’s for the best. With both parts of the DLC, it feels like iD has done everything they could within the scope of Eternal’s core game design. TAG 2 ends DOOM Eternal on a high note, I’d even say a higher one than the base game. Despite a couple of hiccups, both parts of The Ancient Gods serve as a core part of and excellent finale to one of my personal favorite and most treasured games of all time.