DOOM Eternal (PC) Review

The game boots up. The title screen appears. Man-tears start rolling. The dark, ominous theme playing, while nothing but the logo is in view, is an excellent remaster of an iconic tune from the past. This perfectly captures how DOOM Eternal is an amalgamation of 1994’s Doom II: Hell on Earth, and 2016’s DOOM; a modern shooter, with old-school sensibilities, and a pretty high respect to its source material. These even share the same concept. Hell is indeed on earth, and “against all the evil that it can conjure, and all the wickedness that mankind can produce,” stands the myth that is the Slayer. You.

When the silent protagonist of the previous instalment got out of his bed/tomb/cage to confront all those who were “rage, brutal, and without mercy,” many witnessed an intro that was nothing sort of a masterpiece. In little over five minutes, the player gets a taste of things to come, is given a purpose, and is indirectly told that this cool person that has just smashed the tutorial screen, killed a bunch of demons like it was nothing, and finished his morning routine by cocking his shotgun at the sound of some fine metal music, is badass beyond imagination. How the literal hell can this be topped?

DOOM’s opener remains the better and more memorable one, but second place isn’t exactly very far in this case. A half-shattered Moon; the Earth marked by the devilish sigils of the invaders; people can be heard screaming, crying for someone to help them. The Slayer watches the ongoing apocalypse from atop his flying fortress. He grabs his tools, puts on his helmet, and joins in on the fun. This whole thing has a strong, messianic aura, making you feel that you are indeed the only thing the demons fear, immersing you into the role of the saviour of humanity - just one that carries a shotgun rather than a message of peace and hope.

It all begins, and you feel right at home, as it plays like before, with the idea of ‘push-forward combat’ being at the forefront and then some. The weird thing? Everything is the same... yet somehow vastly different. Demons have become very aggressive, are significantly faster, and attack in larger, more diverse packs. More importantly, health, armour points, and especially bullets, disappear in mere seconds, and you can’t find much of these lying around anymore. Inferno’s minions are now your resources, and they can put up quite the fight. Luckily, Praetor Suit v2.0 is here to take care of that.

Need health? Stagger foes by doing a certain amount of damage, then use your shiny new Doomblade to Glory Kill them, and there you go. Need ammo? Cut one with a swing of the chainsaw, and they’ll spill lots of it for you to collect. Need armour? Put those unlucky, mortally challenged critters to fire with your shoulder-mounted Flame Belch, and they will bleed green shards. A Swiss army knife, right? Oh, you have no idea! Indeed, the Slayer can pull off all sorts of new tricks, yet what truly separates this (doom)guy from his past iterations is that this time his weapons also act as tools.

The super shotgun isn’t just a slower, and more powerful version of the single-barrelled combat shotgun. There’s a meat hook attached to it, which can pull you close to your enemy in an instant or propel you to higher ground. Found a soldier with an energy shield? Detonate his undead behinds by overheating it with the plasma rifle. The battlefield forces you to think much more strategically than before, constantly swapping between weapons and shooting modes and while always on the move. Players need to view each encounter as a puzzle, and not simply as a chance to pull the trigger. Each and every move is an important decision.

This isn’t an expansion, but an evolution that almost renders DOOM obsolete, at least in terms of gameplay mechanics. The latter remains an exceptional title, a classic in its own rights, but compared to this it is “just” a shooter. DOOM Eternal is something else entirely. Combat here is an art form. And it’s hard! Those who never felt challenged by ‘Hurt Me Plenty,’ (Normal difficulty mode, for those not versed in satanic lingo), will realise that demons really want to kill you this time, which is why, apart from having tons of abilities, one can also find extra lives hidden all around, as these resurrect the Slayer on the spot, and don’t send him back to a checkpoint.

