Against all the evil that Hell can conjure, all the wickedness that mankind can produce, we will send unto them… only you.
I’ll put the lede where it belongs. DOOM Eternal is one of the best first-person shooters I’ve ever played. I come to this conclusion with very little hesitation. It is not without its faults, as with all games, but is the most pure fun I’ve maybe ever had with a video game. Its meshing of high stakes chess with massive guns and the pounding of a heavy metal guitar is brilliant. iD software successfully took everything it set up in 2016, dialed it up to 13 and broke the knob off the amp.
It stumbles a bit due to some lackluster boss fights and a few iffy mechanics that get thrown in later in the game, but that isn’t nearly enough to take away from the brilliant ebb and flow of combat. This action game makes you use your brain and beats the hell out of you if you don’t.
The core of 2016 DOOM was the concept of action chess. For every move the Slayer makes, the game offers an immediate counter that makes the Slayer consider his next move thoughtfully, or end up dead. This concept is the core component of Eternal’s gameplay loop.
Each weapon has a job, each demon presents a unique challenge that will require a weapon to deal with them. If you’re running low on health, you need to get into the fight and glory kill. Fired your last shotgun round? Pull out the chainsaw and open up fodder like an ammo pinata. Eternal adds the Flame Belch to the equation, which lights demons aflame and they begin to spew armor for the Slayer to collect. A new tool on the board.
Resources are even more scarce on the board this time too, making sure you are using every element of the system to avoid death.
Each weapon has been innovated on, adding new mods that provide each weapon with a new purpose. Larger enemies now have weak points, usually in the form of their weapons. This is something the game very loudly expresses to the player. If an enemy is kicking your ass, you likely aren’t thinking your strategy through right.
Using the sticky bombs mod on the shotgun or the scope mod on the heavy canon on weak points knocks them away in one hit. Take the new Arachnatron, who has a back-mounted turret that is unrelentingly bombarding the Slayer. One grenade launched at it solves the problem. That enemy is now without the weapon that’s been kicking your ass. Your new tools take the enemies trick off the board.
Mobility and speed are boosted in Eternal as well. Adding in a dash seems simple, but giving the Slayer this quick ability to maneuver makes tight combat encounters that much better. If you need to get out of the fight you can, but to gather your senses so you can charge back into the maw to survive. Platforming is immensely improved as well, making it so areas are littered with monkey bars and jump pads so the Slayer can approach each attack from a different angle.
All of this culminates in a multitude of moment-to-moment thoughts that can make your brain melt. Each arena presents a new, seemingly insurmountable, task, one that Eternal provides you the tools to overcome. Every weapon is as important as the last and to make it out of hell alive, you’re going to need them all. Items like the BFG and the later acquired Crucible can seem to like get-out-of-jail-free cards, but just when you start to feel comfortable, Eternal throws another cog into the machine.
Eternal’s early boss fights (a boss fight being a fight with an enemy health bar) serve only to introduce the player to enemies that will become commonplace throughout the rest of the playthrough. Enemies like the Doom Hunter and the Marauder enter the fray with horrifying presences, but soon become normal and are taken down in much more concise manners after the Slayer has the experience under his belt. They always exist as an imminent threat though, one that isn’t easily tackled.
No enemies are cakewalks. Eternal’s difficulty never settles down, thanks to the constant addition of new demons to slay. If you aren’t careful, even the fodder enemies that exist for resources can take you down. You remain on a razor’s edge for the roughly 15-hour length of the campaign, mixed with fun platforming sections that give you a moment to catch your breath before your heart rate jolts back up.
Eternal kicks your teeth down your throat, but never feels unfair. Comparing DOOM to FromSoft titles feels odd, but you learn something new after each death that makes you more prepared to overcome the challenge. And much like then you finally overcome a boss in Bloodborne, the satisfaction of moving through the next ‘impossible’ gauntlet of demons is one of the best experiences in gaming.
Walking that line is what makes DOOM Eternal so compelling to play. That’s also what makes it so damn good. Hugo Martin, the game director on DOOM Eternal, has called the game “A thinking mans action game,” in interviews over and over again. Eternal is exactly that. A game that steers you to have fun by ensuring you use all the toys in the box to survive. It’s action and FPS brilliance and very likely could be the best game of 2020.
Now do yourself a favor, and Rip & Tear!
The Fan Men 