DOOM Eternal - the sequel to the 2016 reboot - now with The Ancient Gods DLC

[Wunderbar]

They could also make a proper sequel to Doom 3. It might be just me but for some reason despite all the tech and flash, Doom 2016 felt like a downgrade in terms of production values to Doom 3 and the latter was made by a tiny team of just ~21 people.

they did try to make a sort-of realistic Doom game set on Earth. It ended up looking like Call of Duty with demons, and was promptly scrapped.

 

[Bad Sector]

I'm glad they didn't because Eternal is way more fun to play than Doom 3. And I don't hate Doom 3, I think it's enjoyable for what it is when I'm in right mood for that sort of thing.

TBH i judge based on Doom 2016, which i've played only once back when it came out and never felt the need to play it again. Meanwhile i've made a bunch of full Doom 3 playthroughs since then. I haven't played Eternal yet since i'm waiting for a price drop to a point where even if i don't like it i wont mind much (also i hope for a GOG release).

they did try to make a sort-of realistic Doom game set on Earth. It ended up looking like Call of Duty with demons, and was promptly scrapped.

I found the idea interesting for an offshoot or something but the seeming overscripted nature of it not so much, and it wasn't really what i had in mind. Yahtzee once joked that Doom 3 was as if Doom hit its head in the darkness and woke up thinking it was System Shock 2, which was meant to be a bit derisive towards Doom 3, but personally i'd like it if it went towards like that. The cancelled "CoDoom" seemed more like open cities, lots of scripting, talking with NPCs, etc while i'd prefer exploring lonely/mostly abandoned/destroyed sci-fi environments blended in with a hellscape, demons spawning around me as i explore, operating environmental minigames to break things up (like the cranes, bridges, etc in Doom 3), trying to find keycards or other mcguffins to progress, finding secret areas, etc.

Also Doom 3 has that nice thing where it rarely takes control from you and you can ignore pretty much everything and focus on shooting things and exploring the base to progress, straddling a line between not being too mind numbingly repetitive but also not explicitly requiring you to put all of your focus on it all the time. As an example the playthroughs i mentioned were made while i was listening to some podcast where most of my focus was on the podcast and Doom 3 was basically "foreground noise" :-P.

 

[Max Damage]

Finished this gem recently, going to give DLC a try soon. Didn't expect it to be this good, though this plays more like mix of Painkiller and Firestarter than Doom or Doom 2. Is Doom 2016 worth checking out too? For some reason it wasn't on sale when Eternal was.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Finished this gem recently, going to give DLC a try soon. Didn't expect it to be this good, though this plays more like mix of Painkiller and Firestarter than Doom or Doom 2. Is Doom 2016 worth checking out too? For some reason it wasn't on sale when Eternal was.

Yes. If you liked Doom Eternal you should also have a good time with Doom 2016. It is a bit slower paced and less "hyper-active" than Doom Eternal but overall pretty good. My guess is that the progression from Doom 2016 to Doom Eternal makes for a better experience since it puts features on top of Doom 2016 but Doom 2016 still has little competition besides its sequel and is a good shooter, even if you have it backwards.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Just finished the DLC The Ancient Gods - Part One. I was wondering if they could push the difficulty further in an entertaining way and indeed they did. Had a hard time on nightmare and needed multiple goes at many sections. Those ghosted fuckers are a bitch to fight. The final boss fight was ok though the jumping session with the moving lasers and spawning Cacodemons was a tad annoying. Overall a good dlc if you liked the base game.

 

[Yosharian]

Just finished the DLC The Ancient Gods - Part One. I was wondering if they could push the difficulty further in an entertaining way and indeed they did. Had a hard time on nightmare and needed multiple goes at many sections. Those ghosted fuckers are a bitch to fight. The final boss fight was ok though the jumping session with the moving lasers and spawning Cacodemons was a tad annoying. Overall a good dlc if you liked the base game.

