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

[JDR13]

I've already sounded the alert.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Took a tiny look at it. The Doom 2 box art skin's neat. I'm not good enough at Eternal to reliably do nightmare like I did in 2016 arcade mode, especially since your weapons are limited like they are. Mode seems alright but it's not as slick as arcade mode for 2016 since it's limited to 3 maps, so it's a good fuck around feature but it doesn't really become the best way to play the game or anything.

Good shit for a free patch, still disappointed Eternal never got arcade mode.

 

[Multidirectional]

Damn, getting my ass kicked on second level of first DLC. Mainly because of these stupid spirits. I welcome the increased mob count and higher number of higher tier mob spawns but not enjoying fighting spirits at all. Mostly because they force me to use that crappy plasma gun attachment that I normally would never bother with. Also having to remember to leave enough plasma ammo for when spirit is out kinda sucks, as I normally use Ballista a lot for shooting weak points of enemies. Overall though it's a good time. I just highly doubt I'll ever start having fun fighting spirits.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

Anyone else think the game is straying a bit too much from the original Doom atmosphere? Doom 2016 had some standout levels like Argent Facility that really felt like Doom levels. Dark, non-linear, very industrial and kind of foreboding. Eternal goes too much in the World of Warcraft direction for my taste. I much rather preferred if they went the Dark Souls route.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Both games are pretty much piñata simulators, but at least D44m had a little bit of that old Doom atmosphere.

This time it's basically just the name slapped onto something completely different. In gameplay terms I guess it's more Hellgate London.

And the piñata mechanic is over the top. Shoot monster till it flashes, press E to receive health or C to receive ammo.

 

[Multidirectional]

Well, second DLC sure was easier than first. I even ended up taking a long break and then lowering difficulty to UV for first DLC after second level left me completely exhausted. And was still dying a lot. The boss fight was some really annoying bullshit too with those fucking lasers. Then played second DLC on Nightmare and it was much easier than first one on UV. The only thing that gave me trouble was second wave of second escalation encounter, because it was in a cramped arena reminiscent of first DLC arenas. New enemies included in TAG2 were also a lot less irritating than Spirits or Blood Maykrs and the Hammer was really useful.

Overall I had more fun with the second DLC, at least based on first playthrough. That might change but my initial reaction is that challenge in TAG1 is more annoying than fun. And that thing used to be even harder? I can only imagine what a nightmare it must've been for complete casuals. I've seen posts of redditors complaining they couldn't even finish it on lowest diffculty.

 

[Israfael]

And that thing used to be even harder?

Afaik they already returned most of the cut stuff in the last patch apart from some annoying tentacles, but I haven't done TAG1 recently. TAG1 is actually easier than both Taras Nabad and World Spear MLs (if you do the last one, save at least two shots of bfg for the last fight (two sledge thingies and marauder), it will save you so much time instead of going tryhard mode on that. If you want some decent but not too hard challenge, just go for the Mars Core ML, it is basically how the main game should have been in terms of monster sets and difficulty.

And the piñata mechanic is over the top. Shoot monster till it flashes, press E to receive health or C to receive ammo.

It should have been called Eternal Noob Filter, I guess

 

[Ash]

Anyone else think the game is straying a bit too much from the original Doom atmosphere? Doom 2016 had some standout levels like Argent Facility that really felt like Doom levels. Dark, non-linear, very industrial and kind of foreboding. Eternal goes too much in the World of Warcraft direction for my taste. I much rather preferred if they went the Dark Souls route.

Doom 2016 may have had slightly Doom-inspired level design in like two instances, but it is still largely inferior to it and serves better as its own thing in Eternal form: inclined arena shooter which it excels at rather than lame Doom clone.

 

[Ivan]

Reflecting on my first DLC1 playthrough

Excellent. Loved the new levels: the UAC Transatlantic playspace was a nice mix of interiors + exteriors with tougher encounters throughout. The Blood Swamp was a particular highlight as they featured more novel gameplay elements and my favorite boss encounter yet. The Holt was a nice re-take on Urdak.

Loved the new enemies they added: the Blood Makyr functions like a mobile turret and the Spirit has a wonderful double function of being both a buff totem and a ticking time bomb for you to disable the moment the host "dies."

As I sharpened my skills on master levels, I almost forgot that you DON'T have the Crucible to fall back on in DLC1. There's plenty of BFG ammo around to help you out of tight spaces, they even throw Double 1ups your way to help you through.

Excellent, ultraviolent stuff. I found most of the music to be "typical" or "expected," fitting nicely into the heavy combat but nothing out of the ordinary, save for one excellent ambient track that I'll be adding to my library. I do hope for some more creativity in DLC2 or the next Doom sequel.

My hopes for DLC2 (will start that today after the dayjob)

-really looking forward to a proper 1v1 boss fight
-a crucible replacement would be cool
-more environmental hazards like in Blood Swamps/perhaps bring back the fog like in the master levels
-I'd like to see more creative use of the slow-down purple water, I think it could be a fun hazard to have in the environment

 

[Bigg Boss]

Anyone else think the game is straying a bit too much from the original Doom atmosphere? Doom 2016 had some standout levels like Argent Facility that really felt like Doom levels. Dark, non-linear, very industrial and kind of foreboding. Eternal goes too much in the World of Warcraft direction for my taste. I much rather preferred if they went the Dark Souls route.

