Review: Doom Eternal is a bloody thrill-rush

While cornered by several powerful enemies and with only a handful of bullets left, the action never stops, and Doom Eternal’s ever-lasting adrenaline adventure delivers on a massive scale. 

Not only does the action-focused journey leave you wanting more, but you seldom find yourself not having things to do, from puzzles to solve, secrets to locate, and demons to slay. For those looking for a wild adventure full of intricate, hectic violence, Doom Eternal steps it up from the franchise’s 2016 game and turns everything up a few more notches.

Hell hits home

The story of Doom has always been pretty straightforward: kill demons and save the world. The underlying plot of the game has never been complicated, and this remains the same for Doom Eternal. However, there is plenty going on with the game, from new plot devices and additional details regarding the speechless marine fighting these powerful demons with a vast arsenal.

Doom Eternal’s narrative turns the focus to what’s happening on Earth and the current demon invasion. Most of the lore requires you to find it throughout your adventure in the form of pick-ups scattered throughout the environment. None of them are ever difficult to find, and they’re a decent read while you take a break from the endless barrage of missiles and mayhem you can expect from the high-octane ride of demon hunting.

You can’t expect too many complicated things from this plot, but Bethesda manages to throw in a handful of twists to keep things interesting. Not everything is handed to you while you play, but the violence never takes a backseat. Doom Eternal is a hellish ride that doesn’t let you go, not for a second, and the story keeps putting more and more obstacles in your way, giving your rockets a constant target.

Fresh to death

Because it’s a new Doom adventure, you can expect to find a small arsenal of new weapons to help dispatch the Hellspawn with during your ride. The mechanics continually provide new methods for you to quickly zip around the battlefield, avoiding missiles, dodging hungry Cacodemons, and unleashing dynamic glory kills with fluid, gorey animations that explode right before your eyes.

None of it feels overdone, though. There’s never a moment you feel the game hits on things too hard, or in which you find yourself becoming bored with the same bloodsoaked punch or watching as the Doom guy shoves an eye inside a demon’s mouth as it explodes. Everything is smooth, all of the graphics are shiny, and the grotesque environment gives you the motivation to keep going while you explore every inch of a location to find every secret.

You have plenty of reasons to repeat areas, with a countless number of secrets and unlockables you can find along the way. Many of them you may want to return to after you’ve beaten the game once. 

You have the choice to return to a level using cheat codes to give yourself endless amounts of bullets or tip the odds in your favor, making it extremely easy to finish that one secret encounter you haven’t found yet. There’s a reason to jump back into the game, even if it’s to unlock everything to earn that final achievement. Completing levels provides a steady stream of cosmetics and unlockables through experience points, ensuring there’s reason to return to the fight against Hell.

From here to eternity

The environments and long trench run of levels in Doom Eternal can feel, well, eternal. Every so often, you’ll crash through another wave of demons, satisfied with your work, only to open up your map and see you’ve got quite a bit more of a level left to go. This happened several times during the gameplay, and it could get a little exhausting.

Despite the longer sessions spent running around a location, the demon-fighting never felt tiring. It was always a welcome sound to hear the soundtrack kick up and see another wave of Hell’s finest lining up to have their heads and innards cut down to size.

Doom Eternal builds on Doom’s 2016 release and does even more with what’s available, providing ample drive for the series to keep doing something new. There’s a lot of old, solid gameplay in this game. Still, it’s given so many new, increasingly exciting mechanics and ways to fulfill that power-fantasy of being an absolute badass. You’ll want to repeat those blood-soaked levels to try for a higher score or to unlock a brand new cosmetic item.  

Vibrant violence prevails

Doom Eternal is a fantastically violent, bloody, and high-octane thrill ride any respecting Doom fan is going to love, and new fans are going to love jumping into for the first time. It’s an adventure worth repeating on a harder difficulty, or repeating levels with a series of game-breaking cheat codes to try for any leftover secrets or to endlessly destroy demons in bloody, chunk-filled explosions that never overstay their welcome

For those looking forward to a new Doom adventure, Doom Eternal is here to serve. The Hell gates have opened, and there’s plenty of firepower to go around.

Disclaimer: Our review copy for Doom: Eternal was provided by Bethesda.

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