Doom eternal review 2023

Doom is not just a shooter, but a full-fledged genre. Nothing as crazy exists. Id Software showed this in 1993, and after 23 years demonstrated it again. In 2023, for everyone who still did not understand what a shooter should look like, Eternal was released, which finally confirmed the thesis: “Doom is cool.” The new part, of course, has flaws, but they fade against the background of the dynamic bloody carousel that the developers arranged.

Race with hell

The frantic pace of Doom 2016 has become even faster. There was more blood, and executions became even more brutal and colorful – the process of tearing out the eyes of cacodemons did not get bored even after 16 hours. In Eternal there are no gatherings in shelters: you are always in the thick of battle, constantly moving from demon to demon with the help of jerks or a meat hook, which you set on an old-school shotgun.

The main feature is that most of the ammunition, health and armor are now knocked out from mobs. At locations, cartridges can also be found, but basically they have to be farm with the minions of hell. The brutal murder (execution of stunned enemies) replenishes a lot of health, armor is given for arson from a flamethrower, and careful cutting of demons into two or three slices with a chainsaw will replenish the supply of cartridges. The developers directly say: no contactless battle, if you want to survive – go and tear them to pieces. However, this does not mean that you need to face the demon in the open field and shoot him with a machine gun. In Doom Eternal, movement is life. You stop for a couple of seconds, and you can start with the last checkpoint. At the same time, some battles in arenas last about ten minutes, during which you will have to rush between enemies under heavy metal, cutting weak mobs and knocking out cartridges from them.

However, the real madness starts after the appearance of the totem of cruelty or archville in the arena. Because of them, the endless spam of higher demons begins, which at the same time receive amplification. Fighting with such hordes is already impossible, and pointless. A deadly race begins, where you are looking for a source of infection, trying to destroy it before this hellish legion surrounds you. And if the cruelty totem can be broken with one button, then problems begin with the archwill, which teleports and exposes the shield.

Bloodthirsty events are added and traps placed in some locations. The player can lure a couple of especially thick mobs onto the platform, and then shoot the switch, and the giant press will turn the demons into mincemeat. If such entertainment is not enough for you, then go ahead to the test, where all of the above will be doubled.

All sorts of guns are needed, all sorts of guns are important

The main character in the arsenal with a dozen types of weapons that open gradually. At the same time, the relevance of the very first guns is not lost at a late stage. Firstly, this is due to the lack of ammunition – in long battles you have to shoot from everything, and then you still have to run with a chainsaw to farm the ammunition again. Secondly – and this is key – all rivals in Doom have vulnerabilities. So, despite the high pace of battles, you will have to constantly change weapons in order to effectively deal with hordes of demons. For example, without a sniper rifle it’s difficult to kill the creator’s drones, the elementals of pain will be calmed by a crossbow shot, but kicks become easy prey if you freeze it with a grenade and calmly shoot its tail.

In addition to the main types of weapons, the hero has two types of grenades, a flamethrower, a chainsaw and a sword. The guns themselves have two modification modes, which also suit certain situations. A machine gun, for example, can turn into a mobile turret, giving out a million damage per second, or activate an energy shield that protects against missiles. And all this is really necessary, and not only at the highest level of complexity. The combat system turned out to be both dynamic and rather diverse. Doom Eternal makes you instantly respond to emerging threats, switch shooting modes, choose a position for each weapon in order to maximize its ammunition consumption. Diversity here is not a nice bonus, but a vital necessity. Kill all with the left mouse button not the floor

But when will you die ?!

There are not so many bosses in Doom Eternal, but the fights with them come out really juicy and different in style. The battle with the Marauder in a confined space requires maximum concentration and excellent reaction. The monster moves as fast as the protagonist, but at the same time he is many times more dangerous. It is necessary to constantly keep the average distance with him, which he easily reduces in a second, to dodge his attacks, to repeatedly shoot the phantom dog he calls upon and at the same time inflict damage. The latter can be done in that short moment when the Marauder’s eyes turn green – the rest of the time behind his shield he is almost invulnerable.

The peculiarity of Doom Eternal is that some bosses are not just the same demons, only bigger ones, but important story heroes. For example, when the time comes to defeat Kan the Creator, the player already knows the story of the goddess, her role in the fate of the hero and the mistakes that led to this fight. Throughout the campaign, you are being prepared for this battle, gradually revealing the details of the relationship that connected her with the Executioner of Doom. Having properly charged the player with the motivation for the battle and understanding of what is happening, the developers give the opportunity to meet the Creator Kan face to face – and the battle with her will be very different from the battle with the Marauder. A goddess hovering in the sky will constantly shower the entire AoE arena, preventing normal maneuvering. Under her loud exclamations, rays of light energy will fly through you, and drones of creators will run around. The latter, unlike the usual thrash on other bosses, cannot be hacked – you have to shoot right in the head, so the farm of ammunition becomes several times more difficult.

The battle with the final boss is the quintessence of everything that makes Doom cool. Epic in scale duel with two phases, dozens of elite demons and constant explosions. To die in it once or twice is not so offensive – here the battle process itself is much more important.

