History YMMV / DoomEternal

** For most players, the Combat Shotgun's Stickybomb Launcher is the WeaponOfChoice for staggering Cacodemons. While a Frag Grenade to the mouth achieves the same effect, its slow charge time combined with its low travel velocity and the myriad of other utilities (particularly in faltering demons) make it an unwise application of the equipment. Additionally, while an Arbalest bolt from the Ballista is a guaranteed Cacodemon instakill, some consider this method a waste of precious plasma cells that are better off committed to the aforementioned Ballista-SSG combo. The only time this method is likely to be used to any great extent is to grind out the Arbalest's Mastery Challenge.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The serious DifficultySpike for ''The Ancient Gods - Part 1'' was a serious point of contention for a lot of players, as the DLC bordered on FakeDifficulty with all the new elements introduced not being in the Doom Guy's favour. New enemy variants without any real counterplay, cramped arenas, and the removal of one of the more powerful tools in Doomguy's arsenal (the Crucible) meant things could be extremely difficult in the first DLC. ''The Ancient Gods - Part 2'' levels the playing field a bit in response to player complaints. On top of having more forgiving arenas, the DLC also gives Doomguy the Sentinel Hammer. While it lacks the immediate damage of the Crucible, it has a boat load of utility to help in combat. It stuns enemies in an area around you, increases the drop rate of the ice bomb and flamethrower, and recharges very quickly via glory kills or weak point hits. Overall, the second DLC is much easier than the first with all these changes put together.

* EightPointEight: Upper Echelon Gamer's negative review was relentlessly mocked for his comically poor skill and how poorly he understood the mechanics (not helped by his constant dismissal of suggestions/tactics provided by others and insulting them). Comparisons were made to Polygon's memetically poor preview video, though unlike Upper Echelon Gamer, Polygon's actual review was written by someone who was competent at the game.

** The presence of a [[CallBack cage with two bags of rabbit food next to it]] in the Fortress of Doom brings up a couple questions regarding the ultimate fate of Daisy in this continuity, but this comes into effect when [[spoiler: the player runs into Daisy several times hidden in each level as an EasterEgg]]. Some theorize that [[spoiler: Doomguy is hallucinating her in the levels, given how some of those locations include destroyed cities, an inaccessible city of the dead in the centre of mars, and ''[[UpToEleven the vacuum of space]]'']], while others believe the cage and food might simply be for a new rabbit. [[spoiler: The fact that this the game later reveals itself and ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' to exist in the same continuity as {{VideoGame/Doom}} classic muddles the waters slightly, especially considering the Khan Makyr's offer of "bringing back that which the demons took" from Doomguy; as well as [[MadnessMantra insane ramblings about]] [[{{ComicBook/Doom}} ripping and tearing demons with huge guts]] showing that decades of fighting demons in Hell did a number on his mental stability]].

** ''The Ancient Gods - Part One'' cranked up the already NintendoHard game's difficulty UpToEleven, to the point where many describe it as making the ''entire base game'' feel like a tutorial level. Enemy waves are more numerous and feature tougher demon combos; it's common for the Slayer to fight more than 2 Super Heavies backed up with numerous Heavies and mountains of Fodder in any given fight. The arenas are more cramped and typically filled with hazards. {{One Up}}s and BFG Cell pickups are much rarer, making it impossible to brute force levels with extra lives and superweapons, the new enemies are specifically designed to move you out of ComplacentGamingSyndrome strategies such as the Super Shotgun[=/=]Ballista combo. Lastly, the bosses in ''Part One'' are definite step-ups from the FinalBoss of the base game itself.

