I was waiting on DOOM Eternal.
DOOM (2016) was a game I had greatly enjoyed. The game was a refreshing AAA experience: Meaty gameplay that threw out any convention of reality, a story that didn't need to be engaged with and didn't really care. The player could engage with the game on their own level of interest. In other words, the designers didn't want to take control away from you. Doom (2016) was pure, distilled video game in a sea of movie imitators, and it was refreshing to see.
Yet, I couldn't put into words why the game never deeply resonated with me past that playthrough.
Never mind that, Doom Eternal was announced! I was absolutely ecstatic to get my hands on it! In the marketing, the lead director Hugo Martin mentioned how the enemies were like a chess game, encounters more akin to combat puzzles than just shooting galleries. Each enemy have their strengths and weaknesses, the player having to juggle these pieces with their tool kit in order to come out on top. This aspect sounded more reminiscent of Halo, a series I adored. Needless to say, I was jonesing for the game now.
Around this time, Covid hit, followed by Animal Crossing: New Horizons coming out the same day as Doom Eternal. Animal Crossing was one of my favorites growing up, so my priorities shifted. I made a conscious decision that any semblance of comfort came first during such dark times. I did eventually pick up Doom Eternal, but despite that intial excitement back in 2020, I never felt a massive drive to playthrough it.
Not that I necessarily could — my shitty dilapidated laptop with it's built-in monitor dangling by the most durable exposed wire in the history of the world couldn't handle it — but I also never felt like I absolutely had to. Again, I didn't know why.
This all changed with my newly built computer, where I finally decided to crack open Doom Eternal and seek out all it's insides.
But what I found instead was ugly.
Disappointment.
I never like being overtly negative with games. I purposely make this clear when I have to be. When I was younger, I wore that jaded, teenage ball of angst and negativity on my sleeve. I perform a different song and dance now. I want to love and enjoy every game I play. When I criticize how a game functions, I'm doing so with pure love and thoughtfulness into what could be done better, because that potential is always there. It's never to dismiss ideas outright completely, but to instead improve upon those ideas.
With Doom Eternal, the idea to create a system of combat puzzles sounds great on paper. In fact, this could still work if you stripped back and refined it. The execution though falls flat to me.
Why? Because Doom Eternal is overly complicated.
I feel like I'm a clown who's juggling too much at once. I'm constantly on the offensive trying to quickly slash the throats of as many demons as I can to maintain my health. I have to wait 3 seconds to have the glory kill animation play out, of which I'll be seeing another one within 5-30 seconds from now. Stop and start, stop and start, on repeat, ad nauseum.
I also have to remember the enemy weak points to efficiently take them down piece by piece, dodging and weaving bullets or whatever magical bullshit they send my way. There's a large number of enemies to deal with here, and each of them need to be taken care of with slightly different approaches. Put them all together in a combat gauntlet and it becomes overwhelming.
I also need to set them on fire to increase my own armor, which means I need to use the flame belch. If I run out of ammo during all of this, (which happens incredibly frequently), I then need to focus on finding a weaker enemy to refill my ammo, yet another 3 second cutscene where I need to stop and start. The flow becomes hindered by the constant need to refill on ammo, breaking me out of my flow state, never sated with enough ammo to ever keep me afloat.
I should be using grenades more, but I'm so busy dealing with all these other aspects being thrown at me that my brain forgets the lonely control key located at the bottom of my keyboard.
Then, as you progress through the game, you gain yet ANOTHER button to press with the sword, instantly killing any enemy in your way.
Then there are the runes to collect and upgrade, the weapons to get new modifications for and upgrade, of which then have specific challenges to unlock a major ability within and—
It's just all so draining. My clown shoes can't handle it, it makes my feet hurt.
Not to say that the combat itself isn't fun — it's Doom (2016) with a new arsenal of blood paint to splatter on walls — it's just that these systems become overbearing and overtly complicate a relatively simple concept. The ideas here are good, but all of them in conjunction make the core game feel bloated.