From ranged to melee attackers, monsters tend to overwhelm the protagonist very quickly, without ever giving him much of a breathing room to react. It should also be noted that projectiles are no longer aimed only where you are, but are sprayed around, or are thrown where the enemy thinks you’ll step next. In other words, don’t expect to survive simply by circle-strafing around danger. Here’s the deal, though: while the increased difficulty is actually a very good thing, DOOM Eternal’s chaos can occasionally become… well, a bit too chaotic.

The frenetic pace of DOOM has been turned to 11, and the constant carnage will feel a bit too intense for some. Imagine a massive Hell Knight coming towards you. Previously, the beast’s momentum was impressive, but you had enough time to remain at a safe distance from it. Here these won’t let the hero breathe for a second - and they are never alone. In other words, forget previous entries where you could simply pick your favourite weapon and start blasting. This isn’t about being good with aiming and shooting any more. It’s a different type of FPS altogether.

Constantly checking five directions at once can be draining. It’s crucial to understand that this is all by design, though. This is a power fantasy that must be earned. Moreover, this includes gives all the things needed to succeed - so use them marine!!! You spits fire, lobs grenades, as well as freezing ice bombs; Glory Kills power the heavy-hitting Blood Punch which does insane AoE damage; there’s a demonic lightsaber that can hack the largest monstrosities in half, and, finally, you can dash or double dash away from harm. Long story short, you’re gonna eat lightin’ and you’re gonna crap thunder! You are Predator, Adeptus Astartes, Robocop, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion! It’s a testosterone-induced, nerdy wet dream.

Apart from the shambling piñatas (aka zombies), from pests such as imps, and possessed soldiers, to stronger beasts like the flying Cacodemons, or the armoured freight trains that are the Pinkies, each foe has a particular use in the battlefield. Additionally, battles revolve much more around weaknesses than before. Take the Arachnotron, for example, one of the many blasts from the past. These cyber-spiders turn out to be surprisingly fast, despite being part of the usually slower, heavy cavalry. One can fill it with lead (or plasma) to bring it down, but it’s even better to use the Combat Shotgun’s Sticky Bomb mod and blow its powerful turret to smithereens. Almost all demons have a tender spot, and the weapon mods available are there to help with that to turn the tides of war to your favour.

As a means to decrease the challenge, as well as spice things up a bit, this retains and expands on DOOM’s upgrade structure, to the dismay of those who didn’t want such a system in a DOOM game. On one hand, this critic has always been amongst those who had mixed feelings about that. On the other one, however, one still needs to get good, and not just depend on boosts alone - and to be frank, it is kind of fun to modify your personal hell-razing machine, especially since this isn’t tied to gathering XP. You need to work for your extra perks and abilities, by finding secrets, completing challenges… and taking care of your orbiting base.

The Fortress is basically the Slayer’s man cave. Yup, you’ve read that correctly. He now has a man cave, complete with a gaming rig and chair, a bookcase, heavy metal posters that play older DOOM tunes, and shelves where he places the toy figurines he collects between massacring hellspawn. Some may see this as an unnecessary and even cheesy inclusion; nothing but a glorified, level select screen that ruins the mood. After all, why break the pace of such a wild ride? Well, because you don’t want to break it during a mission, that’s why. You need some place to relax, handle upgrades, and read all the lore you’ve found.

As was promised, what you interfere with now is bigger than you can imagine. This release marks the beginning of the DOOM universe, and as such, has an impressive amount of info about… well, everything, as it even explains the reason behind the demonic invasion. Is the plot any good? Well, it is good, but it puts a lot of emphasis in explaining things, mars the mysterious aspect of past instalments, and kind of ruins the perfection that was the story of 2016’s DOOM, which avoided saying more than it needed, and kept its darker tone in check, while this ends up having the bloated vibe of a superhero comic. A fun one, but it won’t please those who wanted something more grounded and “conservative” on its approach.