** For fans of lore, Sentinel Prime: while the level itself isn't as filled with enemies as others, as a story-focused mission, it's a WhamEpisode that, through a series of {{Flashback}}s, reveals the true nature of the Slayer's background and his relationship with the Night Sentinels. [[spoiler:He's Doomguy, [[CanonCharacterAllAlong the player character of the original games]]. [[ShellShockedVeteran Broken from holding off the forces of Hell]] at the end of ''Doom 64'' for God knows how long, Doomguy is reduced to an insane, gibbering mess who [[SuddenlyVoiced talks about guts]]. [[AscendedMeme Huge]] [[ComicBook/{{Doom}} guts]]. Having been found by the Night Sentinels and the Maykrs, they decide to test his mettle by [[GladiatorGames placing him into an arena with other warriors for the Maykrs' amusement]]. Doomguy handily kicks the crap out of every warrior in his path, chanting "[[ArcWords Rip]] [[AscendedMeme and tear]]!" throughout, showing players how, despite [[EmpoweredBadassNormal initially]] [[BadassNormal being an ordinary space marine]], Doomguy [[TookALevelInBadass took several levels in]] [[UpToEleven badass]] and became the [[FromNobodytoNightmare Doom Slayer]], the greatest warrior in the Night Sentinels]].

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' was already technically impressive, but ''Eternal'' takes this UpToEleven. Running on the latest version of the id Tech UsefulNotes/GameEngine, the game boasts not only improved visuals over its predecessor but also improved performance, while running on the same generation of hardware. The PC version is so optimized due to the Vulkan API that it can reach hundreds of frames per second on powerful hardware.

** The presence of a [[CallBack cage with two bags of rabbit food next to it]] in the Fortress of Doom brings up a couple questions regarding the ultimate fate of Daisy in this continuity, but this comes into effect when [[spoiler: the player runs into Daisy several times hidden in each level as an EasterEgg]]. Some theorize that [[spoiler: Doomguy is hallucinating her in the levels, given how some of those locations include destroyed cities, an inaccessible city of the dead in the centre of mars, and ''[[UpToEleven the vacuum of space]]'']], while others believe the cage and food might simply be for a new rabbit. [[spoiler: The fact that this the game later reveals itself and {{VideoGame/Doom 2016}} to exist in the same continuity as {{VideoGame/Doom}} classic muddles the waters slightly, especially considering the Khan Makyr's offer of "bringing back that which the demons took" from Doomguy; as well as [[MadnessMantra insane ramblings about]] [[{{ComicBook/Doom}} ripping and tearing demons with huge guts]] showing that decades of fighting demons in Hell did a number on his mental stability]].

* UncannyValley: [[https://i.redd.it/ruj4ef1msyp41.jpg Doomguy's face]] as modelled under the helmet looks pretty strange with very wide-set eyes. Some have surmised it to be a case of ModelDissonance to make his expressions more readable with the helmet on, but another person who managed to rip the same model from the game discovered that the above image was [[https://twitter.com/IDHLEB1986/status/1244050637022810119 actually due to model viewer FOV settings]] than anything deliberate.

** The emphasis on fast movement, quick reflexes, and ammo management combined with the QuadDamage and Haste powerups, the usage of jump pads, large arenas, and the behavior of the {{BFG}} makes the game akin to a mix of ''Doom'' and ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'', in particular ''VideoGame/QuakeIIIArena''. The portal system that the Doom Slayer uses is even outright called a "Slipgate".

