March 26th, 2020
Have you ever had that problem where every introduction you write to something sounds like the conclusion to your essay instead? I’ve written three openings for this review and they all sound like I’m reaching a final declaration before the review even starts. Maybe it’s because DOOM Eternal‘s changes from DOOM and my gripes about them could be written on a postcard, or maybe it’s because I’ve never been any good at introductions or conclusions to begin with. Either way, please enjoy this meaningless paragraph as we head into my review of DOOM Eternal.
One of the things that DOOM did so well was having a story while rarely letting the story get in your way. It had the Mass Effect Codex for those that wanted to dig deeper and the Bioshock “past event ghosts” to give players minute details about what was going on around them, but it also set the tone by famously throwing the “mission introduction” screen aside and stuck to that attitude during most of the game. Eternal, on the other hand, can’t stop bombarding you with cutscenes (many in third person) while ALSO having a two hundred page Codex that not only gives you lore on every enemy but also the entire history of the warrior race that the Doom Slayer (who is actually just Doomguy but with alien warrior training and augments, what a twist!) unwillingly joined.
The worst part about these cutscenes is it introduces the same problem the detailed “story driven” cutscenes did in Hitman Absolution: it makes our main character look like an idiot while also undermining the fantasy of playing the games. Hitman Absolution received notoriety for at least one major instance where you pull off a hit flawlessly but then fail during a cutscene so that the game can keep going, and Eternal does the same. The Slayer needs to kill three priests to save Earth, but after walking up to and ruthlessly executing the first one he then takes his sweet time letting the other two give a villain speech and then teleport away. Where’s the ruthlessness? Where’s the RIP AND TEAR? Why would the Slayer ever care what demon priests have to say? Well the game tells you why, because it’s personal. That’s right, god forbid that our motives just be “demons bad, kill demons,” instead we need the Slayer to be emotionally invested in kill these specific enemies due to slights against him and his adopted warrior brotherhood, as covered in the Codex.
As a fan of nuDOOM I may be in the minority here but I preferred the Doom Slayer as just a force of nature that was set loose upon the demons. I didn’t need a “oh these people screwed you over decades ago” plot to get me invested, but for some reason the embodiment of destroying demons on sight not only needs EXTRA motivation but also DOESN’T kill all of these jerks on sight. On top of that the game tries to have its cake and eat it too by making a big “press R to skip” button in the corner of every cutscene AND have the Slayer rock his “screw the rules, I hate demons” personality while also somehow acknowledging and following along with an alien warrior culture. You can’t have a cutscene where the Slayer bows in respect to the ghost of a dead alien king AND ignores him within the span of a minute. Pick a damn lane.
DOOM Eternal‘s environmental design also tries to have things both ways with stunning art direction that hides a very linear experience. 2016’s DOOM was also “linear” in that you could only travel from one side of Mars to another, but at least the maps themselves felt relatively open with lots of huge areas and side paths which you didn’t need to take but did anyway to find collectibles and the like. Eternal‘s maps are essentially just a straight line from one side of your screen to another with the exception of maybe two levels, which makes it easy to get collectibles (which are of a much higher quality now) but makes the world feel less realized. However I will repeat that the art design is great if you’re into it, with everything from huge robots and space ships to pretty sky boxes and stained glass windows.
I’m going to complain about the gameplay for a minute now but before I do I want to drive one point home: it’s still pretty fun to play. If I sit down and actually think about it I can convince myself that it’s less fun than 2016’s DOOM but that’s specifically because of one enemy that I’ll get into later, so just remember that I think the gameplay is fun. Got it? Good.
When it comes to the gameplay, Eternal sometimes feels more like you’re spinning ten plates at once rather than playing a game about being a killing machine. The previous game was relatively straight forward where all you had to balance was your ammo and maybe one cooldown, but Eternal takes it to eleven with a flamethrower and two types of grenades, all on their own unique cooldowns with their own situational benefits. PLUS you get three super weapons that you have to juggle the whens and ifs of using them. PLUS you get a super punch that initially only charges up when you glory kill demons but can instant kill lesser demons in one hit. PLUS many demons have weaknesses now that you need to consider as you fight, constantly leading to you questioning your own tactics. Sure, you COULD use your rocket launcher on the big flying demons across the map but they’re also weak to a grenade in the mouth, so if you get the chance you could just do that BUT then your grenade might be on cooldown and you’ll miss your chance to rock a chain explosion across a group of lesser demons, BUT you’ve taken a lot of damage already in the fight so you probably want those lesser demons alive so you can burn them with your flamethrower to get more armor, BUT you’re also running low on health so instead of burning them you should just shoot them once to stagger them and glory kill them instead, BUT….