Really? That's interesting, I heard it was bad

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Just finished the DLC The Ancient Gods - Part One. I was wondering if they could push the difficulty further in an entertaining way and indeed they did. Had a hard time on nightmare and needed multiple goes at many sections. Those ghosted fuckers are a bitch to fight. The final boss fight was ok though the jumping session with the moving lasers and spawning Cacodemons was a tad annoying. Overall a good dlc if you liked the base game.

Really? That's interesting, I heard it was bad

The dlc had me thinking a few times in which order I should take demons out. That was different from the base game where I could beat the sections by improvising on the spot. It had multiple encounters that made me break a sweat. That's good enough for me. I don't care for the story or lore or any of that, so that's not part of my judgement. Its simply more action with all weapons unlocked(barring the crucible) at a good difficulty.

 

[Maculo]

Just finished the DLC The Ancient Gods - Part One. I was wondering if they could push the difficulty further in an entertaining way and indeed they did. Had a hard time on nightmare and needed multiple goes at many sections. Those ghosted fuckers are a bitch to fight. The final boss fight was ok though the jumping session with the moving lasers and spawning Cacodemons was a tad annoying. Overall a good dlc if you liked the base game.

Really? That's interesting, I heard it was bad

I haven’t gotten around to the DLC yet, but I read that it made the base game look like a tutorial with respect to difficulty. I am cautiously optimistic based on that description.

 

[KVVRR]

Just finished the DLC The Ancient Gods - Part One. I was wondering if they could push the difficulty further in an entertaining way and indeed they did. Had a hard time on nightmare and needed multiple goes at many sections. Those ghosted fuckers are a bitch to fight. The final boss fight was ok though the jumping session with the moving lasers and spawning Cacodemons was a tad annoying. Overall a good dlc if you liked the base game.

Really? That's interesting, I heard it was bad

The only real bad part about the DLCs is the final boss of the second one. I don't know who even saw how that played and thought "yep, this is fun" let alone "let's make this the final boss of this franchise!"

I haven’t gotten around to the DLC yet, but I read that it made the base game look like a tutorial with respect to difficulty. I am cautiously optimistic based on that description.

This is very much the case, yes. People were losing their minds over one part in the trailer where it shows you have to fight two Marauders at once and it ended up that's the easiest part of that room. Haven't played since they supposedly nerfed the DLC a bit so maybe it isn't as fun now.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

This game sucked dick. Doom 2016 was sooooo much better. I need to play it again.

 

[Alphard]

i'm playing rn on Steam deck and having a great time. super hard for me tough, since i'm not that skilled in fps.
i'm.playing on ultra-violence and this thing is kicking my ass, and i'm. still at cultist base

 

[Multidirectional]

i'm playing rn on Steam deck and having a great time. super hard for me tough, since i'm not that skilled in fps.
i'm.playing on ultra-violence and this thing is kicking my ass, and i'm. still at cultist base

First run was tough enough for me on UV. Now I can run through base game with ease on Nightmare. First DLC is the one I still need to beat on Nightmare, had to lower to UV for first run of that one, was too much for me. I'm sure I'll git gud at that too, I found combat in this game so addictive I keep returning to it.

 

[JDR13]

I'm on my second playthrough now. Didn't finish it the first time, and now I'm at the Icon of Sin.

This fight is ridiculous. Waaaaay harder than the final boss of Doom 2016.

 

[Multidirectional]

I'm on my second playthrough now. Didn't finish it the first time, and now I'm at the Icon of Sin.

This fight is ridiculous. Waaaaay harder than the final boss of Doom 2016.

All bosses in Eternal are harder than Doom 2016 bosses. Though that doesn't mean I liked them better. I like 1 on 1 boss fights, not bosses with minions around them, so this is one thing I actually liked better in Doom 2016. Regular arena fights though are way more fun in Eternal.

Icon Of Sin fight is more tedious than hard, surviving in it became easy once I realized that crucible ammo in the arena respawns and you can kill all the demons in with just crucible and blood punches.

 

[JDR13]

I'm on my second playthrough now. Didn't finish it the first time, and now I'm at the Icon of Sin.