* SpiritualAdaptation: More so than even the previous game, ''Doom Eternal'' is definitely the best ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' FirstPersonShooter ever made. To summarize:
** The revelations of how Argent Energy and the [[DemonOfHumanOrigin demons came to be]] makes the version of Hell in ''Doom'' very close [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace to the Warp and its daemons]] (it helps that, like the Warp, Hell can also be used for FTL travel), Hell has plenty of human agents/worshippers in this dimension supporting their efforts and the Icon of Sin resembles a greater daemon prince (including only being killable with a special artifact and otherwise reconstituting elsewhere when he's killed conventionally).
** The Night Sentinels may as well be a Space Marine chapter, down to referring to their military expeditions as "Crusades" and the Marauders - their defected, corrupted, [[HornsOfVillainy horn-sporting]] brethren - being the deadliest soldiers of the demons.
** The Maykrs are a pretty good match for the Dark Eldar, a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien species living in a world outside of normal time and space which, while once-dominant over the galaxy, has been reduced to a depraved DyingRace that profits and perpetuates their world off of the suffering of others in Hell.
** ''The Ancient Gods'' further deepens the similarities with the revelation that Hell was originally a peaceful place that was ruined by a cosmic war between precursor deities, much like the ancient war between the C'tan and the Old Ones being the cause for much of the [[CrapsackWorld crapsack state]] of the 40k universe, which was then reflected into the Warp. [[spoiler: The Dark Lord himself also makes a personal appearance here, wearing an ''enormous'' suit of power armor that wouldn't look out of place on Horus himself. And to further cement the parallels, he's more or less what the GodEmperor would be if he turned to Chaos.]]

** Surprisingly, the final boss in ''The Ancient Gods - Part 2'' is commonly regarded as both this and a GoddamnedBoss, especially if you don't have a clear idea of what to do. His attacks aren't as overwhelming and punishing as the likes of previous final bosses, and are significantly telegraphed (though his melee attacks have greater reach than his swings would suggest they should), and he comes with virtually no backup outside of his spectral summons, which die instantly to the Sentinel Hammer. The arena generously spawns zombies on the edge where they won't bother you and can easily be farmed for health/ammo/hammer charges, and on top of that, the spectral wolves drop a half-charge for the hammer and are summoned in pairs. The boss himself can have his vulnerability window extended by the hammer (which makes him drop ammo), and he bleeds health pickups as you damage him. The GoddamnedBoss comes from the fact that the boss is protected by a shield that renders him immune to damage unless he is staggered right before he swings his sword -- similar to a Marauder -- and whether on not he chooses to use that attack is entirely dependent on the AIRoulette. He'll often choose to just ''not use his sword attack'', even sometimes faking out the player with a non-vulnerable version of the attack. The player has to stay within a certain range just to fulfil the conditions for the boss even using the attack, and there's no specific action that can force him to trigger it. The fight mostly devolves into a waiting game for him to use his swing so you can stagger him and unload what damage you can in the window. But the most damning thing of all is that if the boss damages you directly or takes damage when not vulnerable, he'll [[LifeDrain heal proportionately to how much damage was dealt]]. He can heal up to '''his entire health bar''' if he nails you with a sword strike or you accidentally catch him with a hammer strike while taking out his summons. Combine his constant healing and his limited vulnerability with the fact that he has [[DamageSpongeBoss five health bars]] and starts summoning illusionary minions later in the fight, and you get a boss that can quickly become a MarathonBoss if you're not good at avoiding his hits, and a fight that has a very high chance of devolving into a relatively non-threatening waiting game that goes against the [[AttackAttackAttack established formula for the game's bosses]]. Fortunately, if you can consistently maintain the close range necessary to trigger his vulnerability window, the frequency of such openings will increase, speeding up this process while also making the fight more appropriately challenging.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The serious DifficultySpike for ''The Ancient Gods - Part 1'' on top of the game's difficulty spike as a whole compared to the previous game was a serious point of contention for a lot of players, as the DLC bordered on FakeDifficulty with all the new elements introduced not being in the Doom Guy's favour. ''The Ancient Gods - Part 2'' gives him the Sentinel Hammer, which replaces the Crucible sword lost at the end of the base game, which, while it doesn't kill the tougher enemies immediately, stuns them and has an AOE effect in addition to amplifying the drop rates of the flamethrower and ice bomb, as well as the levels being a bit more reasonable in their difficulty.