It goes like that for a while, and it raises the skill floor and ceiling substantially. Perhaps it was because of this that DOOM Eternal has added an “extra life” mechanic, where you can die and instantly respawn with full health. It slightly fits into the Slayer’s in-universe role as an undying killing machine but it’s also a little disheartening to end up losing two or three extra lives in one fight because you get stuck in a corner. Lives also don’t recover from checkpoints, so if you try to load a past checkpoint you’ll have lost all your lives besides, double punishing you for difficult sections. I’m not criticizing the game for being hard, after all I’m all for a nice hard game, but I think most of the difficulty just comes from wrapping your head around keeping track of all the cooldowns and options at your disposal. When you’re playing a game that’s all about constant movement it’s hard to find a moment to glance at the various parts of the UI just to be sure your ice grenade hasn’t come off cooldown yet, but this also means that you’ll be able to chew through even more demons once you’ve mastered the timing of all these abilities.
That is until you get to this jackass. This is the Marauder, who you may recognize from the game’s trailers and may have thought he was going to be a main villain, but instead he’s just a mini-boss that turns into a regular enemy after the first encounter. And he’s also a huge bitch. He’ll block every attack you throw at him with an energy shield (except for allegedly shooting at his feet or using remote explosives but I haven’t bothered to try that) and can only be hurt if he attacks you while his eyes glow green, which only happens when you’re standing at “medium” range. This isn’t to say that he’s hard, though one could charitably call his immunity to the BFG “obnoxious,” it’s just that the strategy for beating him is just so boring: stand still until he attacks and then blast him twice with either the Super Shotgun or the Ballista. Repeat 3-5 times and he’s dead.
DOOM, I might remind you, is a game series about constant movement. Stand still and die is the message we’re beaten over the head with, a message I learned in DOOM 2016’s first real fight and one that everyone playing this for the first time will learn in very short order. But suddenly we have this enemy where standing still is the most straightforward strategy, and the whole momentum of the game grinds to a halt. All your monitoring of cooldowns, all your positioning and jumping and glory kill chains are for nothing as you wait for this loser to drop his goddamn shield so you can chump him twice in the face. The Marauder just flat out isn’t fun to fight, and it’s even funnier that there is a shield-based boss fight later that’s the RIGHT way to do this sort of enemy, so it’s clear the capacity to make good design decisions was there.
Visually the game still looks great, as I said before. Environments, art in the Codex, and the glory kills are all still brilliant, and I especially like the updates to the gore and damage to enemy models. While you can’t blow enemy body parts off like you can in the remake of Resident Evil 2 it’s still very cool in DOOM Eternal to unload your shotgun into a demon’s chest and see chunks get blown off them. I also really like how the game really seems to work for its players, with neat features like cheat codes not preventing progress on 90% of the game’s challenges and unlockable skins such as a re-imagining of the classic Doomguy skin and 2016’s Praetor armor. There’s also unlockable music as well that you can play in your Fortress of Doom while you’re wandering around, but I never spent enough time there to really care.
The question that has haunted game developers for decades is front and center in DOOM Eternal: “How much should a sequel expand on what came before?” No changes at all and you’re accused of cashing in with minimal effort, and too many changes alienate your fan base. We’ve seen this go both directions with games such as the Arkham series, where Arkham City was essentially identical gameplay but with a bigger map and Arkham Knight went too far by over emphasizing the Batmobile. DOOM Eternal strikes a fair balance by expanding on the gameplay options while keeping the core game mostly the same, but also making the new additions very relevant rather than making them feel like cheap add-ons. That being said, the emphasis on demon weaknesses and more linear maps may turn off fans of 2016’s DOOM or the original games. If you loved the previous game and wanted more combat depth then you’ll probably like DOOM Eternal, and if you haven’t played 2016’s DOOM (which you totally should) then you won’t have a preference and will probably enjoy DOOM Eternal as well. However if you’re the sort of person that loves maps that feel less linear than a straight line and hate the idea of having to manage ability cooldowns when you’re trying to RIP AND TEAR, then you may want to pass.
As a side note there IS a multiplayer component that acts as asymmetrical multiplayer with several player-controlled demons against one player-controlled Doom Slayer. I haven’t played it and even if I did I’d have no opinion on it worth mentioning, but what I will say is that the game loves pushing the multiplayer a little too much. There are skins that can be unlocked specifically for multiplayer shenanigans and a horrifically grindy “battle pass” that gives you cosmetic rewards, but neither of those are really worth your time either. I say stick with the single player.
