Doom Eternal

Released for the Nintendo Switch on December 8, 2020 by Bethesda Softworks, and developed by id Software, Doom Eternal is another ripping, tearing volume in the storied FPS series.

On March 20, 2020, the world shutdown, just as Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal were released. Plenty of memes celebrated the two games' very different lead characters, cute dog lady, Isabelle, and the shotgun-toting, armored brute, Doomguy, being best friends and going on violent adventures together. For Switch owners, that's as far as the two games went hand-in-hand--because Doom Eternal only released on Playstation, XBox, and PC. The Switch version was delayed. By that December, when Doom Eternal finally hit the Switch, my backlog was so enormous, I didn't start playing the game until...several months ago. Two years after Doom Eternal's zeitgeist moment, right now, I am not only finally having my moment with this game, but embracing my violent destiny.

 

Pictured: Me. Literally.

I should give a couple of caveats. The first is just that I'm a big Doom fan. I love the original game from the 90's. I loved most of the games after that. I loved playing the reboot/Doom 64 sequel on Switch four years ago. I just like first-person shooter games that force you to keep moving around in general. The second caveat is that I was raised in a household where we were taught that evil is always near, our eternal fates are tied to a vicious, ongoing spiritual battle, and that ever-present evil must be resisted and defeated. Growing up, when I'd see someone acting evil to someone else, I'd start tearing up, not from sadness, but from rage. It is literally a psychologically ingrained religious hatred so powerful that any game that puts me in a savior position versus a demonic hoard that is trying to suck the life force out of and corrupt humanity is going to connect with me on a deep, underlying, immensely very visceral level. As a result, this review is biased, and instead of trying to hide that bias, I am just going to lean into it as hard as possible because I love ruthlessly slaughtering demons in a blinding rage, while yelling "motherfucker!" and "die, bitch!" at my Switch and I refuse to hide it.

 

This picture symbolizes what I am about to do to objectivity, decency, and the English language.

2016's Doom is a glorious, violent bath of first-person shooter action, throwing endless hordes of diversely designed demons at the player, and forcing them to run and gun, punishing players for trying to hide out in one spot. The game seemed far too graphically technical and intense to come to the homely Nintendo Switch, and yet miracle-workers, Panic Button, were able create an unbelievably smooth and grotesquely beautiful port for the hybrid system. I played the hell out of it, and loved it, with my only complaint being the slight blurring of the graphics, mostly in the distance, done to keep the game running smoothly. 2016's Doom, with its metal imagery and soundtrack, is one of my favorite first-person shooters, and Doom Eternal takes absolutely everything about that game and somehow pumps it full of steroids.

 

More! I said MORE, DAMMIT!!!

id has created a game in Doom Eternal that appeals to exactly that portion of players' brains. To be honest, I struggled through the game's first few hours, before finally getting a grasp of the basic gameplay loop, and also turning the difficulty level down(which can be done at any moment) because Doom Eternal is pretty damn hard. However, once the game's loop ingrained itself upon my psyche, and I adjusted and adjusted to the difficulty level, Doom Eternal became a one-hour a day for a month routine that I now sorely miss. I'll attempt to describe the loop.

 

Concise description: Kill these fuckers.

The player takes on the role of the legendary Doom Slayer, who once, through sheer rage, dedicated his entire life to rampaging through hell, doing so with violent success before finally being put into stasis. The Doom Slayer was awakened from his eternal slumber in the previous game, on a site on Mars, and was tasked with closing a portal from the Red Planet to hell. Now the demons have somehow invaded Earth, and it's up to The Doom Slayer to kill every last one of them and then defeat the Khan Maykr. Khan Maykr is an enormous and powerful angelic being who has made a deal with Hell to help siphon off humanity's lifeforce, in order to save her own demonic realm. That's right, this bitch came to OUR planet with a horde of demons to exterminate humanity, in order to save her own disgusting species. You've got to kill her. You've got to kill them all! Here's how you do it!

 

Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?

As the Doom Slayer, you will enter an area, first the decimated Earth, and then Mars and hellish other realms. Within moments, you will be waylaid by an army of demons. Eventually, you'll have a full arsenal of weapons at your disposal, from a regular old rifle, to a rocket launcher, to the classic Doom shotgun, among many others. You'll keep finding newer, cooler, and more destructive weapons as the game goes along. You've also got a chainsaw and a melee punch, along with a frag and ice grenade and a flamethrower. Using a specific combination of these tools, there's a formula to killing every last one of these ugly sons of bitches.

 

Especially you, you one-eyed asshole! See what I did to your friend behind you? When I'm done with you, you're gonna wish all I did was chop you in half!

As the demons approach, you should launch an ice grenade near the biggest, deadliest group, then start unloading your more powerful weapons into them. They'll thaw, and your ice grenade launcher will take about 30 seconds to recharge. At this point, you should fire your flamethrower, which temporarily sets your foes ablaze, and causes them to drop armor. The flamethrower also has about a 30 second recharge. As you're grabbing the dropped armor, you should be unloading round after round into your enemies, cycling through your weapons as they run low on ammo. As all of your weapons start to run dry, you should pull out your chainsaw and look for a smaller foe to decapitate, as doing so causes them to drop a massive amount of ammo for all of your weapons.

 

Give it up, dickhead!