* AntiClimaxBoss: Surprisingly, the final boss in ''The Ancient Gods - Part 2'' is commonly regarded as both this and a GoddamnedBoss, especially if you don't have a clear idea of what to do. His attacks aren't as overwhelming and punishing as the likes of previous final bosses, and are significantly telegraphed (though his melee attacks have greater reach than his swings would suggest they should), and he comes with virtually no backup outside of his spectral summons, which die instantly to the Sentinel Hammer. The arena generously spawns zombies on the edge where they won't bother you and can easily be farmed for health/ammo/hammer charges, and on top of that, the spectral wolves drop a half-charge for the hammer and are summoned in pairs. The boss himself can have his vulnerability window extended by the hammer (which makes him drop ammo), and he bleeds health pickups as you damage him. The GoddamnedBoss comes from the fact that the boss is protected by a shield that renders him immune to damage unless he is staggered right before he swings his sword -- similar to a Marauder -- and whether on not he chooses to use that attack is entirely dependent on the AIRoulette. He'll often choose to just ''not use his sword attack'', even sometimes faking out the player with a non-vulnerable version of the attack. The player has to stay within a certain range just to fulfil the conditions for the boss even using the attack, and there's no specific action that can force him to trigger it. The fight mostly devolves into a waiting game for him to use his swing so you can stagger him and unload what damage you can in the window. But the most damning thing of all is that if the boss damages you directly or takes damage when not vulnerable, he'll [[LifeDrain heal proportionately to how much damage was dealt]]. He can heal up to '''his entire health bar''' if he nails you with a sword strike or you accidentally catch him with a hammer strike while taking out his summons. Combine his constant healing and his limited vulnerability with the fact that he has [[DamageSpongeBoss five health bars]] and starts summoning illusionary minions later in the fight, and you get a boss that can quickly become a MarathonBoss if you're not good at avoiding his hits, and a fight that has a very high chance of devolving into a relatively non-threatening waiting game that goes against the [[AttackAttackAttack established formula for the game's bosses]]. Fortunately, if you can consistently maintain the close range necessary to trigger his vulnerability window, the frequency of such openings will increase, speeding up this process while also making the fight more appropriately challenging.

* EvenBetterSequel: Despite some gameplay design issues as detailed on BrokenBase above, the game is still almost universally agreed by fans to be dramatically improved upon the first game, with a greater amount of content, graphical, and gameplay improvements.

* AwardSnub: ''Eternal'' lost all five of the awards it was nominated for at The Game Awards 2020, drawing outcry from fans. Perhaps most notable was Best Score and Music, which it lost to [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake a remake of an older game]] despite most people expecting ''Eternal'' to win the award without a second thought.

** "Mortally challenged"[[labelnote:Explanation]]InUniverse, the Union Aerospace Corporation and cultist sects deem the term demons as "offensive", thus gave them this new label. A section of the fandom immediately embraced this due to the inherent PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad.[[/labelnote]]

* AwardSnub: ''Eternal'' lost all five of the awards it was nominated for at The Game Awards 2020, drawing outcry from fans.

* SpiritualAdaptation: More so than even the previous game, ''Doom Eternal'' is probably the best ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' FirstPersonShooter ever made. In particular;
** The revelations of how Argent Energy and the [[DemonOfHumanOrigin demons came to be]] makes the version of Hell in ''Doom'' very close to the Warp and its daemons (it helps that, like the Warp, Hell can also be used for FTL travel), Hell has plenty of human agents/worshippers in this dimension supporting their efforts and the Icon of Sin resembles a greater daemon prince (including only being killable with a special artifact and otherwise reconstituting elsewhere when he's killed conventionally).

** ''The Ancient Gods'' further deepens the similarities with the revelation that Hell was originally a peaceful place that was ruined by a cosmic war between precursor deities, much like the ancient war between the C'tan and the Old Ones being the cause for much of the [[CrapsackWorld crapsack state]] of the 40k universe, which was then reflected into the Warp. [[spoiler: The Dark Lord himself also makes a personal appearance here, wearing an ''enormous'' suit of power armor that wouldn't look out of place on Horus himself. Disturbingly, he's more or less what the GodEmperor would be if he turned to Chaos.]]

