Doom Eternal Review PC

2016’s Doom reimagined the classic shooter into a frantic but modern mould. The bloody escapades of the Doom Slayer were rife with bullets and guts. It was a grimy video game hamburger. Doom Eternal is bigger and bloodier, almost to the point of excess. It’s the same hamburger dipped into a vat of delicious special sauce. Except the serving size is so big that it’s hard not to feel a little sick afterwards.

Nonetheless Doom Eternal is incredible. It is a hellaciously bold step forward from the soft-rebooted series that will satisfy even the stodgiest of old school Doom fans. If you want to rip and tear, there’s arguably no better place than Doom Eternal. It also wants to juggle too many balls. There are additions to the combat system, a slew of unlockable items, online multiplayer pitting man against demons, dozens of gun upgrades, a lot more ancient lore, and story connections to older games that offer surprising revelations. Doom Eternal operates on a single maxim: more, more, more. Much of this works, some of it is a harmless annoyance, and a few things are actively frustrating. The frustrating parts don’t prevent Doom Eternal from being a great game, but they are there. They show themselves with every tutorial pop-up, cosmetic reward, or late addition to the game’s fabulous but increasingly busy combat.

One of the bigger differences in DOOM Eternal: the bosses are a bigger pain in the arse. Even the mini-bosses can be a right pain, if you're not paying attention. Here's what to do.

DOOM Eternal is all about having the right tool for the job. But some tools are more essential than others. That's the Heavy Cannon.

Does it matter if most players are just here for violence and good times, as opposed to all that other stuff? Probably not. Doom Eternal lives by the strength of its shooting, and with a few notable competitors like Titanfall 2, there’s nothing that comes close to delivering this level of excitement.

Doom Eternal is set two years after 2016’s Doom. Earth has been invaded by demonic legions who have wiped out most of the population. These forces are led by a strange angel-like being called the Khan Maykr and a trio of “Hell Priests” that are responsible for summoning and empowering the horde. The Doom Slayer, our ever-helmeted and mindlessly violent hero, returns to Earth to hunt down the Hell Priests and put an end to the invasion. His quest will take him through multiple dimensions and reveal secrets about the life he lived before he became a legendary warrior. Narratively, Doom Eternal has more going on than what came before. The lines between legend and reality become less blurred, and closely guarded secrets and plots get revealed in the process. Who is the Doom Slayer? What really fuels “argent energy,” the seemingly infinite power supply that corporations sought in the previous game, which the Khan Maykr also seems to covet? If you somehow wanted answers to those questions, Doom Eternal’s story will deliver them, and it will do so with a clumsy confidence.

The premise is the same as ever: there are demons that need killing and countless ways for you to fuck them up beyond recognition. Doom Eternal contains the same core combat loop as 2016’s Doom. Wounding enemies will cause them to flash into a vulnerable state during which they can be annihilated with a “glory kill.” These astoundingly violent finishing moves, a canonization of Brutal Doom’s fatalities, cause enemies to explode in a burst of blood and health pickups. You dart around, injure enemies, zoom in, smash their skulls in to keep your health up, bust out and keep killing. It’s hard to understate how satisfying this core combat loop is. There is just enough strategy at play. Should I waste time weakening zombie fodder so I can get some easy health back or keep focusing on that Arachnotron chasing me? Should I use my chainsaw now, cutting an enemy in half and gaining ammo pickups in the process, or save it until I have enough gasoline to bisect tougher enemies in the blink of an eye? This satisfying loop congeals into something that’s both incredibly deep and mind-numbingly simple. Sometimes you methodically choose foes, sometimes you bust out your rocket launcher and blow everything into sticky goo.

2016’s Doom combat was a straightforward but deliberate dance. Doom Eternal transforms it into an elbow-throwing pit mosh, building upon its core loop by adding on a variety of tools and tactics. These options are sometimes overwhelming. As more and more upgrades are unlocked, combat bloats with possibilities. It can be hard to track all your options when you’re getting bum-rushed by a Baron of Hell or blasted by a Mancubus. However, using these options to their full advantage can crank combat up ten to twenty points on the dial.

First and foremost is the addition of the Flame Blech, a short flamethrower attack that causes minuscule damage but has one key benefit: any enemy lit on fire will generate armour when shot or killed. It’s easy to dismiss the Flame Blech as a useless gizmo when you first acquire it. Glory kills make health generation easy and while Doom Eternal is a more difficult game than its predecessor, the early levels are relatively tame. There’s not an overwhelming need for armour when you’re already incredibly mobile and can rip gargoyles in half for a health-restoring blood shower. As the game progresses, the Flame Belch proves more useful. Enemies grow more aggressive and their compositions hold dangerous elite monsters. Learning to douse minor enemies in flames and blow them into armour-granting bits becomes much more essential. It’s a welcome tool, although it does highlight what’s bound to be a point of conversation and contention between players: is there too much stuff?

Because, to reiterate, there is a hell of a lot of stuff. In addition to the Flame Belch, players have access to frag and ice grenades that can blow up clusters of enemies or freeze them in place. Each weapon has two different variations that can be unlocked. The Heavy Cannon, a reliable machine gun, can fire miniature missiles or be used as a sort of sniper rifle. The Plasma Rifle can be upgraded with a powerful explosive wave ability or a lock-on microwave beam that blows enemies up when they die. There are runes to discover that unlock permanent powers, like the ability to slow down time when you aim in the air or increase your dash speed. Enemies have weak points on their body that are best handled by specific weapons and firing modes.

Is that cacodemon opening their mouth? Better fire a grenade from your modified shotgun. That angelic priest is firing from a distance? You can instantly kill them with a Heavy Cannon precision bolt shot to their skull. Doom Eternal is awash in upgrades, modifications, and options that complicate the combat loop. On the one hand, these options grant players a variety of ways to deal with enemies. The possibility space is wider; you always have something available to deal with a specific threat and you’re given carte blanche to employ the tactics you want. This turns combat into a truly expressive experience, even if you’ll often find yourself relying on key tactics to deal with specific foes.