DOOM Eternal Hands-On
The most important aspect of DOOM is how fun and manageable it is to play as the Doom Slayer. He’s just as powerful and spry as ever, able to switch between guns with the flick of a button that briefly slows down time. The weapon roster includes a traditional combat shotgun, plasma rifle and rocket launcher that have been part of the series since its pixelated days. Mods can be found in locations around the game world that allow you to upgrade one aspect of your weapon, like sticky grenades for your shotgun or a focused laser beam for the Plasma Rifle. Unlock both mods for a weapon, and you’ll be given an objective-based quest that might involve something like killing certain enemies. Doing so unlocks an even more powerful augmentation.
Players don’t start the game with a full arsenal of weapons or abilities. Instead you slowly earn them as you progress throughout the campaign. This is an absolutely amazing addition considering how massive your arsenal becomes after just a few levels. When thrown into the E3 demo from earlier this year, I found myself overwhelmed by the varied weapons, dashes and abilities necessary to carve your way to victory. Thankfully, DOOM Eternal offers plenty of time and training meatbags to get used to new features before fully handing you a new mechanic to work with.
And there are a lot of new mechanics in this sequel. To get health you perform glory kills, which change in action depending on the direction you’re facing when pressing the desired button. To get ammo you’ll need to chainsaw enemies, and you only have a finite amount of fuel before you’re out of juice. Armor requires Flame Belch flamethrower demons, which drop small packs with damage over time and yield more armor if you manage to kill said demon. This addition is massive, allowing you to dance around the battlefield and thrive in the chaos. There are times when you need one resource and can find it by slaying pretty much any enemy. This one seemingly small adjustment makes DOOM Eternal one of the most frantic NPC shooters around.
But DOOM Eternal isn’t just a shooter, because it’s also got platforming sections too. The Slayer eventually gets two dashes, a double jump and a wall climb that players will presumably use quite frequently. Floating islands of flame and spikes hover above pools of lava, and it’s up to you to get from one to the other. Some of these jumps require precise positioning, and if you aren’t used jumping around, you may find it frustrating. A few hours in, you must perform four dashes to get to a location, with an item hovering in mid-air that refreshes your dash count. Though the task proved maddening at times, I never stopped playing.
Despite experiencing DOOM Eternal on its easiest difficulty setting, the game still proved to be a challenge. I died multiple times on my runs, getting overtaken by Cacodemons and zombies before I could react. But a good Slayer never stays down, so I beat those busters back to hell on my next revival. The game is very fun to play and is exactly what fans of the franchise have been waiting for.
There’s still so much to drool over; from detailed demon-kill animations to the horrifying levels you’ll need to make your way through. But you’ll have to wait to experience it just like the rest of us.
DOOM Eternal launches March 20 on PC, Xbox and PlayStation 4