This fight is ridiculous. Waaaaay harder than the final boss of Doom 2016.

All bosses in Eternal are harder than Doom 2016 bosses. Though that doesn't mean I liked them better. I like 1 on 1 boss fights, not bosses with minions around them, so this is one thing I actually liked better in Doom 2016. Regular arena fights though are way more fun in Eternal.

Icon Of Sin fight is more tedious than hard, surviving in it became easy once I realized that crucible ammo in the arena respawns and you can kill all the demons in with just crucible and blood punches.

Yeah, it's the annoying mobs that really make it hard not the Icon itself.

It's fucking pissing me off. I beat the Khan Maykr on my first try, but I've died about 15 times now to the Icon.

 

[JDR13]

Of course I beat it shortly after posting that as is usually the case.

I'm a little burned-out on Doom right now, but I did start The Ancient Gods 1 just to check out the first level. Holy hell...they don't fuck around in these DLC do they?

 

[Multidirectional]

Of course I beat it shortly after posting that as is usually the case.

I'm a little burned-out on Doom right now, but I did start The Ancient Gods 1 just to check out the first level. Holy hell...they don't fuck around in these DLC do they?

Yes complaining about boss on the internet is usually the fastest way to beat it for me as well.

It's just the first DLC that is so brutal, second one is much easier.

 

[Multidirectional]

Alright, just replayed first DLC on Nightmare. First playthrough I gave up on second level and lowered it to UV. Obviously had much easier time now. Though that laser stage during last boss still was annoying. Must've died at least 20 times there. I know I'll have mostly easy time with second DLC as I already finished that on Nightmare first time.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I like 1 on 1 boss fights

The only way they could make 1 on 1 fights worth the trouble in a game where 90% of the time you are fighting trillion of hordes of fast moving enemies is to actually make them Dark Souls style but that's not likely to happen, even though it feels they tried in places. Bosses in 2016 were so easy they were basically pointless. In Doom Eternal they seemed to fit more with the rest of the game.

As for the Icon of Sin, the whole point of the boss is that it spawns demons so its not like they could have gotten away from that. In fact, the retarded part about it is that the demon now moves around but doesn't actually do anything special. While the Icon of Sin in Doom 2 was just a gimmick fight there was at least a sense of mystery and you always wondered what the actual demon could do if it was freed. Apparently, all it does is lumber around and occationally swipe at you with his big useless arms. How scary.

 

[JDR13]

You quoted the wrong person there.

Anyways, I didn't feel like the bosses in Doom 2016 were that easy, although I wouldn't call them hard either. The spider bitch was a little challenging for awhile. The problem imo is that there wasn't more boss encounters. Having only 3 in the entire game was lame.

 

[Jaedar]

So about 2 months ago I got 3 months of gamepass for 1 dollar, and about 1 week ago I realized I hadn't even played anything with it. So I started looking for anything to get my moneys worth and found this. First impressions were: oh god this is everything wrong with modern gaming.

Terribadly coded launcher demanding my email address, with barely functioning inputs.
Then, the launcher threw ~10 different popup adds at me for various SUMMER HORDE MODE SPECIAL, DLC NOW RELEASED, each of which had to be open for a few seconds before the button to close it was enabled. But whatever, go into options, turn off all the stupid depth of field and film grain and other bullshit graphics (at least FOV is default to 90). Mouse sensitivty in menu is hardcoded to be superlow, and the settings only impact in game look speed, not menu cursor speed. But fine whatever, I ain't no quitter. New game sucker, at least the opening cinematic can be skipped.

Ok, first weapon found is chainsaw, lets pick it up! "Press tab to view codex entry for chainsaw" followed by teleport to mandatory tutorial area so I can learn how to chainsaw enemies (walk up to them and press c, much hard, definately can't be done in regular map). Fine whatever, first secret item: Forced to stand still for 5 seconds after picking it up because otherwise I might not pay 100% of my attention on the long ass pickup animation.