This is also exacerbated by the regression of the design philosophy found in Doom (2016). There's a greater emphasis on story here than 2016's title, and with that comes an emphasis of forcing the player to wait. Part of what I loved about the 2016 title was that there was a story, and I just didn't care. Rarely did the story stop the flow of gameplay for me to care, and when they did carefully place me in a room to spoonfeed me story, I ran around the room like a fucking hyperactive cat with zoomies. There was a comedy there that only could be made with that level of agency that I played into, which was in part both freeing for me, the player, and spoke to just what Doom as a series is. It's video game-y coolness packaged with the absolute sheer stupidity that can only be done if you don't give a shit about any true semblance of a deep and compelling narrative.
That comedy of the Doom Guy not giving a shit is still present, but everyone around him explains in great, excruciatingly slow detail the events of the story and how the Doom Guy is a God amongst men, and how cool and strong he is. It's tongue-in-cheek, yes, but the game sets you up to expect that the story is important by consistently having cutscenes, but in reality, it's all kind of worthless and self fellating. Granted, I began to skip cutscenes very early on, so I don't really know the extent of the story, but I'd attempt to stop myself every once in a while to see how they'd play out. Each time I was met with nothing of interest.
More to the point, I'm not sure even why the effort was placed here. While I'm fond of stories in games, Doom just isn't the series to put any resemblance of focus on such things. And really, seriously, why should it? What need is there for Doom lore? Why do I need to have lore collectibles in a Doom game?
The quote from John Carmack about how "video game stories are a lot like the plot to porn: it's expected but not important" isn't necessarily applicable to all modern day video games: sometimes great lore or a great story can be the selling point of a game to me. It IS applicable to DOOM though because it's DNA is the very embodiment of that quote. DOOM is pure, unfiltered video game, and to make it anything other than that makes DOOM as a franchise LESSER as a result. The developers knew this with their first crack at a Doom title, so why did that change here? My best guess would be that over correcting criticisms from the prequel may be the culprit here, but I genuinely do not know.
This would be more forgiving to me if the game didn't stop and start so frequently. This was a problem in nu-Doom's design due to the frequency of ripping and tearing enemies for health and ammo, but I personally didn't find this all too troubling. But add on top more places where you're required to stop in place, and I'm on those detractors sides. Every area in this game is interspersed with cutscenes to showcase changes in the environment, cutscenes to insert batteries, cutscenes for secret pick ups, cutscenes for elevators, cutscenes for fucking everything. You wait for what feels like an eternity, and I'm a fairly patient person.
By the time I reached 8 hours in, I felt like I was done with Doom Eternal. The saving graces of the sometimes fun gameplay, Mick Gordon's amazing adaptive score that he went through absolute hell to make, and the pretty visuals of hell weren't enough help. I felt like I was done, but I figured that I should still see Doom Eternal to the end.
But it just wouldn't end.
Doom was eternal, and my hell lasted another 11 hours. Granted, I should have expected this, given MF nu-DOOM's 14 hour campaign. I had forgotten these feelings, but by the time I had reached the 10 hour mark in Doom (2016), I was beginning to become fatigued from the endless slaughter. The game was stretched out as far as it could go, and I had become bored by it. Eternal then took this feat as a challenge, and managed to extend it's playtime by yet another 4 hours.
By the time the credits started rolling, I was relived. The trek to get here, the challenging but overly complicated gameplay, the final bosses, everything, was just a slog.
But the credits reminded me, as all these developer faces rolled on by, that Doom Eternal was made by real, passionate people, who really wanted to put together a great game, but put up with a hellish work environment. Everyone here tried, and it's genuinely such a worthy amount of praise to say that it's amazing this game even released given it's development.
I didn't really like Doom Eternal, (as if that wasn't clear), but I don't want to hate on it. Passion lies here from good developers that gave their everything for a fun product. This just wasn't for me. I have the unique perspective as someone who hasn't truly played anything Doom related until this very year to say that Doom Eternal feels like a falter from what made Doom as a video game series such a force of nature. Doom is a mixture of simplicity and high levels of mastery that's difficult to come by. It invented the wheel, and it's difficult to improve on what works so well. To add onto Doom is a gargantuan task, but it's a balancing act that these developers had made in the past. This was a mistep from my assessment. I know this team can refine their over correction from here.
In the meantime, I will be patiently waiting for them to give Doom another chance with a more simplistic, refined direction. But the wait will feel... well, you know.