YOU THINK!?

 

[toughasnails]

I'm hoping that if the rumored MachineGames Quake SP reboot is indeed happening, and if it is indeed inspired by Quake 1, it will go for that game's grungy aesthetics. There was definitely a movement towards more shall we say WoW-like, semi cartooney, style in Quake maps from Arcane Dimensions onwards and there is even some of that aesthetic in some maps from MachineGames' Quake expansion that was developed for the remaster but I would imagine that a distinct aesthetics and tone would be effective way to differentiate new Quake from the new Doom right from the start.

 

[Ivan]

Isn't it more likely for that to be helmed by the Doom team? I thought MG was doing the next Wolf + that Indiana Jones thing

 

[Israfael]

the Blood Makyr functions

... like a run-ender and extra-lives turbocharged burner, I think I've lost more runs and extra 1-ups in the horde mode thanks to those wonderful gentlemen as compared literally to anything else. And to think of it, they've been nerfed in one of the patches after DLC1 got released. Those nerf dind't fix their projectiles going through solid objects and teleporting around corners literally half the time /rantoff

 

[Israfael]

My hopes for DLC2 (

The real highlight of it is the World Spear master level, it's not just as hard as SGN or TN master levels, but is also like 3x longer (one of the major fights there takes like 10-15 minutes to finish and there's so many mobs so that sometimes monsters randomly despawn (usually happens to spirit-ed mob for some reason))

 

[Bigg Boss]

Oh Jesus just hearing the word 1-up with Doom...

 

[Ash]

Yeah. It's serious incline. Now you have to get good or go home little bitch.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Never had to do that before.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

 

[Ash]

Oh no not platforming. How dare a modern game reintroduce what was once a standard tenet of FPS gameplay in the 90s. How dare it utilize the third dimension in an interactive manner! I long for the flat planes of Wolfenstien 3D!

 

[Lyric Suite]

The only saving grace of nu-Doom has always been that it's actually hard and requires high skill and dexterity, which is a change of pace from typical modern popamole shooters. Also notable that zoomer normies were able to cope with this just fine, showing that this whole obsession with simplication and dumping things down was always all in the heads of production companies.

Everything else was always questionable and only got more questionable with Eternal.

All we can hope for is that the masses of normies out there didn't actually like the change in aesthetic from Doom 2016 to Eternal, because they certainly aren't going to listen to fans of classic Doom.

The best case scenario is that they make a Quake game and that it would be grim dark. Most likely, neither of those things are going to happen.

 

[Biscotti]

There's a difference between moment to moment high intensity, high skill gameplay and the kind of gameplay that asks some more agency and autonomy from the player. NuDoom is actually the perfect game for the zoomer generation: It's relentless, constantly pushing you from encounter to encounter, with some basic platforming sections to keep you busy during what little downtime there is. A poor attention span is not going to be to your detriment. It's the types of games that do ask the aforementioned of the player that were justifiably (in the eyes of the suits anyway) dumbed down and simplified. Good luck asking a "normie zoomer" to read or, god forbid, use some basic deductive reasoning without the game doing it for them.

 

[Ivan]

Finished DLC2

The first thing I noticed was the more "post-Disaster" settings: reclaimed Earth and even the World Spear were actually quite beautiful environments to do battle in. As a finale of sorts, I was bit disappointed to see that the new enemies added to the roster were mostly just variants or reskins, that said they did encourage me to add new wrinkles to my game (auto-shotty/remote detonation for RPG). I had an easier time with this DLC, although I was super happy to see the return of the mini gore nests, and their harder optional variants. I thought Id did a nice job selling the spectacle leading to the finale, but I was left disappointed by the actual boss fight. I was hoping for a proper 1 v 1 fight, perhaps with some environmental hazards. What I got was more of a Marauder-like encounter with some summons peppered in. Wasn't a fan of the mech suit but at least he's no pushover.

Looking forward to sinking my teeth into Horde mode, dabble a bit with Battlemode, finish the rest of the Master Levels, then give the campaign another spin with a different play-mode, and see how far I get in an Ultra Nightmare run.

-Bug: one encounter in Hell didn't load properly, it just spawning Zombies lol a quick reload fixed the problem

favorite banger of DLC2

 

[Fedora Master]

You know what I loved about the old Doom? All that faux nordic lore.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Anyone else think the game is straying a bit too much from the original Doom atmosphere? Doom 2016 had some standout levels like Argent Facility that really felt like Doom levels. Dark, non-linear, very industrial and kind of foreboding. Eternal goes too much in the World of Warcraft direction for my taste. I much rather preferred if they went the Dark Souls route.

Doom 2016 may have had slightly Doom-inspired level design in like two instances, but it is still largely inferior to it and serves better as its own thing in Eternal form: inclined arena shooter which it excels at rather than lame Doom clone.

Still doesn't justify fucking with the atmosphere.

 

[toughasnails]

I... actually liked Eternal's environments. They remind me of UT maps, sort of grand scale combination of fantasy architecture and hi-tech. Some of them even look like something that would've fit in the latest UT.