DOOM Eternal Reviews

Rip And Tear until it is done. very great and fun game gets repetitive but still pretty fun

Five years later and the game finally clicks for me, and now I'm addicted to it.

I've spent 2 months doing this game every single day. I've completed ultra-nightmare for both DLCs, I have yet to complete the campaign ultra-nightmare because the fortress of doom praetor suit point does not spawn. Overall, it's a good game, and I also got the deluxe edition for 18 dollars so I'm pretty happy about that.

To preface this review, I initially did not like DOOM Eternal. In fact, I absolutely despised it. This probably had something to do with the fact that I jumped into Eternal straight from its predecessor, DOOM (2016). While by all measures and metrics, DOOM (2016) was a masterful game in its own right, it allowed you to play the game on your terms and demanded very little of you. In short, it was like renting a Porsche 911 GT3 RS at the track and running a few laps before your time was up. Was it a power trip while it lasted? Sure. But there was always that reminder that the power trip was borrowed. Skip forward to retrying Eternal years after DOOM (2016)'s residual was wiped from my memory and, there is absolutely no FPS in the market that makes me FEEL the way DOOM Eternal does. You see, while DOOM (2016) was you borrowing a power trip, in DOOM Eternal you earned the power trip. It is the equivalent of slowly but surely owning your own GT3 RS and over time, learning how to become a professional driver at the track. Because Eternal, like a track car, demands every shred of skill, memory, and commitment from you. It does not baby you, you wants you to play the game as if you were the Doom Slayer himself, but it is never given, only earned. I can only speak from Nightmare difficulty (being the highest) but once you catch your groove, learn the intricacies of the weapons, the fluidity of your movement, enemy behavior, and map layout, there is nothing that can stop you. In fact, this is a game I can strongly recommend playing at the highest difficulty you can endure to attain the best possible experience. Not because it is a masochist club like Dark Souls but the best quality gameplay shines when you are under pressure and against all odds and the game finally *clicks*. All in all, if you want to own a GT3 RS but don't have the money, buy DOOM Eternal.

Best game in the series so far (haven't played dark ages yet). Everything you know and love in a DOOM game as well as a great story, fun gunplay, collectibles/secrets for those interested. Only thing i'll say is that there's alotta shit to remember which if you take a break from the game and come back you'll be confused. Besides that it's awesome.

Doom Eternal is a modern-day masterpiece in video gaming. There's no other game I’ve played (maybe barring the previous Doom) that has kept me so locked in during literally every combat encounter. The dopamine blast you get after clearing each combat zone is something most games can’t even come close to emulating. I initially just wanted to finish the campaign, but I got so engrossed in the game’s sublime gameplay mechanics that I ended up going after all six Slayer Gates (which, honestly, I ended up craving for way more than just six). That meant going back to earlier missions to find and complete Slayer Gates I had missed, which eventually led me to replay most of the chapters again, and I basically ended up playing the campaign almost twice just to 100% it. The best part? I feel it was totally worth it. The boss fights were comparatively simpler. I think Doom (2016) had a slight edge when it came to boss design, but they were still fun. Most of the combat arenas were intricately designed to let you dash, jump, and dance your way through plowing enemies down 🤌🏼. One of the best aspects of the gameplay is how it demands you use everything at your disposal. It expects you to know your tools and use them effectively, and that level of strict resource management, despite the high-octane pacing, is just one more reason why this game is a cut above the usual slop. Also, the BFG/Urdak setup was frustrating. I kept wasting it on smaller enemy groups because the game automatically switched to it, instead of letting me equip it with a dedicated button (B) like in Doom 2016. I have no idea what the story or cutscenes meant aside from it making me feel like its sole existence/purpose was to display Doomguy's aura max/farming at every possible moment. The platforming sections were a decent change of pace, but they did get annoying at times. Other than that, my only real gripe is with the terrible and glitchy UI, which would often disrupt my dooming sessions 👺. I genuinely don’t understand how this game didn’t rake in a single award at The Game Awards. I really liked Tsushima, Cyberpunk, and TLOU2, but Doom Eternal is miles ahead of the pack. Mick Gordon’s Doom soundtracks not being on Spotify remains one of the most tragic things to ever happen to humanity as a whole. I seriously hope the DLCs maintain the same quality 🙌🏻 Ancient Gods Part 1: The difficulty spike in the DLC was fun for a while. It helped keep the expansion from feeling one-note after the main game’s ending. But after a point, it started to feel a bit excessive, especially with enemies like the spirit and the Blood Maykrs. The Blood Maykrs, for instance, can only be killed when they float mid-air, forcing you to constantly keep tabs on them while other buffed-up enemies are closing in on you. Similarly, spirits are a pain because if you don't finish them off with the plasma beam quickly enough, they end up possessing a stronger enemy, making the fight even more chaotic. Worst case, you get killed by other enemies while you're focused on exorcising the damn thing. The platforming got a little more annoying too. All that said, it’s still a solid follow-up, just not quite as enjoyable/fluid as the base game. Definitely worth playing. Ancient Gods Part 2: I felt like this was easily the better DLC until the final boss fight, which I have to say is one of the worst boss fights ever. They really saved the worst for last, huh. Anyways, warra game this has been. I might still try finishing Horde Mode and some of the Master Levels, cuz why not. Onto Dark Ages now 🤓