Continue playing. Realize I move at super slow speeds, while the enemies are zooming around like crazy. Maximum shotgun shell capacity: 16, when most enemies take 2 shots to kill. A few secrets hidden in weird corners of the map requiring blind platforming around corners and on lava floors. 90% of the time there are invisible walls on seemingly traversable platforms, throwing you into the abyss.

Admittedly, the game shaped up a bit after the horrible first impressions, but it still has a looooot of bullshit, but at least you can make glory kill animations almost instant. I am dying quite a lot though, feels like enemy projectiles and attacks come out lightning fast, and since they keep spawning in all over the place it's really easy to get flanked and gibbed by strong enemies that didn't exist 5 seconds ago. Weapons also feel super unreliable, especially the micro missiles which sometimes feel like they're doing incredibly amounts of damage, and sometimes feel like they're utterly useless.

I also question the fact that there's a hub level to get upgrades in, but only like 10 maps, and then you don't even visit the hub between every map.

 

[Multidirectional]

but at least you can make glory kill animations almost instant

It's really a waste of rune slot though. Initially I was annoyed that I couldn't make these animations faster without a rune but eventually grew to appreciate the fact I get a little time to think about my next move during those.

 

[Ivan]

So about 2 months ago I got 3 months of gamepass for 1 dollar, and about 1 week ago I realized I hadn't even played anything with it. So I started looking for anything to get my moneys worth and found this. First impressions were: oh god this is everything wrong with modern gaming.

Terribadly coded launcher demanding my email address, with barely functioning inputs.
Then, the launcher threw ~10 different popup adds at me for various SUMMER HORDE MODE SPECIAL, DLC NOW RELEASED, each of which had to be open for a few seconds before the button to close it was enabled. But whatever, go into options, turn off all the stupid depth of field and film grain and other bullshit graphics (at least FOV is default to 90). Mouse sensitivty in menu is hardcoded to be superlow, and the settings only impact in game look speed, not menu cursor speed. But fine whatever, I ain't no quitter. New game sucker, at least the opening cinematic can be skipped.

Ok, first weapon found is chainsaw, lets pick it up! "Press tab to view codex entry for chainsaw" followed by teleport to mandatory tutorial area so I can learn how to chainsaw enemies (walk up to them and press c, much hard, definately can't be done in regular map). Fine whatever, first secret item: Forced to stand still for 5 seconds after picking it up because otherwise I might not pay 100% of my attention on the long ass pickup animation.

Continue playing. Realize I move at super slow speeds, while the enemies are zooming around like crazy. Maximum shotgun shell capacity: 16, when most enemies take 2 shots to kill. A few secrets hidden in weird corners of the map requiring blind platforming around corners and on lava floors. 90% of the time there are invisible walls on seemingly traversable platforms, throwing you into the abyss.

Admittedly, the game shaped up a bit after the horrible first impressions, but it still has a looooot of bullshit, but at least you can make glory kill animations almost instant. I am dying quite a lot though, feels like enemy projectiles and attacks come out lightning fast, and since they keep spawning in all over the place it's really easy to get flanked and gibbed by strong enemies that didn't exist 5 seconds ago. Weapons also feel super unreliable, especially the micro missiles which sometimes feel like they're doing incredibly amounts of damage, and sometimes feel like they're utterly useless.

I also question the fact that there's a hub level to get upgrades in, but only like 10 maps, and then you don't even visit the hub between every map.

training wheels come off when you can dash. the only "bad" part about Eternal, is that it starts you off with training wheels. once those come off, probably the best FPS I've had the pleasure of playing

 

[TC Jr]

I am dying quite a lot though, feels like enemy projectiles and attacks come out lightning fast, and since they keep spawning in all over the place it's really easy to get flanked and gibbed by strong enemies that didn't exist 5 seconds ago.

I was in the same boat, you basically need to play it exactly the way the designers intended which you'll either like or not. I personally love the gameplay loop, it's fun but I hate the fact it's called Doom, it really should've been it's own IP but I'm preaching at this point.