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

[Durandal]

The whole DLC can be summed up as a premature ejaculation. Where TAG1 was Plutonia, TAG2 is Doom 2. All the new enemy additions are pretty gud, it's just that they barely get to shine. You can't really up the ante while introducing new enemies that you still have to learn to deal with (the Spirit in TAG1 being an exception since all it mostly did was modify existing enemies), and when you're introducing this many new enemies in such quick succession within a short three-mission chapter, you don't have the time or space to start properly experimenting with enemy compositions. Which is *doubly* disappointing given how this is supposed to be the big finale of the campaign, yet feels like a bigger cakewalk compared to what we've faced in TAG1. The new Hellbreaker is a way more interesting tool than the Crucible and a great addition, but the arenas in TAG2 don't scale in intensity to make up for the extra power and survivability given to you by the Hellbreaker.

Honestly, TAG2 should be a lesson about why you shouldn't be introducing new shit right near the finale of a game. I would rather that TAG2 introduced less new enemies and instead focused on using what was introduced earlier in more interesting and escalating ways á la TAG1.
The final boss is a Super Marauder and a massive crock of shit.

I will post more in greater detail after I get some sleep.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

Let's start with the good:

It's very pretty and varied visually. The artists put a lot of effort into this.
The SSG swing mechanic is pretty cool.
The Hell level is new and refreshing.
Music is alright.

Now the bad:
All new enemies except for the Armored Baron are just lame as hell. The Stone Imp is yet another monster that you need to kill in a very specific way. You can tell they are allergic to hitscanners because the Chaingunner is just a guy that fires fast projectiles. Doom does indeed have a best way to kill an enemy but not like this. In Doom 2 you might be forced to kill a Hell Knight with nothing but a Chaingun because you lack shells or you might be prevented from using the Rocket Launcher because you are in a very tight corridor. You are never forced to kill him using a specific weapon.

One of the new enemies is a hell soldier. He is just lame as hell because he literally dies in one shot. That's less than a zombie. Is this a joke? Did they run out of time and budget?

This is a BIG One for me but the level design is ENTIRELY LINEAR. TAG1 had some pretty ok exploration in the first two levels but what you see here is the most linear Doom has ever been. As a level designer, I'm very disappoined about this.

As a last level, Hell is new and refreshing but it is too short. Did they run out of time and budget?
THE BIGGEST THING....OH MY GOD The final boss fight is the lamest, most frustrating thing I have ever seen. MASSIVE downgrade from the Icon of Sin fight. He is not that difficult but whenever he hits you get gets like 50% of his health back. His flash period is very inconsistent because he has other melee attacks that don't make him vulnerable. Also, you MUST use the hammer when he is vulnerable because otherwise you only get 1 second to damage him. It took me over an hour of back and forth to finally kill him. Awful, just awful. I was FUMING WITH RAGE towards the end.

Too much high fantasy. I know Doom is inspired by fantasy and stuff like that but this is just too much. Doom 2016 had the perfect atmosphere. There is no tension in this at all. The harder they try to make me feel like a badass in this one the more they fail.

Finally, this lore is just dumb as hell at this point. It makes zero sense. There are so many loose ends it's not even funny. Wasted potential.

I realize that COVID impacted their development a lot but this feels like this should have been a sequel to fully realize these ideas. It really feels like they ran out of time and budget to fully flesh out these ideas. Looking back, I wish they dialed the "epicness" down a bit for the DLCs and pursued something smaller-scale. Like perhaps the Doomguy gets bored in his fortress and just goes out and kills some demons, some powerful but lesser being. Or perhaps a personal quest. And then at the end something happens that sets up a sequel.

This gets a 2/5 from me. Doom Eternal was in many ways one step forward, two steps back. This is just two more steps back. I hope the dev team learn something out of this. TAG1 was a lot better.

 

[Justicar]

Game is bad get over it.

 

[Caim]

Finished it. It was worse than the first part. First level was a retooled Taras Nabad before it swerved into a bit of the Cultist Base. It had a few traps here and there, and the few larger forested arenas were nice. The final fight was pretty tame though, and the platforming sections at the very end were a good start, but then the level ended. Second level was on Earth, which was a nice change of pace to look at. Third level was a hell/Urdak crossover, but it lacked the oomph of either of them.

I get where they were going with for the new demons by having you improve your target priority and use more different weapons, but they were either a pain in the ass to deal with (Armored Baron) or a bit of a waste (everyone else). The final new enemy type was kinda interesting, but in practice were little more than possessed soldiers. The hammer was nice to play with, even though it's the "refill everything" button. The final boss was several piles of ass.

The story was also ass and felt like they took why the base game story didn't work and cranked that shit up to 11. It was as if they took a decent story, then cut out half of the plot elements and pasted the rest together. Should've had more time to make it work. Also the ending was several flavors of shit.

Verdict: Play it if you love the Doom Eternal gameplay loop and want more, don't bother if you don't already have it.

