Doom Eternal

2016's Doom was a big success, both with fans and critics and really adapted the franchise into modern times which had been dormant since 2004's Doom 3. There was a lot of changes to the game and while I enjoyed it, I found that it had many flaws. Well enter Doom Eternal which is somewhat expected to be on the same level, and well it completely blows it out of the water with improvements in just about every area.

This game is fast. When I mean fast is that you have to be constantly moving and shooting, and it's really not about being precise with your shots. Glory kills are back and are even more of a key part to the game, they will be your main health generation. While I wasn't that big of a fan of that system in Doom 2016, I think it's much improved here and really fits in with the game. The chainsaw is your ammo generator and it's fuel recharges gradually so you will be using it constantly to get your ammo. Flame belch is there to burn your enemies and that will make them drop armor, this also recharges gradually. These are the 3 basic systems and will have you doing a rotation of these things while you are running all over the place to avoid getting shot and killed.

The difficulty is really ramped up in the game. The game will completely kick your ass, and that's starting from the 1st and 2nd mission with literally no waiting before it gets intense. The enemies are a lot more brutal and dangerous in this one, and while it's a pure action game you do need some sort of strategy to get through them as certain weapons and attacks are better depending on the type of enemy. The game makes you think fast and your reaction speed must be great, I found the experience very challenging and I was just playing on the 2nd difficulty level and there are 5 in total for the people that love to torture themselves.

Platforming was one of my main grips about Doom 2016 and it's back again, but overall executed much better. There's still lots of jumping around but it doesn't feel like a dead period as much, you'll have to figure where to figure where to go next to progress and you are aided with double jump and dashes to make these really big acrobatic moves (which also are pretty necessary in combat). The level design is really amazing, the missions are so big and they will bring you all over the place. The progression is linear but they do contain many secret items and upgrades that are otherwise easy to miss. The story overall is a general improvement, it's very over the top and pretty crazy and entertaining. I feel that's something that they really worked on and it wasn't just "there" like in the last title.

Overall Doom Eternal is great and makes Doom 2016 feel just like a practice introduction to the real thing here. Every thing is ramped up, and all the systems make a lot more sense for this style of gameplay. It's much less of an ammo management simulator, not that that aspect is completely removed but you'll have a lot more flexibility on which guns to use and don't have to rotate them as much. The balance is a lot better in general, the game is brutal and unfair but it feels just right. The devs went full in with this bold followup, they started something nice last time around but really perfected in this iteration. Absolutely one of the best pure action games of the last few years, at this point it is its own kind of FPS that nothing really compared anymore. Excellent, one of the must play games of 2020.