DOOM (2016) was a game I had greatly enjoyed. The game was a refreshing AAA experience: Meaty gameplay that threw out any convention of reality, a story that didn't need to be engaged with and didn't really care. The player could engage with the game on their own level of interest. In other words, the designers didn't want to take control away from you. Doom (2016) was pure, distilled video game in a sea of movie imitators, and it was refreshing to see.
Yet, I couldn't put into words why the game never deeply resonated with me past that playthrough.
Never mind that, Doom Eternal was announced! I was absolutely ecstatic to get my hands on it! In the marketing, the lead director Hugo Martin mentioned how the enemies were like a chess game, encounters more akin to combat puzzles than just shooting galleries. Each enemy have their strengths and weaknesses, the player having to juggle these pieces with their tool kit in order to come out on top. This aspect sounded more reminiscent of Halo, a series I adored. Needless to say, I was jonesing for the game now.
Around this time, Covid hit, followed by Animal Crossing: New Horizons coming out the same day as Doom Eternal. Animal Crossing was one of my favorites growing up, so my priorities shifted. I made a conscious decision that any semblance of comfort came first during such dark times. I did eventually pick up Doom Eternal, but despite that intial excitement back in 2020, I never felt a massive drive to playthrough it.
Not that I necessarily could — my shitty dilapidated laptop with it's built-in monitor dangling by the most durable exposed wire in the history of the world couldn't handle it — but I also never felt like I absolutely had to. Again, I didn't know why.
This all changed with my newly built computer, where I finally decided to crack open Doom Eternal and seek out all it's insides.
But what I found instead was ugly.
Disappointment.
I never like being overtly negative with games. I purposely make this clear when I have to be. When I was younger, I wore that jaded, teenage ball of angst and negativity on my sleeve. I perform a different song and dance now. I want to love and enjoy every game I play. When I criticize how a game functions, I'm doing so with pure love and thoughtfulness into what could be done better, because that potential is always there. It's never to dismiss ideas outright completely, but to instead improve upon those ideas.
With Doom Eternal, the idea to create a system of combat puzzles sounds great on paper. In fact, this could still work if you stripped back and refined it. The execution though falls flat to me.
Why? Because Doom Eternal is overly complicated.
I feel like I'm a clown who's juggling too much at once. I'm constantly on the offensive trying to quickly slash the throats of as many demons as I can to maintain my health. I have to wait 3 seconds to have the glory kill animation play out, of which I'll be seeing another one within 5-30 seconds from now. Stop and start, stop and start, on repeat, ad nauseum.
I also have to remember the enemy weak points to efficiently take them down piece by piece, dodging and weaving bullets or whatever magical bullshit they send my way. There's a large number of enemies to deal with here, and each of them need to be taken care of with slightly different approaches. Put them all together in a combat gauntlet and it becomes overwhelming.
I also need to set them on fire to increase my own armor, which means I need to use the flame belch. If I run out of ammo during all of this, (which happens incredibly frequently), I then need to focus on finding a weaker enemy to refill my ammo, yet another 3 second cutscene where I need to stop and start. The flow becomes hindered by the constant need to refill on ammo, breaking me out of my flow state, never sated with enough ammo to ever keep me afloat.
I should be using grenades more, but I'm so busy dealing with all these other aspects being thrown at me that my brain forgets the lonely control key located at the bottom of my keyboard.
Then, as you progress through the game, you gain yet ANOTHER button to press with the sword, instantly killing any enemy in your way.
Then there are the runes to collect and upgrade, the weapons to get new modifications for and upgrade, of which then have specific challenges to unlock a major ability within and—
It's just all so draining. My clown shoes can't handle it, it makes my feet hurt.
Not to say that the combat itself isn't fun — it's Doom (2016) with a new arsenal of blood paint to splatter on walls — it's just that these systems become overbearing and overtly complicate a relatively simple concept. The ideas here are good, but all of them in conjunction make the core game feel bloated.