%%* WhatAnIdiot: Why yes, Khan Maykr. [[spoiler:Bring the [[WalkingWasteland universe-destroying]], [[RealityWarper reality-warping]] EldritchAbomination that is the Icon of Sin right to your home dimension, when the Doom Slayer is killing his way to your location.]] WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong Unsurprisingly, it goes ''very badly'' for her, to the point where even Hayden admits that she was pretty foolish for attempting this in the first place.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: The memetic "Why does Doomguy not have PTSD? Because he ''is'' the traumatic event" exchange loses a bit of its humour, [[spoiler:now that we find out that he ''did'' have it, and suffered pretty severely at that, back when he was Doomguy. On the other hand, it does add a level of badassery that he went through suffering from trauma to embodying it for the demons]].

* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler: "By His hand, all things were made... Even you..." This implies that, despite how the demons around the Earth are suddenly vaporized, the fact that the true Father (or at least His metaphysical form) is killed means that the Maykrs, humanity and even reality as a whole will wither away. There is also a question of what the afterlife will be with a spiteful Father in it, if one exists beyond Urdak/Jekkad.]]

* WhatAnIdiot: Why yes, Khan Maykr. [[spoiler:Bring the [[WalkingWasteland universe-destroying]], [[RealityWarper reality-warping]] EldritchAbomination that is the Icon of Sin right to your home dimension, when the Doom Slayer is killing his way to your location.]] WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong Unsurprisingly, it goes ''very badly'' for her, to the point where even Hayden admits that she was pretty foolish for attempting this in the first place.

** Doomguy: '''''NO.'''''[[labelnote:Explanation]]In ''The Ancient Gods: Part Two'', [[spoiler:this is what the Slayer says as he kills Davoth, in response to him asking if he had anything to say before he gets it over with]].[[/labelnote]]

* SpiritualAdaptation:
** More so than even the previous game, ''Doom Eternal'' is probably the best ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' FirstPersonShooter ever made. In particular;
*** The revelations of how Argent Energy and the [[DemonOfHumanOrigin demons came to be]] makes the version of Hell in ''Doom'' very close to the Warp and its daemons (it helps that, like the Warp, Hell can also be used for FTL travel), Hell has plenty of human agents/worshippers in this dimension supporting their efforts and the Icon of Sin resembles a greater daemon prince (including only being killable with a special artifact and otherwise reconstituting elsewhere when he's killed conventionally).
*** The Night Sentinels may as well be a Space Marine chapter, down to referring to their military expeditions as "Crusades" and the Marauders - their defected, corrupted, [[HornsOfVillainy horn-sporting]] brethren - being the deadliest soldiers of the demons.
*** The Maykrs are a pretty good match for the Dark Eldar, a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien species living in a world outside of normal time and space which, while once-dominant over the galaxy, has been reduced to a depraved DyingRace that profits and perpetuates their world off of the suffering of others in Hell.
*** ''The Ancient Gods'' further deepens the similarities with the revelation that Hell was originally a peaceful place that was ruined by a cosmic war between precursor deities, much like the ancient war between the C'tan and the Old Ones being the cause for much of the [[CrapsackWorld crapsack state]] of the 40k universe, which was then reflected into the Warp. [[spoiler: The Dark Lord himself also makes a personal appearance here, wearing an ''enormous'' suit of power armor that wouldn't look out of place on Horus himself. Disturbingly, he's more or less what the GodEmperor would be if he turned to Chaos.]]