Story, shmory, though, right? The plot is just a side dish, as the main one is still the whole killing-everything-that-isn’t-you thingy, and thankfully, despite the aforementioned “issue” of the craziness that ensues on screen, the action is awesome. The controls have reached absolute perfection, the speed of almost all moves has been increased, and everything has been heavily streamlined, wiping out what has been deemed unnecessary, like how the chainsaw is now a one-button rechargeable ability instead of a weapon, or how the pistol has finally disappeared from the main arsenal altogether.

This isn’t only about ruining Satan’s work (or whoever is running things). Although still far from the labyrinthine levels of the originals, this will please those who want a little bit of exploration served right next to the action, with many secrets to discover left and right - and up and down. The platforming segments have seen an improvement too, mainly because, aside from double-jumping, you can also dash around, scale certain walls, and even use some parts of the scenery like monkey bars. This doesn’t avoid 2016’s flaw of the world being nothing more than a collection of arenas. On the bright side, maps are now much, much larger, and in all honesty, quite stunning.

The same way DOOM 3 tried to be as realistic as it could be, DOOM Eternal embraces the more “game-y” aspects of the franchise, with the art style and the scale of it all being far more exaggerated. Hellish citadels overflowing with pillars of energy; decrepit, fantasy acropolises with gargantuan iron gates; ridiculously enormous structures that float in the air; alien landscapes high up in the sky, with lighting constantly striking in the distance. Oh, and the superb, speaker-blaster by the name of Mick Gordon has returned, with what is possibly his best work yet. Can this be any more metal?!

The same care that has been given to the world is also evident in the denizens of the combat zone as well. Every single enemy has an insane level of detail, and fantastic animation, and now the damage inflicted on them affects their appearance, as they progressively lose parts of their flesh, or outer shell. It’s no surprise that this is twice as violent from its older brother, but it’s so over the top that players are more likely to smile than wince at the sight of the Slayer… err, slaying demons in all sorts of imaginative ways. The rain of gore in here is cartoony - it’s horror for the whole family.

If all this sounds thrilling, wait till you see it run. idTech 7 is simply out of this world. Everything runs incredibly smooth, without a single frame lost from all this madness, and with the GPU never really having a hard time rendering this beauty, even when the settings are actually higher than what they should be based on your system. As for the loading times - God! Bethesda should cut a really big check to the tech guys and gals at id Software. Excellent programming and optimization should always be applauded, and, even better, rewarded. This developer really cared about its creation.

Apart from a stunning piece of work, this is also a complete package that is worth every penny, as players can spend hundreds of hours on it, whether by speed-running, doing completionist runs, trying out the extra challenges, torturing themselves with the Ultra-Nightmare difficulty mode, or checking out the - currently light on content - multiplayer aspect, and especially Battlemode, where you get to play 1-versus-2 matches against player-controlled demons. The main thing is so darn entertaining, however, that even without all the extra things that can be experienced here, it’s a must have for all fans of FPS and even action games in general.

Before wrapping up, it’s important to clear any misunderstandings. Look really hard, and you’ll definitely find some flaws, like how, in an attempt to solve DOOM’s repetitiveness, this throws everything but the kitchen sink at you, but does so in a hurry and at the cost of presentation, as the return of some iconic monsters has been handled in an unimpressive, just-another-demon manner, whereas DOOM, and especially DOOM 3, would slowly unveil their nasties. These are all just nitpicks, however. Let no one say DOOM Eternal is bad. This is an exceptional FPS; truly one of the best ever made - but, make no mistake, it’s not for everyone.

The key aspect in here is the aforementioned pandemonium that is the battlefield. Let it be said once more: this can be too intense at times, and that’s something that can stand in the way of one’s fun if approached in the wrong way. Those who’ll persevere and ‘git good,’ will be rewarded with the feeling of being one of the greatest, and most brutal action heroes in the history of the medium. So, in conclusion, what matters the most isn’t if this is amazing or not (spoiler alert: it is), but who should actually play it. If you want to experience the most extreme, and finely polished first-person shooter of 2020, and probably of the last decade, our advice is simple: Rip and Tear… because it will never be done!