DOOM: ETERNAL, DANTE WAS NEVER THIS LIGHT HEARTED.

​Far from being angels as religious dogma would have them, the celestial forces in this game are of a more Lovecraftian bent, being entities and powers from beyond our own reality, whose nature and motivations are as alien as those of the demonic hosts themselves. Part of the game lies in exploring the lost and esoteric technologies of these celestial hosts. In fact, the game's hub-world (the hilariously dubbed Fortress of Doom) is an example of precisely that.

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Plains of flayed, fused and mutilated bodies, structures of interwoven, living forms screamng their agonies and despairs to burning skies, hordes of deformed and mutilated abominations intent on evisceration.
 
Hardly what one might consider the stuff of light-hearted, frenetic action gameplay, but that's precisely what Doom: Eternal provides:
 
Beneath its beautifully realised aesthetics -which draw on inspirations as diverse as renaissance art, biblical images, Dante's Divine Comedy and even comic books- beats the frantic and energised heart of an infernal puppy. Despite involving subject matter that might seem inherently horrific and despairing -from the eschatology of Heaven and Hell to the concept of a metaphysical apocalypse that has split the Earth and much of reality apart-, Doom: Eternal rarely, rarely makes the mistake of taking itself seriously:
 
It understands its own comic-book nature, the cartoon-horror that has sustained it so beautifully since the game's wholesale reimagining in 2016.
 
If anything, the recent sequel takes that quality to its exposed and demonically-infested heart, acknowledging it as a core factor of the original game's appeal amd ramping it up by a factor of 11.
 
On a technical level, the game isn't much different from Doom: 2016. Barring a few technical tweaks, additions and enhancements, the base mechanics are near-identical (essentialist “first person” controls). Where the game differs markedly is in how it frames and applies those technical elements: whereas before, the onus was largely on environmental power ups and artefacts, here, effort has been made to severely limit what is available to the Doom Slayer, meaning that the player has to rely on a certain synergy regarding their equipment in order to win through the unrelenting hordes of demons they will face from the first instance:
 
As before, enemies can be weakened until they are rendered vulnerable to “glory kills;” hilariously over the top and exaggerated animations in which the Doom Slayer puts his well-established penchant for brutality to work (expect geysers of gore, absurd excesses of violence and mutilation). This earns the player health which is much more scarce as a pick up in this game. Meanwhile, the chainsaw has become the de facto form of ammunition harvesting; enemies cleaved in two by the deliciously buzzing, roaring blade will scatter more than enough to fill most of your weapons to capacity. Later, additions such as the arm-mounted flame-thrower allow for the harvesting of armour shards, whilst a powered-up punch not only destroys several enemies at once but also expands the repertoir of consumables produced.

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Everything, everything, everything in Doom: Eternal has been designed to focus the player squarely on the action: whereas before, they might have spent time scouting the various combat arenas for health or ammmunition, here, such is not only unnecessary, it's a habit that must be unlearned in order to make any headway: the thick of the fighting is where attention should be concentrated, leaving the environments to be gawped at in sincere awe at their horrific majesty and excremental splendour after every last hell-spawn has been reduced to chunky kibbles.
 
Game-play wise, the game is even more frenetic and fast-paced than before, as well as far more ambitious: following the same structure of interlinked combat-arenas and environmental puzzle solving suites as the previous instalment, Doom:Eternal not only boasts more variety in terms of setting but also adds depths and dimensions that were previously less significant. Here, the player must be as aware of the vertical plain as the horizontal; aerial manoeuvering becomes essential to survival very early, as does learning how to quickly cycle through various weaponry and their alt-firing modes in conjunction with tertiary tools in order to create the most effective symergies. Each environment introduces new features to learn and assimilate, from matter that restricts movement to electrified or toxic floors, to flowing streams of lava, elements that enhance or oblige creative use of jumping mechanics etc.
 
The jumping mechanics are of particular note; most first person games suffer massively on a technical level in this regard, whereas Doom: Eternal has not only refined their implementation, it has emphasised and exaggerated them to hilarious degrees: a significant portion of the game involves ascending to new heights or traversing pits of fire, lava or empty abysses, using whatever means the player might have acquired. Far from being frustrating or oblique, these segments provide welcome -and often bouyant- contrast from the combat arenas, all of which have been designed to emphasise differing challenges and techniques.
 
Technically, the game is a marvel, its rawly addictive feedback cultivated by a refined system that does away with much of the complexity evolved within first-person shooting mechanics over the last two decades. In their place, it incorporates a level of easy and intuitive refinement; the game requires little in the way of instruction, the elegance of its design leading the player to intuit its controls on the fly, in the heat of the action. Rhythm is all important here; at its very best, the game flows with a mellifluous, musical quality that feels almost automatic, despite how hair-raising and fraught it becomes shortly after its opening sequences.
 
It is a game that rewards consistency and unbroken concentration, that the player can lose themselves to in an almost hypnotic manner.

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So, gameplay wise, a truly superb experience: fast, light and frenetic, with a heart-pumping soundtrack, absurdly tangible feedback and an overall ethos that is almost umatched amongst its ilk.
 