 

[Israfael]

Finished it, the base DLC seems to be significantly easier than the TAG1, apart from the boss and the marauder duo (effing purple zombies, hate 'em). On the other hand, optional challenges seem to be much harder (first one is the hardest, last one seems to be the easiest but I might have lucked out on some spawns, it seems to be somewhat random in what is spawned at certain waves of the challenge). Last boss, while challenging, could be less random - if you are lucky, you'll get zero superheavy packs spawn and almost no shield charges, if you are unlucky, you'll die no matter what in seconds. I understand that they actually counted on this unpredictability (took me several dozens of wipes not to shoot at boss reflexively when he starts swinging the sword but without green flash), but it's something that can't really be mastered, it's just dumb luck (or bad luck).

 

[HansDampf]

Did the update also change TAG1?

 

[Multidirectional]

Dark Souls isn't actually like this a closer point of comparison would be Sekiro, or Devil May Cry (which if i understand is where they ripped the Marauder out of in the first place).

It's a good idea to actually play the games before you start comparing stuff to them. Sekiro has its differences from Dark Souls but is still closer to it than it is to Doom Eternal. It's not non stop action, you are still exploring levels, collecting items and unlocking shortcuts in between bonfires idols. It's just that with much higher freedom of movement you can do it much faster. DMC is a little more fair comparison to DE.

 

[Caim]

Has the change to the Marauder been implemented game-wide? In TAG2 if you stun one it gets these cartoons stars over its head with a matching sound, which is dumb as fuck.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

Has the change to the Marauder been implemented game-wide? In TAG2 if you stun one it gets these cartoons stars over its head with a matching sound, which is dumb as fuck.

I don't know but I really fucking hate it.

 

[Sodafish]

In TAG2 if you stun one it gets these cartoons stars over its head with a matching sound, which is dumb as fuck.

Well DE already showed the first signs of this kind of retardation with the headshot pop sounds.

 

[Israfael]

They added a lot of visual aid in TAG2, serious players in WoW did the same UI placement ("racing car ui" in Hugo's parlance) for ages. But some people take the plot and environment of this game too seriously, I guess

 

[Boleskine]

 

[Clockwork Knight]

They said the testers and others they've watched playing failed to notice the stun effect, so they had to make it more obvious

 

[Fedora Master]

It wouldn't be Bethesda if they didn't fuck up the series sooner rather than later.

 

[Sore Loser]

.

 

[Israfael]

Didn't play through TAG1 again since it was released, but I can't say Arachnotrons were nerfed, they seem to be the same (although there's no spirit-boosted version of them here, so it alone makes them 100500x less annoying as in TAG1). Cyberdaemons seem to be rather buffed (although they might have done in after TAG1 release), they never posed any danger before TAG2, but in TAG2 I consistently died on them in some of the challenge arenas. Although here they are always accompanied by other heavy mobs that constantly put pressure on you

 

[Caim]

The one spirit-possessed Pinky in the second level really took me by surprise, and it was quite the pain to deal with given how it moves at you at SANIC miles per hour. At least I managed to kill it without it possessing another enemy, like how I messed up in the first fight after getting the hammer and I managed to take out the Arachnotron possessed by the spirit... only for me to run out of cell ammo and it stapling its ass to a Tyrant.

 

[HansDampf]

Did the update also change TAG1?

I read steam forums a few days ago and seems like first level had the most amount of monster spawn changes, 2nd had a little bit (from what I understood first encounter with possesed + normal baron got changed to 2 hell knights) and in 3rd they apparently changed only slayer gate. There was a talk that they also nerfed monsters themselves: arachnotrons fire slower, blood maykrs have longer vulnerability window and fire slower and maybe slow effect is weaker.
Not sure if there is a full list of changes somewhere, would be interesting to read. Apparently it was made to improve pacing and make it a bit easier since they want really hard stuff in master levels:

Spoiler

Here is an iteresting post of changes in first level: https://steamcommunity.com/app/782330/discussions/0/3099012755253887947/?ctp=3#c3099012755255669655

And these changes even apply to Nightmare?
Does the slayer gate at least still have the possessed Marauder?

 

[Sore Loser]

.

 

[KVVRR]

Really sad to see that they've retroactively made TAG1. That DLC was the peak of Eternal and where all the tools you got through the course of the campain could truly shine.
Hell I don't know why the nerfed it, I found it easier than TAG2 when I played it at launch, and I completed it on Nightmare.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Wonder if they just rushed it or if they cucked after the media backlash against the first DLC for being too teh hard.

I guess we'll find out in their next game, where you get to play Daisy, killing Demons in a bright sunny field with unicorns and rainbows.

 

[Israfael]

Hugo just said on the stream that he'll revert nerfs to Atlantica because of the review bombing on steam

 

[copebot]

The Super Gore Nest Master Level was IMO harder than TAG1 or TAG2. Not sure it was better than either, but it was definitely tougher. I think some of the criticism of TAG2 is a little overboard. It's not as good as the first DLC but it was still really good compared to other FPS that have come out recently.

 

[HansDampf]

Hugo just said on the stream that he'll revert nerfs to Atlantica because of the review bombing on steam

Truly a man with a clear vision for DE.

 

[Caim]

Gave Atlantica a spin and yes, it is easier right now. Fewer big enemies to bumrush you, the infamous Two Tyrant Tunnel has the first Tyrant replaced by two Hell Knights, only a handful of Pain Elementals and there's less overall dickishness. Sure I finished TAG2 last friday in one sitting, but it's not like I got THAT much better at the game in one go.