This is also exacerbated by the regression of the design philosophy found in Doom (2016). There's a greater emphasis on story here than 2016's title, and with that comes an emphasis of forcing the player to wait. Part of what I loved about the 2016 title was that there was a story, and I just didn't care. Rarely did the story stop the flow of gameplay for me to care, and when they did carefully place me in a room to spoonfeed me story, I ran around the room like a fucking hyperactive cat with zoomies. There was a comedy there that only could be made with that level of agency that I played into, which was in part both freeing for me, the player, and spoke to just what Doom as a series is. It's video game-y coolness packaged with the absolute sheer stupidity that can only be done if you don't give a shit about any true semblance of a deep and compelling narrative.
That comedy of the Doom Guy not giving a shit is still present, but everyone around him explains in great, excruciatingly slow detail the events of the story and how the Doom Guy is a God amongst men, and how cool and strong he is. It's tongue-in-cheek, yes, but the game sets you up to expect that the story is important by consistently having cutscenes, but in reality, it's all kind of worthless and self fellating. Granted, I began to skip cutscenes very early on, so I don't really know the extent of the story, but I'd attempt to stop myself every once in a while to see how they'd play out. Each time I was met with nothing of interest.
More to the point, I'm not sure even why the effort was placed here. While I'm fond of stories in games, Doom just isn't the series to put any resemblance of focus on such things. And really, seriously, why should it? What need is there for Doom lore? Why do I need to have lore collectibles in a Doom game?
The quote from John Carmack about how "video game stories are a lot like the plot to porn: it's expected but not important" isn't necessarily applicable to all modern day video games: sometimes great lore or a great story can be the selling point of a game to me. It IS applicable to DOOM though because it's DNA is the very embodiment of that quote. DOOM is pure, unfiltered video game, and to make it anything other than that makes DOOM as a franchise LESSER as a result. The developers knew this with their first crack at a Doom title, so why did that change here? My best guess would be that over correcting criticisms from the prequel may be the culprit here, but I genuinely do not know.
This would be more forgiving to me if the game didn't stop and start so frequently. This was a problem in nu-Doom's design due to the frequency of ripping and tearing enemies for health and ammo, but I personally didn't find this all too troubling. But add on top more places where you're required to stop in place, and I'm on those detractors sides. Every area in this game is interspersed with cutscenes to showcase changes in the environment, cutscenes to insert batteries, cutscenes for secret pick ups, cutscenes for elevators, cutscenes for fucking everything. You wait for what feels like an eternity, and I'm a fairly patient person.
By the time I reached 8 hours in, I felt like I was done with Doom Eternal. The saving graces of the sometimes fun gameplay, Mick Gordon's amazing adaptive score that he went through absolute hell to make, and the pretty visuals of hell weren't enough help. I felt like I was done, but I figured that I should still see Doom Eternal to the end.
But it just wouldn't end.
Doom was eternal, and my hell lasted another 11 hours. Granted, I should have expected this, given MF nu-DOOM's 14 hour campaign. I had forgotten these feelings, but by the time I had reached the 10 hour mark in Doom (2016), I was beginning to become fatigued from the endless slaughter. The game was stretched out as far as it could go, and I had become bored by it. Eternal then took this feat as a challenge, and managed to extend it's playtime by yet another 4 hours.
By the time the credits started rolling, I was relived. The trek to get here, the challenging but overly complicated gameplay, the final bosses, everything, was just a slog.
But the credits reminded me, as all these developer faces rolled on by, that Doom Eternal was made by real, passionate people, who really wanted to put together a great game, but put up with a hellish work environment. Everyone here tried, and it's genuinely such a worthy amount of praise to say that it's amazing this game even released given it's development.
I didn't really like Doom Eternal, (as if that wasn't clear), but I don't want to hate on it. Passion lies here from good developers that gave their everything for a fun product. This just wasn't for me. I have the unique perspective as someone who hasn't truly played anything Doom related until this very year to say that Doom Eternal feels like a falter from what made Doom as a video game series such a force of nature. Doom is a mixture of simplicity and high levels of mastery that's difficult to come by. It invented the wheel, and it's difficult to improve on what works so well. To add onto Doom is a gargantuan task, but it's a balancing act that these developers had made in the past. This was a mistep from my assessment. I know this team can refine their over correction from here.
In the meantime, I will be patiently waiting for them to give Doom another chance with a more simplistic, refined direction. But the wait will feel... well, you know.