* WinTheCrowd:
** The game's reveal at UsefulNotes/{{E3}} 2018: a HellOnEarth setting, returning enemies from ''Doom II'', a faster, more powerful Doom Slayer, twice the number of enemies, numerous visual throwbacks to the original games, and Music/MickGordon returning to the soundtrack. Even though it was a teaser with no gameplay footage, ''Eternal'' managed to be one of the highlights of Bethesda's conference (one that also gave us information about ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 76}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Starfield}}'', and ''[[Franchise/TheElderScrolls The Elder Scrolls VI]]'').
** The E3 2015 demo of ''2016'' was met with caution by the fanbase, especially over concerns of the game's action being too slow and the environments being bland. The Quakecon 2018 demo unveiled a variety of locales with a wide range of level designs and colour usage, and a segment of the demo was played via mouse and keyboard controls to showcase the fast pace of ''Eternal''; the crowd broke into cheers and applause ''multiple times'' throughout the Quakecon footage.
** Some of the complaints against the first game were the absence of {{Game Mod}}s, and that too much time (be it the marketing or content updates) was oriented around the CompetitiveMultiplayer. It was announced that there will be single-player DownloadableContent, and even though ''Eternal'' won't launch with modding, the developers are prioritizing the ability to do that post-launch. Furthermore, multiplayer will be developed internally at Creator/IdSoftware, suggesting it won't fall into the same pratfalls as ''2016''.
** Some fans were disappointed that ''2016'' did not receive any post-launch DLC for its praised single-player campaign, but rather for its panned multiplayer. Bethesda confirmed that ''Doom Eternal'' will get post-launch single-player content, eventually fulfilling their promise with ''The Ancient Gods, Part 1''.
** The announcement that the game would receive a release on the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch made Nintendo fans happy, especially considering that because the game is being developed with the Switch in mind, it has the potential to be an improvement over the previous game's port to the system (which was already fairly well-liked).
** The announcement that the game would be released on Steam served as relief, as some were worried that it would be exclusive to the Bethesda launcher, or the Epic Games Store.
** The Collector's Edition of the game comes with a Doom Slayer helmet that can be worn. Pre-orders for it sold out very quickly.
** In January 2020, it was officially announced that the game will not contain any form of microtransactions or pay-to-win mechanics. This announcement was met with near-universal praise from gamers, jaded by a decade riddled with RevenueEnhancingDevices (including from several Bethesda-published games such as ''Fallout 76'').

* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler: "By His hand, all things were made... Even you..." This implies that despite how the demons around the Earth are suddenly vaporized and Doomguy lost his power and had to be sealed, the fact that God, or at least His metaphysical form, is killed, means that it's not only Doomguy, but also humanity as a whole, will see their souls wither away. There is also a question of what the afterlife will be with a spiteful God in it.]]
* EvenBetterSequel: Despite some gameplay design issues as detailed on BrokenBase above, the game is still almost universally agreed by fans to be dramatically improved upon the first game, with larger amount of content, graphical, and gameplay improvements.

** The Icon of Sin is incredibly muscular, with a well-modeled posterior to boot.

** For weapon mods, the Chaingun's Energy Shield no doubt qualifies. On its own it's an absolute beast of a mod, as the shield is effectively an infinite-use, on-demand godmode that completely nullifies attacks while active. Purchasing the Dash Smash upgrade means that ramming into demons with the shield up can cause a lot of damage, to the point where you can stagger a [[HeavilyArmoredMook Pinky]] with only two dashes.
** The Sentinel Hammer, a.k.a. the Hellbreaker, in the ''The Ancient Gods - Part Two'' is quite honestly ridiculous. While it doesn't automatically kill demons in one hit like the Crucible, the tradeoffs make it arguably superior. Simply using it causes enemies to drop ammo, deals decent damage, and releases a concussive wave on impact that stuns enemies it doesn't kill. On top of that, if used on frozen/burning enemies, it dramatically increases the amount of respective health/armor pickups they drop. What makes it even better than the Crucible, however, is that it can be ''recharged through methods besides on-map pickups''. Destroying a weak point or performing a glory kill refills half a charge, a condition that the hammer itself can help fulfill by stunning nearby fodder demons. In practice, the hammer is a second Blood Punch that trades raw damage for extra pickups and a lengthy stun, with debatably less stringent conditions for charging it. Against super-heavy enemies, it grants even more benefits: hitting a stunned Marauder with it causes it to remain stunned for far longer than normal, allowing you to wail on it with wild abandon; it can drop the Doom Hunter's shield in a single hit; and Armored Barons are rendered vulnerable much longer. Whether you simply need some breathing room, some extra supplies, or you want to end an encounter quickly, using the Hellbreaker is never a bad option. This doesn't even cover the upgrades the Hammer receives from completing escalation encounters, which increases the resources dropped by enemies and the stun period incurred by the attack.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Like its predecessor, the game is surprisingly well-liked in Japan, owing to the precision, skill and reflex based gameplay with tight movement.

