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DOOM Eternal Review: Let The Giblets Hit The Floor
It's almost unnatural for DOOM Eternal to feel as good as it does. As a franchise which popularized the first-person shooter genre and one which has been through multiple iterations, both good and bad, before finally receiving a reboot treatment in 2016, conventional wisdom would suggest that all the fresh ideas have been mined out of DOOM and anything more would just feel like a retread. Thankfully, this is not the case.
A long-standing popular opinion on reboots states that nothing should be remade or rebooted if it was already perfected the first time. Reboots and remakes, be they for television shows, movies, or video games, should be relegated only to those properties which did not fully realize their potential. Such an argument also states that things which were inherently perfect their first time on display, such as the original Ghostbusters movie or, to use an inarguable video game example, Portal, need not ever be remade or rebooted, because such an act is both unnecessary and could only serve to create a product which would be worse, not better, than the original.
The original DOOM had been idolized for too long already before the DOOM 2016 reboot came around, and there was nothing more indicative of that fact than the existence of the Brutal DOOM mod created by Marcos Abenante, known to players as Sergeant_Mark_IV. Brutal DOOM, as expected by its title, turned the original DOOM game into a masterpiece of gore and viscera, perfectly emulating the violence players were imagining in their heads all those years ago. Going back and playing vanilla DOOM after spending time in the world of the Brutal DOOM mod felt tame, stagnant, and different than it did previously.
DOOM Eternal is to DOOM 2016 what the Brutal DOOM mod is to the original DOOM game, and once it's been experienced players will likely find it hard to go back to what they knew before. DOOM Eternal somehow delivers an even more robust, responsive combat loop than what was previously on display in DOOM 2016, and although the game now feels the need to lean more into its own story elements and lore there is still plenty of monster slaying madness for players who are just looking for mindless mayhem. Even the way enemies take damage has been reworked and refined, with shotgun blasts ripping huge chunks of flesh away from a hellspawn's skeleton or a nearby explosion blowing the skin off a zombie's legs, leaving nothing but charred and bloody bones underneath.
DOOM Eternal includes a massive amount of weapon modifications, suit upgrades, secret areas, hidden cheat codes, secret enemy encounters, discoverable toys, and even the ability to install and play the original DOOM game on an early 1990's era desktop computer. There's a staggering amount of things to remember to search for in each area, but luckily levels can be both returned to and fast-traveled around once the player has reached the end, ensuring that any missed items can always be picked up later.
The enemies of DOOM Eternal feature both familiar faces and new threats, but all of them operate in the same checks-and-balances manner of the franchise's previous entry. Every monster from hell, be they towering demons or shambling zombies, has one or more particular weaknesses that can be exploited in order to quickly turn the tide of battle when overwhelmed, as long as the player remembers what those weaknesses are.
To help with this, the Doom Slayer himself has also been fitted with a plethora of new upgrades, from the ability to scurry around on the walls like some weird mash-up version of Master Chief and Spider-Man to the addition of a shoulder-mounted weapons system which can project streams of fire, shoot grenades, and send out incredibly useful ice bombs which freeze targets in place. The Doom Slayer is also much more acrobatic than he has been in the past, and in conjunction with his newfound ability to climb on walls players also can vault from poles and both double-jump and dash in mid-air. When coupling all of these new movements with the liberally scattered bounce pads found in most combat areas, each encounter in DOOM Eternal can quickly turn into an explosion of gymnastic slaughter.
The level design and enemy placement has been improved from DOOM 2016 as well, with the player no longer being continually trapped in a tiny room while wave after wave of monsters spawn in like some sort of demonic gladiatorial arena. Sure, those areas do still exist if players go off searching for them (see the above reference to secret enemy encounters) but more often than not the Doom Slayer finds himself exploring wide, open areas with multiple traversal options and lots and lots of enemies going about their daily business. Monster in-fighting, an id shooter staple, once again returns, and certain explosive enemies can even be attacked in such a way that they go flying into a crowd of demons, blowing up everyone nearby and saving the player from having to do the dirty work themselves.
Many of the exterior locations in DOOM Eternal are absolutely gorgeous to take in, bringing to mind classic heavy metal album covers and the landscape of Double Fine's similarly-inspired Brutal Legend. When watching an impossibly large demon carry a rune the size of a city to some unknown destination off in the background, unrelated to anything important gameplay-wise but still unquestionably adding to the overall ambiance of the experience, it's almost laughable to think back at the barren, dusty landscape of Mars in DOOM 2016.
Unfortunately, there is one area where DOOM Eternal falls short, and given the franchise's pedigree for community support it's also quite a surprising shift: No custom DOOM Eternal multiplayer. No classic deathmatch mode in DOOM Eternal. No Snap Map in DOOM Eternal. Instead, the game sports an asymmetric deathmatch system in which one player takes on the role of a fully-loaded Doom Slayer while two others become powerful in-game enemies. It may very well be entertaining (although since the servers were not up pre-release it's impossible to say one way or the other) but it's an incredibly disappointing shift from the endless amount of user-created fan levels, missions, and games found in DOOM 2016. A DOOM game without a classic deathmatch mode just feels... wrong.
Some players may bemoan the new platforming and traversal mechanics of DOOM Eternal, but the game thankfully never leans too far into the same trap games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the Uncharted series have fallen into, which can see players being continually faced with tedious, boring climbing sections. Instead, like everything else in DOOM Eternal, climbing is fast and enjoyable, and although the Mirror's Edge-style parkour can get frustrating at times it's nowhere near as unrelentingly infuriating as the first-person platforming seen in other id games.
This isn't to say DOOM Eternal isn't a hard game. It's quite difficult in parts, and certain late-game combat encounters can cause grown adults to consider throwing their expensive gaming equipment across the room in frustration, but by remembering enemy weaknesses and employing strategic dashes, double-jumps, and the always-useful flamethrower and ice bombs, players can usually come out on the winning side. Multiple difficulty modes, including one that can see players losing their entire game run if they die even once, surely allows for Doom Slayers of any skill level to find the type of gameplay they enjoy the most, and many of the hidden cheat codes scattered around the levels also help to facilitate an easier play experience, should that become necessary.
DOOM Eternal is a fantastic game, taking all of the elements which made DOOM 2016 such a surprisingly enjoyable reboot of the franchise and implementing dozens of new concepts in a way which makes the entire experience feel fresh all over again. There is more of everything in DOOM Eternal than players could have asked for, but the lack of a classic deathmatch and Snap Map functionality, something which was such an integral and entertaining part of DOOM 2016's community, makes it impossible to give the game a perfect score. It's a shame, too, because after everything he's been through and for everything he's about to give players, the Doom Slayer really does deserve one.
DOOM Eternal releases on March 20th, 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Stadia.
