Doom Eternal is the sequel to Doom 2016, and it improves on the groundwork that its predecessor laid down in nearly every single way. There is more blood and gore, quicker and snappier combat, more weapon customisation and you can truly mould your Doom Guy's abilities to suit your particular playstyle. Doom Eternal feels like a big step forward for the series, in scope and presentation. The levels are much larger and more open this time around, and secrets are hidden everywhere for achievement hunters and collectors alike.
Like 1994's Doom II, you return to earth in Doom Eternal, and this makes the game feel much more varied than Doom 2016. There are 13 missions in total, and each one manages to be very distinct, ranging from Gothic cathedrals, to destroyed skyscrapers, to colossal demonic hellscapes in otherworldly realms. Simply put, it's bonkers, and I absolutely adore it. You start off with some of the core abilities from the last game, such as the double jump and the chainsaw, and your starting weapon is a shotgun (goodbye useless pistol!). From the get-go, the games movement just feels faster and more precise. It also feels a lot more vertical, as you jump off cliffs to obliterate your enemies below.
A cool new feature of the game is the dash system. You can dash twice in any direction before you have to wait for the cool-down, further extending the distances you can soar and the places you can reach. It's also handy in combat situations, being able to dodge imminent enemy fireballs and punches. Something feels very theatrical and aeronautical about the movement in Doom Eternal, as you jump, dash and swing across the combat arenas, shooting and ripping demons apart with immensely satisfying glory kills. Oh, and that's another thing. The glory kills have been revamped as well, and the developers have gone above and beyond with increasing the variety of them and their gruesomeness. When you damage an enemy enough, they emit an orange glow and you are given a small opportunity to performer a finishing move which also restores some of your health. I pulled out eyeballs, snapped necks and pushed heads back into their bodies. Wild stuff.
You also have your trusty chainsaw included in your arsenal, and you will either restore small amounts of fuel for it by killing enemies in the environment, or you will find fuel tanks around the place. When you finish an enemy with your chainsaw, you receive ammo for your guns. There is also a rechargeable flamethrower on Doom Guy's shoulder which allows you to set demons alight, which in turn gives you more armour. The moment to moment gameplay really got me into a rhythm, switching between glory and chainsaw kills, and remembering to keep track of my armour levels by torching my foes. There is also a new blood punch attack which kills multiple enemies at once, and an ice grenade that freezes your enemies in place. The progression of the game ramped up with every new enemy encounter, and I could feel myself getting better and better as I became more acquainted with all the tools I had at my disposal.
There are also optional high-level arenas and enemy encounters which are hidden throughout each mission, and you get extra customisation points to change-up your playstyle if you are successful. Like Doom 2016's Rune challenges, there are special encounters that get you to complete certain tasks, such as to kill two Revenant's within 10 seconds. Runes, collectables, vinyl records and action figures are also scattered around the missions, as well as energy canisters that allow you to add weapon modifications such as alternate firing styles to your guns, as well as to upgrade your stats. I personally loved the sniper mod for the machine gun, as it allowed me to easily knock off the pesky Revenant's rocket pods and the Arachnotron's plasma guns.
Next, let's talk about Doom Eternal's graphics and performance. The game is running on id Software's new id Tech 7 engine, and it is a marvel to look at and to play. id Tech 7 has around ten times the geometric detail than id Tech 6, and texture fidelity has increased dramatically as well. The engine also has a new system called "Destructible Demons", which allows the enemies bodies to progressively deteriorate and become more torn apart as they are damaged in combat. Vulkan rendering is also native, and the game ran buttery smooth averaging about 135fps with everything on the highest settings on my GTX 1080, Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB of DDR4 RAM and SATA SSD.
Doom 2016's composer Mick Gordon has also returned for Doom Eternal's original score, and it certainly commanded my attention and made my heart pump with dark, moody metal guitar riffs, as well as some funky bass synth lines that were a nice addition to the mix. It was the perfect fit for the game, and I'm glad id kept that element of the original games intact.
Whilst the game was mostly phenomenal, a few things dragged the experience down for me. Sometimes the levels were that broad and packed with secrets that I found myself getting a little bit lost, and some of the collectables also proved incredibly hard to find without a strategy guide or some online help. There also seemed to be more cutscenes and exposition than Doom 2016, which was a bit disappointing considering the middle finger that game gave to that style of storytelling.
Apart from those few negatives, Doom Eternal succeeded in being everything that I wanted it to be. A worthy successor to Doom 2016, whilst one-upping it in nearly every way with new features and gameplay elements that helped to make the game even more fun to play.
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