Eternal Doom is metal as f ***. The entire franchise was, of course, but DOOM Eternal turns the dial at 11, throws gasoline on the fire, put the pedal to the metal. Choose any cliché idiom you want: Eternal Doom holds its upper and proud killer horns, refining just about all that Doom 2016 did well. It is tense, frenetic and absolutely transcendent.
This is so from the beginning. Doom was the first person Nirvana in 1993, using the first 3D acceleration technologies to build labyrinthic worlds that players worshiped. It resists today, just like its suites. The dedication of ID Software to advance the technology continued with Doom 3, Rage, and culminated with Doom – Game of the Year of Cogconnected in 2016.
The weapons, blood, mobility and relentless soundtrack Mick Gordon fueled this title, and I am here to tell you that it’s nothing compared to what I accomplished with Eternal Doom.
_ * Spoilers for Doom 2016. However, spoilers will be at least for Eternal Doom in this article. * _
The work of Doom Slayer on Mars being finished, Doom 2016 ended with Dr. Hayden the teleporter to a non-disclosed spot. In Dooom Eternal, the fight continues on earth, and it is at the Doom Slayer to repel the forces of the darkness of the Kingdom of Humanity. The tone of the events here is more serious than the last game, but it keeps just enough ridiculous tone (cry at the UAC propaganda hologram). The story is deeper than I expected, but it is optional in many ways. Naked bones are presented in the game itself, deeper knowledge being hidden in the Codex. The content is pretty good, but I want the game to do more to encourage commitment with it. Yet, reading some Codex notes is a viable way to bring your heart back to the edge of V.fib.
Doom’s design work is part of what makes the old teleprinter operate. The hellified earth is beautiful in the most disgusting way. All that is corrupted by hell seems alive and yet dying, with an excellent industrial design applied to all the technologies of the earth. Demon designs are not new but have been brilliantly built according to the standards of 2020. Pinkies and cacodemons are my personal favorites, but the fact that I learned to wrink my sphincters just seeing a demonic approach said long on the impressive design of Doom monsters.
It’s bloody like hell too. But not the way I want to vomit. Spoil the Legions of Hell is so inducing that you could start flipping the yellow pages for a brain analysis at a reasonable price. When you just cut a stain of pink meat in half and then to emplace the eyeball of his friend on a point with a smile of a joker size on your face, you start to question things. Maybe I’m disturbed. Never mind.
Technically, things work wonderfully on the PS4 Pro. It is essentially locked at 60 frames per second during the important parts, with one or two clashes from time to time. PC side, the requirements are extremely strict, but it works as well as other IDTech games. The fire of hell is particularly diabolical, and I think it emerges because it’s one of the things you will look regularly during difficult times. When hell hits the fan, you can not see anything. There is so much blood. You read the situation and react. It’s pure survival.
DOOM ETERNAL is intense. So intense. Everything in the game is balanced on the edge of a shotgun, which means that it is incredibly exciting, and you constantly risk being driven into hell. ID has done a fantastic job keeping the roulette running in DooM Eternal. There is never a sense of familiarity for more than a few seconds, and you are constantly obliged to improvise and change tactics. Some elements contribute to that. So let’s see the one that most people will not notice first: Level Design.
In addition to being different on the thematic plane, shapes, sizes, verticality and content of fighting areas in Eternal are never noted. Of course, the boost pads, the monkey bars and the double jumps are common, but the spacing and the disposition here are constantly extremely conducive to experimentation. I fell on some invisible walls here and there, but it really took a bizarre experimentation of quality tester to arrive at these places. In most cases, yes, this platform is at your fingertips, you can increase these monkey bars and rush twice to catch this 1up, and yes, you can land on this arachnotron and blood hit your brain dumb. It’s surreal and makes you feel powerful even when the failure bites you constantly.
What I did not expect as much is the exploration. It’s really fun. The levels are more or less linear, but find small side roads and go back to find the skill points you missed on my interior complementist without feeling like a list of things to do on weekends. This is so good because the Eternal Doom movement is the new high watermark. That’s sublime.
Like everything in Doom, the movement occurs at a high speed. The Doom Slayer pulls the ass. The dashes are recharged quickly, the aim is jerkacked and precise without feeling overloaded. The rockets perfectly placed while sailing over the heads seem a second nature. Reducing the exact number of plasma balls to activate an opportunity to kill glory is trivial, and I am not the best FPS player in the world. Honestly, I can not believe that playing an FPS with a controller is so good.
Firearms feel exceptional. Heavy cannon bolts of precision can remove the turret of arachnotron, while a grenade in the mouth of a cocodemon the titular. I have my favorites of course (the meat hook in super shotgun explosive shells), but literally each weapon, each mod, each upgrade has a moment and a perfect place to use. The weapon mod system plays a big role, and although it is more of a checklist, I found an immense amount of satisfaction and sense of discovery every time I unlocked some thing. I thought back to the previous meetings, damn very close to Saliver at the idea of taking another crack to a difficult killer door.
The most miraculous balance of Dooom Eternal is perhaps the way the fight takes place. Shares are perfectly allevative, and never. Gets. old. A large part is like Doom, but it has been refined as a good infernal wine in Eternal. Narcotic enemies always restore health, Glory Kills, while the chainsaw uses fuel but causes enormous drops of ammunition. Meanwhile, set fire to enemies ensures that armor parts spread. One or more of these things are always necessary, and weave these actions together in an endless chain of destruction is beautiful. If you are mistaken, you will mostly die and with the adrenaline that really climbs, I came many times close to becoming the Doom Slayer and take everything at your fingertips. Mental health, however, prevailed, and the forces of good lived to build muscle memory and control the dance.
The sound design is clear, strong and uncompromising. The soundtrack of Mick Gordon is absolutely tears, like a circular saw inside your brain that whips you. It is not that it is particularly unique, but it is perfect for the atmosphere of the environment and the mission of the Doom Slayer. The bullets and explosions crack and break, while the self-demonic voices are both stereotyped and likely to inspire you to return the beast where it belongs.
I arrived at the part where I talk to you about everything that happens in Eternal Doom that is not the campaign and / or shooting on demons. There are several of them. The Doom Slayer can improve its costume (although I found most disappointing improvements) thanks to the Praetor parts found, use the weapon points won in combat to improve weapons, use sentinel fragments to improve health, Ammunition and armor while gaining useful benefits, equip runes that enhance its murder, find and display versions of demo collection toys, and use sentinel batteries to unlock stuff in the Doom Fortress. Oh, and there are cheating codes. Yeah. Strangely, it does not seem inaccessible or at all as it happens too much. It may be because the most complicated menu in the world would seem banal compared to the madness of the hair on the fire, but hey, I will take that all day.
DOOM ETERNAL is a phenomenal game. It’s incredibly intense, as ID Software made a mass burnt on the faces of other shooters. The movement and the shot are perfect, and the balance is immaculate and sober despite the equivalent of the video game to stand too close to a rocket launch. If you have a penchant for shooters, the 90s or pleasure in general, consider Eternal Doom as absolutely essential.