Just a cool game, the pacing the intense gameplay, Awesome! The hookshot combinned with the shotgun is genius. Only complain is the lack of cool athmosphere compared to 2016 - more hellish bloody gut settings would be cooler. But it is still good.

still a solid game, one of the best sequels to video games. boring boss fights, love everything else

literally the best fps of all time arcade-y feel, emphasis on resource management, smooth and snappy movement and gunplay, amazing art direction and graphics, ost is on a whole another level... the gameplay blows any other fps game out of the water.

I came back to Doom Eternal after playing through The Dark Ages, and the opportunity to make a joke about these two games' respective subheadings is way too obvious even for me. What Eternal loses in the franchise's classic open levels, puzzling layouts, keyhunting teleporter nightmares and sheer length, it gains in state of the art enemy design, weapon design, level design, and environmental storytelling. The player character is [b]by far[/b] the absolute strongest thing in the game's universe, but you never really feel truly overpowered, as you will die fast if you're ever doing less than your best on the harder skill levels. It systematically provokes all of your usual gameplay sensibilities with rising challenges over the first few stages, from simple linear corridors filled with odd demon combinations, to arena battles where things continue to spawn over time, until you're [i]just[/i] comfortable enough with the game's controls to continue onward, only for it to throw in new threats that require an evolution of your playstyle, with very few options to cheese any of it. It doesn't waste time with hours of tutorial content, or senseless grinding for better gear and stats, or an unskippable plot that has no depth to it - It just drops you right into the action and lets the peaks and valleys flow naturally through its varied sprinkling of combat and platforming. I remember when the game first released and many were quick to complain about the platforming elements, though to me it feels absolutely vital to the health of the game, as it's a way to teach the player how to move Doomguy. Learning how he controls until the feeling of jumping around the map is second nature is almost a requirement when considering later stages, where you have to do such things whilst also getting shot from every direction. Movement is so important in Eternal that even on easier skill levels it's never advisable to stand still while there are demons about. Even the absolute weakest of fodder demons can crowd you, and do significant damage if you're not paying attention to their proximity. It's all a bit overwhelming at first, but by the time you've gotten the Super Shotgun and its invaluable grappling hook, the game starts to take shape and (assuming you're not terrible at video games) you feel yourself accomplishing things you never thought possible. The lightning pace of Eternal's moment-to-moment gameplay gives you feedback on your progress immediately, until you're hotswapping your weapons mid-air and prioritising appropriate targets with a well-aimed ice bomb before you've even hit the ground because you needed to reload a module. The weapons are the best in the series, with each one fulfilling a specific niche to the point where even the worst mod on the first weapon you get is still punching up against some of the literal strongest, most frustrating enemies in the game better than every other normal weapon. Every single one of them sees use during the campaign (and especially in the Master Levels), and not because the game lazily makes certain demons immune to certain damage types, but through simple variety in the encounters. Even the humble Microwave Beam that nobody likes is useful when faced with a single tough enemy in a poor place to be fighting it - 1 HP against a Baron of Hell in a tight corridor? Get stunlocked, idiot. The enemies themselves are again the best in the series too, taking almost the entire roster of Doom 2 and removing the things that made them all annoying (Hitscanners don't exist anymore, Pain Elementals can't bloat the map with Lost Soul spam, Archviles can't infinitely revive everyone) and gave them all the Doom 2016 treatment in how they act and try to kill you. They rush you, they crowd you, they gang up on you, they sneak up on you, they try to flank your escape routes - I've no idea what magic was flowing over at Id, but they managed to nail it. They are used to frighteningly good effect in the Master Levels too, showing just how well the team got to understand all their little demon minions. Then the Marauder shows up and completely changes the pace of the game, like the demons have their own Doomguy that you have to consider. A divisive enemy to sure given you have to fight it on its own terms, but that's a greater challenge that I love to see. The Hub area is cute, and provides some form of player-selected metaprogression in between the stages, and holds all of your collectibles in a physical form so you can laud over your trophies, which is something more games should have, really. The game bleeds effort from every orifice, and I haven't even touched upon the multiplayer or the weird Horde mode they added in after release; they're just there, because why not. Trying to objectively rank the best game ever made is folly obviously, there are simply too many different flavours of game to come to an answer that everyone can agree with - But if someone told me that they ran the numbers, checked all the data, and it turns out that Doom Eternal is the best game ever, I'd have a hard time contesting it. It's that good. I'm excited to see where FPS demon murderising goes from here, assuming it can progress any further than this - Given how Dark Ages panned out, this might be the pinnacle.