Doom Eternal acts as a sequel to the 2016’s critically acclaimed Doom, where you once again take on the role of the Doom Slayer. This game takes everything that was great in the last game and expands upon it to deliver a game with excellent combat, level design and graphics.
First and foremost, slaying demons is super satisfying and the core gameplay pace is insane especially on the higher difficulties. The game makes sure to give you just enough ammo health and armor to survive which forces you to be efficient in how you kill enemies in order to survive. Glory kills will supply you with health (plus the kill animations are extremely satisfying to watch), burning enemies with your flamethrower will drop armor pickups, and utilizing your chainsaw will give you ammo. In addition, certain enemies have weak spots which you can exploit to give you an advantage in battle. While the game is very chaotic, randomly blasting at anything that moves won’t get you very far. Combat in Doom Eternal is essentially a puzzle where you must keep making decisions on the fly and cycling through the many weapons at your disposal to deal with different situations.
The game implements traversal in the form of jump pads, monkey bars, double-jump and dash that let you get around quickly. It will take some to learn how to move around quickly but the effort is well worth it in the long run. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock weapon upgrades and abilities which do well in keeping the gameplay loop fresh and giving you extra skills to master. Doom Eternal has more than double the number of demons that were in Doom (2016) which include new and returning enemy types. Also, you now have a base called the Fortress of Doom which acts as a hub area and headquarters for the Doom Slayer. It has a training room where you can practice and test new weapons and loadouts before using them in missions.
In addition to the main campaign, Doom Eternal also includes a multiplayer mode called Battlemode which takes a Slayer-versus-demons approach. The mode has two demons team up against the slayer and provides a nice change from the standard single-player experience. Since the demons aren’t as powerful as the slayer, they must coordinate and use teamwork to win. Learning how to use each demon’s abilities effectively is key. Playing as the Slayer is essentially doing the same thing you normally do in the campaign which is still fun in Battlemode. When the first demon player dies, you have 20 seconds to kill the other one before the first respawns with half health. Overall it is an enjoyable mode and definitely worth checking out, but it isn’t the main draw of the game.
Doom Eternal lives up to the high standards it’s predecessor set and has to be one of the best FPS games I’ve played in a while. The game uses the great foundations of Doom (2016) and expands upon them by adding unique features to differentiate itself. It continually pushes you to become a smarter and more efficient player every step of the way. The whole experience overall is excellent from start to finish and kept me entertained even after finishing the campaign.
GameRev was provided with a digital download code for the purpose of this review.
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