However, its qualities don't stop there:
 
Despite the Doom-Slayer's own unambiguous disinterest in the wider metaphysics at play (and the game's penchant for allowing the player to simply ignore any narrative or mythological elements they have no interest in), the game's story and back-mythology are surprisingly well-drawn and complex, incorporating a metaphysics that takes base-elements from previous titles and throws them together in an infernal blender. Merging science fiction dystopianism, religious lore and extra-dimensional metaphysics, the game paints the portrait of a multi-versal conflict that has been recurring through mythic cycles for untold aeons, the entities unleashed by UAC's extra-dimensional experiments, the Hell-plains that have begun to infest and corrupt so much of reality, merely parts of a much wider and more complex situation than any previous games have dared delve into.
 
For example, here we have, arguably for the first time, a notion of the divine in Doom as well as the infernal; there are angelic factors here, though they are portrayed in a notably -and amusingly-secular fashion:

​Far from being angels as religious dogma would have them, the celestial forces in this game are of a more Lovecraftian bent, being entities and powers from beyond our own reality, whose nature and motivations are as alien as those of the demonic hosts themselves. Part of the game lies in exploring the lost and esoteric technologies of these celestial hosts. In fact, the game's hub-world (the hilariously dubbed Fortress of Doom) is an example of precisely that. Whilst players can largely ignore the back story if they so wish, the game takes the bold choice of throwing the player into the remnants of these celestial realms, providing an aesthetic departure from what has gone before that some fans of the series might find jarring, but which also varies the tone and palette of the game immeasurably.
 
Enormous amounts of time and effort have been spent in realising these environments, even though the game is often so fast-paced and frenetic, most players will notice barely a fraction of them. Much of the game's ethos and a great deal of its narrative derives from environmental factors, especially in Hell, which is perhaps one of the most beautiful, garish and overt depictions of that condition there has ever been in video games.
 
Whereas the celestial realms tend towards the blue, white and grey; to angularity and clean-cut lines married with the ornament and elaboration of churches and temples, Hell, by contrast, is chaotic, filthy and hideously organic: through the crumbling rock and impossible edifices, crawling organic matter grows like a fungus, various eyes, mouths, tendrils and extrusions spreading across the hellscape, uniting everything as a single, monstrous and abominable anatomy. Vistas of broken rock and shattered, demonic cities provide the resting places for titanic demons and angelic engines that have fallen together and become fused into the very landscape. Impossible towers and spires rise in the distance, partially shattered or infested with vandal flesh yet still somehow coherent, somehow whole. All the while, scarlet lightning and beams of infernal radiance spear down from a tempestious sky, unholy runes and markings endlessly revolving, elaborating, forming portals through which winged hell-things flock.
 
It is a painterly and beautiful rendering of the condition that has clearly consumed the passions of myriad artists and designers, all of whom have brought their own concepts and inspirations to the finished article.
 
Part of the sincere joy of the game, once the action has drawn to a halt, is to simply wander and take in the truly incredible vistas, the arenas that have been crafted with such loving care and intent to simultaneously impress and appall.

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Interestingly, Hell is far more impressive in this regard than the celestial realms, which have a tendency to be far colder and uniform by nature.
 
In between the two are the terrestrial environments; Earth having become a post-apocalyptic wasteland in the wake of the demonic invasion, which, the player learns, has partially been implemented deliberately by factions within the galaxy-spanning UAC that abide by the philosophies and agendas of Olivia Pearce, whom fans of the series will recognise as the prior game's antagonist.
 
As such, the game maintains a subtle anti-corporate message throughout: whilst hardly profound or barely commented upon, there are one or two wry stabs at the innate nihilism of corporatism and the manner in which it reduces humanity to cattle or, worse, merely a resource to be used and expended. Many of these satires are environmental in nature, holograms which cheerfully urge the remaining human populations to surrender to their infernal masters and revel in the agonies that are to be theirs for all time. Others derive from the myriad documents and communiques the player can either find or receive throughout, all of which serve to expand the back mythology and make the game a richer, more holistic experience.
 
But what about the demons?; As well as the familiar rogue's gallery -all of whom have been extensively redesigned and expanded in terms of their variety-, the game boasts what is perhaps the most ambitious expansion of the Doom franchise's iconic repertoire since the latter stages of Doom 2, with cybernetically enhanced and upgraded renditions of classic monstrosities as well as entirely new foes, all of whom boast their own unique modes of attack and backgrounds, requiring the player to learn quickly in order to survive their onslaughts. Perhaps the most intriguing elements in this regard are the celestial and divine foes that also set themselves against the Doom-Slayer; enemies that provide as much contrast in their aesthetics and battelfield roles as the differing settings do environmentally.
 
Another factor that players may find a stark removal from the previous instalments in the franchise is the sheer number of unique encounters; the game is littered with “boss” level foes, many of which are specific characters within the lore, all of whom are unique and require the learning and mastery of new mechanics in order to best.
 
Playing this game alongside certain denser, deeper titles (e.g. Pathologic 2) serves as a sharp and refreshing palate cleanser; a light and easy-going experience that emphasises action and spectacle above all else.

 
As for its ostensibly horrific subject matter (Hell, damnation, apocalypse, genocide, dystopia), whilst the aesthetics and settings of the game might lead the player to assume a certain dourness and morbidity of tone, nothing could be further from the truth; the game is a floaty, breezy, delightfully absurd romp through a world without any particular weight or significance, but that carries the same superficial charge as an action comic book or brainless B-movie spectacular.
 
A welcome and wonderful addition to the Doom franchise, and one that is joyous in its earnest desire to to make the player smile like a well-fed cacodemon.

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