Welcome to the Should You Play series where we talk about games old and new. Today, I will talk about Doom Eternal, the pros and cons and should you play it?. First of all for those of don’t know Doom Eternal is a widely popular first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks.
Previously on Should you play?, I talked about-
The Story Of Doom Eternal
Doom Eternal is a sequel to Doom 2016, one of the most critically acclaimed games of that year. The game ditches modern FPS design and dares to go back to its roots – maze-like levels, no regenerating health, and a lot of wicked metal music.
The story revolves around the Doom Slayer on a quest to stop the invasion of Earth by Demons of Hell. The story is surprisingly fleshed out for a Doom game, but the game doesn’t force you to pay attention to it.
Most of the lore and info about the world are contained in audio logs and optional collectable codex pieces. The cutscenes can also be skipped entirely. The Doom Slayer is more badass than ever, with him ripping and tearing the demons apart with absolutely no remorse.
The Gameplay
Doom Eternal builds on the amazing combat and exploration loop that was introduced in Doom 2016. The gameplay revolves around shooting demons in huge arenas and a dash of platforming and exploration sprinkled in between them as breathers.
The Combat In Doom Eternal
The combat in Doom feels better than ever, thanks to a load of new tricks that you have. Doom Slayer now has a flame belch that when fired at an enemy, drops armour shards. The flame belch can also throw two different kinds of grenades, a frag, and a freeze grenade.
The arsenal of weapons is mostly the same as the original game with the notable edition of a grappling hook in the super shotgun. This enables you to get in your enemies’ faces, dealing with great amounts of damage.
Some areas also have death traps that can be used to quickly take out enemies. The BFG, a new blood punch, and the crucible blade are your get out of jail free cards as they one-shot most enemies.
A typical encounter of Doom Eternal is split into phases, where a balance of aggressive and still enemies cover the arenas. This balance is mostly maintained throughout the game but tips off towards the late game with more aggressive foes filling the arenas.
Every demon has a weak point now and can be exploited to take them out efficiently. The Cacodemon can be one-shotted if a grenade is tossed in his mouth, the Makyr clones can be headshot for an instant kill, and so on.
This makes combat in Doom Eternal interesting, as you juggle between enemies and weapons at a blisteringly fast rate, using your get out of jail free cards every now and then since ammo capacity and health pickups are reduced from the original.
The Marauder ought to be discussed as I’ve seen the community rage that he breaks the flow of combat. I disagree with this statement as once you get into the rhythm of shooting him 2 times with the super shotgun when you see an opening, he doesn’t remain too much of a hassle. The game has 4 main bosses in the main campaign, two of which were pushovers and two were average.
Exploration And Side Content
The game, as mentioned earlier, has exploration content sprinkled between the fights and is more fun than ever. The double jump and double dash move are available from the beginning of the game. Couple that with the generous mid-air manoeuvrability and you have an excellent movement system.
The platforming takes a bit of time to get the feel for it, but when it clicks, it feels just as good as the combat. This also helps you out in the combat as you can dash to dodge projectiles.
The arenas have certain parts that are off-limits. These contain secrets and extra lives and practically tease you in plain sight. I found collecting these secrets a lot of fun as it usually gave me a little more of that platforming goodness.
The secret areas contain some side content which includes secret timed encounters and Slayer Gates, ultra-hard encounters that reward you with weapon points and keys that unlock an optional weapon, the UnMaykr.
The Progression System
Doom Eternal feels more like an RPG than ever, thanks to a really fleshed-out progression system. You earn different points for exploring its levels thoroughly and completing the side content. This was a mixed bag for me.
The weapon upgrade system requires you to first find weapon mod unlock points that unlock alternate fire modes. These are really interesting and worthwhile upgrades that can actually change the way how you play, be it not that drastically.
Most weapons have two or more mods that can be swapped with the press of a key. For instance, you can either choose to have your rockets lock-on an enemy or have a detonate mode on them. On top of that, you can spend more weapon points on those upgrades to increase damage or reduce cooldown times, things like that.
The rune system gives you 3 slots for equipable upgrades out of a total of 9 selectable ones, that require you to find Rune points throughout the world. These include faster glory kills, faster-climbing speed, and aren’t much interesting.
There are Praetor Suit Points also throughout the levels that unlock various, mostly uninteresting skills such as buffs for your grenades and regenerating barrels. There are Sentinel Crystals which increase your maximum health, armour, and ammo.
These systems, with the exclusion of the weapon upgrades, don’t add much to the gameplay but aren’t as off-putting as you might think at first. The game throws a generous amount of these upgrade points at you. Just remember to use them often and wisely, and everything should be fine!
The Fortress Of Doom
Doom Slayer now has his own freaking space station! At first, you might think of it as a glorified mission select screen, and to some extent, this is true. But if you are willing to go out of your way to explore the ship, you’ll find a lot of interesting stuff in here.
There are various areas that contain the aforementioned upgrade point that requires sentinel batteries to unlock. My personal favourite is the Doom Slayer’s personal quarters. This is a man cave that houses interesting bits of information about the Doom Slayer.
This contains his electric guitar collection, his retro games collection, and his desktops. My favourite detail was the retro games like Quake 3 and Doom on his shelf and a video of his best glory kills on the desktop.
The retro desktop contains two drives, one of which is installing the original Doom game which you can play after completing the main campaign. The other is password protected, which I’ll leave to you guys to figure out.
The Beast That Is Doom Eternal
The Conclusion And Should You Play It?
Doom Eternal builds on the excellent foundation set by its predecessor back in 2016. The game is bigger, badder, and better in every sense of the way. Some changes to the formula like the RPG like progression system don’t feel as good as some others, but it’s a solid game that needs to be tried by fans of the older games and newcomers alike.
Do you agree with us? Have you played Doom Eternal? Tell us down in the comments and for more video games and anime news and features, stay tuned to the Profaned Otaku.