** Carcasses can spawn barriers from extremely far away, even ''through the floor'', and often far outside their own attack range. In the midst of fighting demons, a random force field will show up right in front of players without warning. Since the Carcass is usually too far to attack, the barrier ends up being a colossal pain in the ass to deal with, since it obstructs forward movement and blocks shots, potentially causing a rocket headed for a demon across a combat arena to explode in the player's face instead, or denying a much-needed Glory Kill. On the bright side, with the Plasma Rifle on-hand, a Carcass barrier can be detonated just like the Shield Soldier's and blow up any unfortunate demons nearby.

** ''The Ancient Gods - Part Two'' introduces multiple {{Underground Monkey}}s to provide variety. Among them is the Screecher Zombie, a purple-hued variant of the [[TheGoomba standard Zombie]]. They go down just as easy as the others, which may leave you wondering why they're in this entry. The answer: if you take one out, it will let out a scream that gives all other demons a huge buff, not unlike a Buff Totem. The problem here is that they like to appear amidst chaotic fights and wander around aimlessly, meaning that unless you have really good aim and reflexes and/or stick to non-AreaOfEffect weaponry, a Screecher suddenly dying while you're hammering an enemy it just so happened to walk in front of will happen a lot. On lower difficulties it can make combat noticeably more hectic, but on Ultra-Violence and above, they can make an otherwise okay battle into a nightmarish dance of death where you have to try to avoid them while ''also'' paying attention to all the other enemies swarming you. The only saving grace is that, while multiple Screecher Zombies can appear in a fight, their death buffs don't stack, plus [[KungFuProofMook they're immune to chainsaws]] so you don't accidentally saw one while trying to get ammo back.
** Also in ''The Ancient Gods - Part Two'', the Cursed Prowler, which is an green-hued variant of the Prowler. The source of its major annoyance is that they will punch the Doom Slayer to activate a curse which prevents the Doom Slayer from dashing and using your weapons' lock-on capabilities, such as the Super Shotgun's meathook or the Rocket Launcher's Lock-on burst, and it also damages the Doom Slayer over time. Furthermore, while a Blood Punch kills them and thus frees the Doom Slayer from their curse, good luck trying to reach them while the Doom Slayer is left behind in a group of demons and possibly out of Blood Punches. Fortunately, there are only three of them in the entire game.

** All the drama from the MoralGuardians regarding the satanic imagery from the original Doom game becomes a little more poignant in ''The Ancient Gods - Part Two'' where [[spoiler:the Dark Lord is the creator of the universe, meaning that God and The Devil were one and the same]].