Your chainsaw also takes time to recharge, unless you pick up a can of gas, but at this point, your health may be running low. You should try to injure an enemy until they're just near the point of death, when they start flashing orange, then hit them with your melee punch. The enemy will not only drop a bunch of health for you as you smash or stab them to bits, but you'll start to fill up your blood punch meter. Once that meter is full, you can unleash a blood punch, a devastating melee attack that does great damage to even the most powerful of foes. While you're doing all of the above, you should be constantly moving, while also looking for health, armor, and ammo pickups strewn throughout the environment. Kill every last demon, and then move on to the next area, until you encounter the next demonic horde. Rinse and repeat in bucket after bucket of demonic blood at a frenetic and adrenaline-pumping, nearly non-stop pace. This is Doom Eternal's gameplay loop.

 

And this is a cute widdle picture of a kitty cat

If you don't like the gameplay loop, I can't help you. If you do like the gameplay loop and the world and lore of Doom, then this game is damn near perfect. Doom Eternal essentially offers a constant stream of rewards, allowing you to repeat the above loop again and again on a grander and grander scale until you feel like the greatest badass who has ever lived. The title is apt. This game is righteous, unending  holy violence, as you rip and tear demonic hordes apart in gruesome, endless, organ-spilling fury, the Doom Slayer's righteous and holy rage never quenched. All of the game's lore, which exists here to a novel-esque degree in earned encyclopedia entries and through the game's fully fleshed out storyline, feeds even more into the Doom Slayer's incredible mythos, as the demons literally tremble at the mention of his name. I fucking love this game. There's even a demon propaganda minister who sends out public service announcements to weaken humanity's faith in you, which only serves to make you want to blow out of the back of every demon's skull even more.

 

I'm getting triggered

Bitch, you're gonna find salvation at the barrel of my shotgun

It's not only the game's lore and gameplay mechanics that have been pumped full of steroids...it's everything! The graphics and framerate here are somehow even smoother and slightly less blurry than they were on the original, proving Panic Button's miraculous porting abilities have perhaps not even yet fully been tapped. The gruesome, visceral detail of each bullet hit and enemy kill is higher than ever. From a musical standpoint, the previous game's metal soundtrack style is brought back and employed to a ruthless degree. The previous game's RPG element is also further juiced, as you'll gain weapon points to upgrade all of your firearms to a ridiculously satisfying degree. My personal favorite is the flaming Meathook I gained for the iconic super shotgun, a fiery harpoon that not only sets foes on fire, but pulls the Doom Slayer to that foe, then allowing the player to fire off shotgun rounds right into the demonic enemy's face, or even unleash a melee attack. It's so satisfying on a tactile level, the developers had to have been high-fiving after getting it to fully function.

 

Is this the biggest guy you've got? You better call for reinforcements!

It's not just your weapons you'll be able to upgrade, though. You get to earn and choose upgrades for your suit, as well as upgrades to your physical abilities, health, armor, and ammo capacity. This game features such a deep and rewarding system, but it goes hand-in-hand with the way the developers just give the player more in every single category here. If you love Doom, this is the doomiest Doom there is. It's eternal fucking Doom, forever and ever, amen. If you don't love Doom, or even if you just kind of like Doom, this game is almost alienating in its total and absolute Doom-ness, but I totally and absolutely love Doom, so in nearly every way, Doom Eternal is totally and absolutely my ideal first-person shooter.

 

Any game that asks, "Hey...look at this asshole right here...

...do you want to kill this motherfucker?" is going to get a resounding "HELL YES!!!" from me.

But wait, there's more! So much more that it almost doesn't matter because this game has already given me just about everything I want, but more is there. Online multiplayer? There. Extremely difficult optional challenges? There. DLC? There. An insane hoard of collectibles, including action figures and musical records, all of which you keep in your own personal fortress, which works as the Doom Slayer's homebase between each level? All there! Unlockable cheats to make the game somehow even more interesting? All there! Did I mention how big the stages are in this game? They're enormous, but full of save points. And Doom Eternal even brings back extra lives from video gaming oblivion, and hides them throughout each level, which allow you to keep going when you're killed in a battle for another round of full health, instead of having to even start back at a save point. Finding an extra life feels like finding the golden egg in the world's most violent Easter egg hunt.

Pull my leg, why don't you?

And there are hidden areas strewn throughout each of the game's massive thirteen stages. Some of these hidden areas can be found during the game's insane platforming sections, which I somehow haven't even mentioned yet, which generally employ double-jumping, mid-air dashing, and grappling, not only serving to heighten the game's already elevated difficulty and DO IT BIGGER sensibility, but the player's sense of absolute and total badassery when these sections of the game are mastered and defeated. If you hate Doom even a little bit, you will absolutely HATE these platforming sections, but I love them.

 

Don't touch my shit! Also, this is an old picture, I have so much more stuff now.

I love this game! I am biased! I don't care! Blowing off a demon's head with a shotgun is among my favorite simulated activities! Blame my South Louisiana, hyper-religious, Latter Rain-focused, charismatic Christian childhood! No matter how non-charismatic my quite still existent faith has become, put me in a video game with knife blades strapped to my arms, a chainsaw on my back, and a thousand guns in my hands, with a legion of sneering, physical demons before me, and LET ME FUCKING LOOSE. I WANT TO SHOOT THE DEVIL IN THE FACE. GIVE ME DOOM!!!

SCORE: 9.8/10