1000 and 1 drop

The insane pace of battles is in stark contrast to the periods when Doom turns into Prince of Persia and the exhausting platforming begins. In the first half of the campaign there really is a lot of it, and it tires. In total, it took me almost as long as the battles with demons. After destroying everyone in the next arena, we begin to look for the necessary wall, which you need to climb. Next we look for the beam, which is worth jumping over. You can’t hang on it, you just need to jump further, but where? Into the abyss. We repeat everything from the beginning. Again the walls, again the beam, now with a double jump and a jerk we knock out the door, and behind it is the shaft, in which again you need to jump and climb.

Perhaps if the platforming was smaller, it would have looked nice, but in Doom Eternal you will have to perform a lot of acrobatic somersaults. All this parkour is complicated by not always working mechanics – sometimes the hero may simply not want to cling to a ledge in the wall and will doom into the abyss. At some levels, all this is combined with puzzles. In one room, for example, you need to activate the gate, which opens for a short time, then accelerate and jump to the side of the suspended beam, in flight shoot at the symbol to remove another barrier. All this sequence of actions can be violated by the fact that the hero for some reason does not grab the beam. And then we again make our way to the first room and start all over again.

In this gameplay, in principle, there is nothing wrong. Platforming and puzzles are great, but not in Doom. The whole drive from a tense ten-minute battle in the arena disappears when the game slows down so much, and you already forget how the demons look. These drawdown moments affect the perception of the game. Doom – it’s cool when your heart rate goes off-scale, a downhole soundtrack sounds in your headphones, and there is a dismemberment on the screen. When the game turns into an adaptation of Indiana Jones, the level of coolness is noticeably reduced. Perhaps all this platforming could be left, but to make it necessary only for the search for improvements and relics. If you want to collect all the objects – jump and climb forward, do not want to – you are welcome to meet the next horde of demons. All players will have to go through the parkour adoption phase.

Rock Stronghold and vinyl collection

In Doom Eternal, the protagonist has his own home location – the space fortress of the Rock of Rock, located in the orbit of the Earth. From here teleports are created in the mission, here is the training ground and your room, which is full of collectibles and Easter eggs. Rock Stronghold is a good idea. Here you can take a breath and thoughtfully evaluate your arsenal, figuring out what improvements should be saved further, and try out a new perk on demons in prison without spending bullets and lives. It’s worth spending about 20 minutes studying the collected pages of the code on the history of the earth, hell, creators and, of course, the guards themselves. So fully ENT Doom has never been disclosed.

During the game you will find secrets – vinyl discs, posters and children’s toys. The first two types of collectibles are connected with the previous parts of the series or other id Software projects and are very suitable for the surroundings and the very idea of ​​Doom Eternal – an endless struggle. However, the collection of toy demons next to a pack of comics and guitars left a double impression. On the one hand, it is funny and you can find nice references, but on the other hand, the atmosphere of the apocalypse around us is a little disturbed. A distinctive feature of the Doom protagonist has always been its laconicism and closeness. For the player, it was just a cool marine with a shotgun, whose only task is to destroy the demons. How much does this fit into a table with a running PC, comics, books and toys, let everyone decide for himself.

Not hell alone

Doom Eternal has extremely diverse and attractive locations, and some of them seem to be straight from fantasy about the Middle Ages. The majestic Guardian Stronghold or the pearl of the empire – the city of Taras Nabad – adds freshness to the new part. Our battles are no longer limited to hell, Mars and the destroyed earth – in Doom Eternal, the Executioner of Doom will be a punishing shotgun all over the world. At the same time, the new locations do not seem cartoony or do not fit the Doom aesthetics – they are perfectly integrated into the game both from the visual point of view and from the plot. And while completing the Glee mission, a soundtrack sounds that reminds me of music from This War of Mine. In that location, he was very appropriate.

The developers maximally delayed the immersion of the player in the underworld. When you do get there, there is no sense of oversaturation, so the long-awaited meeting with hell turns out to be very cool. Lava flows, cells filled with people’s bodies, and their huge grinding mechanisms look fresh and impressive.

Separately, it is worth noting the advertising holograms on Earth and their funny agitation. The friendly girl with the voice of the store’s lead on the couch recalls: “Contact Jessica in the personnel department to sign up for a blood test for alternative living people. Be generous. Donate blood. Donate ALL the blood. ” Such advertising campaigns against the backdrop of a dilapidated Earth filled with demons look funny. The girl from the hologram does not forget about the Executioner of Rock, always trying to make fun of him. True, at the end of the campaign her optimism disappears and she screams furiously: “Kill someone this idiot already.”

The only minus of the locations was their length. Some levels are so large and confusing that you have to study the map for a long time to understand where and why you need to go. But this flaw is more likely to relate to the first half of the game, since the closer you are to the final, the more dynamic everything that happens, and the locations themselves, are easier.

In the era of Call of Duty and all kinds of “royal battles,” id Software reminded us of what another shooter could be. In Doom Eternal, she polished everything that users liked in the 2016 restart, and brought in more innovations, making the game more diverse. The only minus for me was excessive platforming, but as a result, it did not fundamentally change the impression of the title as a whole. Eternal is a great game for anyone who has ever shot pixel opponents. The drive from the battles is difficult to convey in words or even feel on the video – this must be tested.