Doom Eternal - Hell Yeah!!

Earlier in June this year, during E3 2018, Bethesda unleashed the Doom Eternal teaser trailer. No gameplay, just a minute and a half long clip showcasing Hell on Earth. And it looked badass. A skyline scattered with derelict flaming skyscrapers, and a ruined landscape scarred by devastation and populated by demons - and all set to the crescendoing soundtrack of distorted guitar, beefy drums and thick bass. Colour me teased.

Viewers were left agog. Doom 2016 was a hugely successful iteration in the Doom franchise, ranking highly amongst fans and critics alike and I for one was already anticipating a follow up almost as soon as starting it. The E3 teaser definitely answered this. But cinematic trailers can be deceptive – I’m looking at you Dead Island – and we were all really left wanting to see some gameplay footage.

The waiting was short-lived – and on 10 August, Bethesda presented gameplay footage at QuakeCon 2018. And this will be the subject here.

Hugo Martin (Creative Director) and Marty Stratton (Game Director) took to the stage amongst ovation and applause bearing big grins and exclaiming “Fuck yeah!”. Standard Doom stuff.

After getting through the pleasantries, and into the presentation, they stated “That’s how it all starts for us – killing badass demons, with big guns in unbelievable places”, and talking about Doom Slayer that they want to “Make him the strongest and most powerful hero we’ve ever created.” Some excellent showmanship there, the crowd loved it and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t get me a little hot under the collar.

We saw our beloved Doom Slayer replete with modified armour, new tools and abilities that makes him even more lethal. We saw the Ballista Gun which can spear demons with explosive bolts, the Super Shotgun with the new Meat Hook mod and more. Even with a good spraying of Hype-Extinguisher I’m feeling pretty excited about this – palpable baddassery bleeds from Doom Slayer on any day of the week, morning or night, and this was no different. Everyone has their favourite gun – my Doom 2016 favourite is, somewhat controversially, the Gauss Cannon – you can aim in for destruction at a distance, is high powered for some devastating headshots and can be even more badass in Siege Mode dealing copious amounts of damage. It’s kind of a big deal. But Doom isn’t just about that boom.

In the words of Hugo “If you want to feel like a badass you gotta wreck some amazing bad guys along the way and Doom Eternal has some incredible enemies”. Touting twice as many enemies to maim, murder and dismember - including updated favourites, reimagined classics from Doom 2, and a glut of new enemies to challenge Doom Slayer – thats Mr. Doom Slayer to you and me – the already impressive and diverse roster from 2016 looks like it will be heartily expanded upon. How this performs in game will clearly be critical for a great game – Doom 2016’s ensemble of enemies had a spot on balance of enemies – enough different types to offer variation (that most crucial of life spices) and enough individuality for each to have its own strengths, weaknesses, and respective strategies for suppression. The composition of this balance in Doom Eternal is something I look forward to getting to grips with.

“The coolest enemies deserve the coolest deaths so were spending more time and energy than ever before making sure it feels absolutely amazing every time you shoot, punch, kick, slash or otherwise rip and tear one of the demons”. Game marketing loves to use these types of descriptions where they emphasize how groundbreaking, how utterly wonderful, their latest instalment or iteration is, how it will be like nothing we’ve ever seen before, but as time often tells – these massive leaps end up being small incremental steps. And not always in the right direction. So with that, I take a cautionary moment, calm down and try not to go off the rails on the hype train. And still get blown away.

Stunning glory kills – such as tearing asunder your adversaries with your bare hands – amped up gameplay to amphetamine levels and put you squarely in the boots of one of gaming’s most badassed badasses. If they can pull off making this even more visceral, without being gaudy, then I will be a very happy gamer. Once my adrenaline levels normalise, that is.

Enemies will also have multiple states as they sustain damage – they will visually deteriorate in line with their health in what has been nicknamed ‘destructible demons’.

With that preamble adequately preambled.. we finally got to see what we had been waiting for and the gameplay began - serenaded by cheers, whoops and hurrahs from the audience. Nothing like some good old anticipated violence to get the crown going.