* IronWoobie: The Doom Slayer himself. If his backstory is to be believed, [[TraumaCongaLine he’s been through a lot]]. [[spoiler: He used to be the Doomguy from the classic games, and he willingly sealed himself away in hell in order to fight the demonic horde so that he could kill them all and they wouldn’t invade Earth ever again…except that [[SenselessSacrifice not only did it not work because the demons found a way to invade other worlds once more]], but his one-man war against Hell had left him [[ShellShockedVeteran so mentally broken and enraged]] that by the time the Sentinels and the Khan Maykr found him, he was barely capable of coherent speech. He was then treated like a dog and forced to fight gladiator matches in the arenas of the Sentinel homeworld, until he garnered enough respect to be treated with dignity. After all that, he was eventually allowed to become a member of the order himself, and through the fires of battle, [[FireForgedFriends Doomguy eventually befriended the sentinels and wasn’t alone in his war against demonkind anymore]]. Just as it [[YankTheDogsChain seemed like things were going better for Doomguy]], the Order of the Night Sentinels was betrayed and devastated in a schism, leaving all of Doomguy’s new friends dead or missing at the hands of the traitors and demonkind. Doomguy was transformed into the Doom Slayer and spends his days hunting down the Maykr and their servants to avenge his fallen brothers-in-arms, alone, angry and friendless once more (well, friendless until he met VEGA, that is). Despite all the pain and misery he’s gone through, the Slayer stands firm, is determined to not let the deaths of his comrades be in vain, and will fight against the forces of Hell until his last breath. And that’s not even getting into the fact that he’s still sad and angry about Daisy’s death too. His cause is just, his will is strong, and his gun is very, very large]].

* MagnificentBastard: ''Ancient Gods'' [[DownloadableContent DLC]]: [[GodAndSatanAreBothJerks Davoth]], the "Dark Lord" and the true Father, was once a benevolent deity who sought the best for all his people by giving them immortality. Creating the Maykrs before being betrayed by them, Davoth sought destruction for all life in retribution. Davoth was reduced to a voice, and even then [[GreaterScopeVillain engineers]] Hell invasions across multiple dimensions, making numerous bargains before turning on his "partners". Notably, Davoth uses the Kahn Maykr's greed and the Doom Slayer's war on Hell to [[PlayingBothSides play all sides against each other]], resulting in the Slayer wiping out the Maykrs as revenge for their betrayal and tricked Samur Maykr into empowering the Slayer with his essence, creating Hell's greatest threat and knowing they would face each other one day. Resurrected by the Slayer, Davoth intends to lead the final battle for the fate of creation, and forces the Father to reveal the truth of his betrayal. When beaten, Davoth [[FaceDeathWithDignity accepts his death]] and asks the Slayer if he has anything to say to his creator.

** After finishing the final boss fight of "The Ancient Gods: Part 2", the Doom Slayer removes his helmet as he approaches the Dark Lord for the final blow, with sound effects included. On most skins, this isn't an issue... except for skins where the helmet is either fixed to the Slayer's head (i.e. the Cultist Slayer skin) or where the Slayer isn't wearing a helmet at all (i.e. the [[WalkingShirtlessScene Barbarian skin]], which came in the very same DLC), it becomes unintentionally funny since he's grabbing an invisible helmet that still makes sound as it thunks on the floor.
* NarmCharm: In some ways, the more "video gamey" aspects of the game (multi colored loot, 1UPs played straight, the demons resembling their classic looks, etc) are seen as positives instead of negatives, since DOOM, at its core, is a game all about killing demons by the truck load and never stopping until they're all gone or you're dead. In a sense, ''Eternal'' isn't trying to hide that it's a game first and foremost, instead embracing those aspects as part of the RuleOfFun. It helps that these aspects are actually OlderThanTheyThink, as described below.

** Some fans who got into the series with ''2016'' were surprised that certain skins have the Doom Slayer take off his helmet, or that his face can be seen through his helmet visor at points after the previous game had him solely depicted as TheFaceless... except it's long been a feature in the franchise that the protagonists have established faces. In fact, in the classic ''Doom'' games are one of the best-known examples of an ExpressiveHealthBar, with the Doomguy's face staring right at you for the entirety of the game.

** When The Ancient Gods, Part 2 came out, the title screen remix of [[VideoGame/DoomII Opening To Hell]] was replaced with a new track by David Levy, to the disappointment of many fans who loved the old song. Eventually this decision [[AuthorsSavingThrow was also reverted]], with Opening To Hell returning as the main theme... Which then led to other fans complaining about switching it back, preferring the newer theme to original one.