Things kicked off in first person view with the customary quick check and donning of the helmet and system initialization which loaded the HUD. Doom Slayer checks his equipment, retracting blade on left arm and Super Shotgun upgraded with Meat Hook blade held in right hand and summarily reloaded. The shotgun gave the impression of heft and haughtiness. The blade – an air unsophisticated cruel efficiency. Dom Slayer exits the indoors area (fairly typical sci-fi horror interior) to enter a lavish landscape that can be best summarised as Hell on Earth. A voice on the intercoms announces: “please remain calm, you may notice a slight change in the environment, fear not – it’s all part of the plan”. Not a bad start, not a bad start at all.

Before I can take in the full impact of a shotgun-blast-to-demon-face I see, wait was that right, yes.. a grappling hook. No fucking way. I’ve been revisiting Dying Light and am loving the grappling hook there. And of course the Grapnel Gun in Arkham city and Just Cause has the Protec Grappler G3. Is there any game that can’t be made better with a grappling hook? Doom Slayer shoots, jumps and grappling hooks his way over the vertically and horizonatally challenging map, eviscerating enemies and ravaging rivals along the way. We see climbing mechanics including a jump from one wall to another during a climb, which does not feel in character for our staunch slayer, and did cause me to raise one of my eyebrows in questioning fashion. I’m not telling you which one, though.

ID Software implemented their custom ‘Push Forward Combat’ – which essentially is a series of mechanisms developed to promote direct action – and builds upon the “if you’re not moving, you’re dead”. Reloading was removed to keep action going, glory kills rewarded players with health packs and the double jump enabled players to get up close and personal with their foes. From what we can see from the gameplay trailer it suggests that ID Software has continued this development aim and I look forward to seeing how successful they have been with this.

Graphics looked pretty tasty, with impressive particle effects and great lighting, but there was something about the look and feel that wasn’t quite in line with Doom 2016 – it was difficult to put my finger on it but I think that everything seems a bit cleaner, a little less gritty. There’s more bright colours, bordering on neon, and this detracted a little from the previous instalment’s tone. Not a huge factor, but something worth considering nonetheless. The new ID Tech 7 Engine, used for Doom Eternal, stated the presenters, “allows 10 times more geometric detail and greater texture fidelity than we have ever put on screen, and still runs at 60fps”. Not bad. The glory kills seemed slicker and faster, which contributed to the fast paced action.

Humour has been a mainstay of the Doom series, and serves as nice palate cleanser lighting the mood between heart-pounding action scenes. A voice announces over the intercom ““Remember, demons can be an offensive term. Refer to them as mortally challenged” – which went down well with the audience.

Next they showed some mouse and keyboard gameplay, and picked up the pace with a more intense combat scene. At this point, the soundtrack notched up a gear and perfectly accompanied the on screen carnage. Mick Gordon’s trademark panache for the dramatic shone through with rhythmic pumping beats lifting gameplay to something much more intoxicating. And it worked. Coming together – the music, the fast paced action and the brutal destruction of the enemies just looked like so much fun. And this is what it’s all about with Doom – dive in and enjoy being the scourge of Hell itself.

Doom 2016’s Snapmap will not be making a return to Doom Eternal. Snapmap, for those that don’t know, is a level editing tool enabling map design, gameplay changes and logic editing to create entirely new game modes. It sounds great, and indeed there are a number of fantastic community made maps available, but it never really took off as was intended. In its place they are introducing an invasion mode – where players can take control of a demon and invade another payer’s game. You can even team up to form a Slayer Hunting party. Players will have the option of enabling this, and can instead chose to enjoy an entirely single player experience.

With some incredible looking environments, a new arsenal of weapons, an updated roster of baddies, new moves and multiplayer modes and finer graphics Doom Eternal looks set to be a fantastic follow up to one of my favourite games of 2016. I can’t wait to get my hands on this, and if it turns out playing and sounding half as good as Doom 2016 I will be a happy bunny.