Video Game / Doom Eternal

Times change. DOOM is Eternal.

"Against all the evil that Hell can conjure,
all the wickedness that mankind can produce,
we will send unto them... only you.
Rip and tear, until it is done."

— King Novik

Doom Eternal is the Sequel to Doom (2016), developed by id Software for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Google Stadia as the sixth main instalment in the Doom video game franchise. Officially released on March 20, 2020^note Video game retailer GameStop in the United States began selling it a day earlier due to the COVID-19 Pandemic to separate crowds buying this game from crowds buying Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which was released on the same day, the Nintendo Switch version was released on December 8 as digital only. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions were released on June 29, 2021, with free upgrades made available to owners of the PS4 and Xbox One versions.

You once again play as the silent, unnamed berserker-packin' man and a half clad in a green suit of Powered Armor. It's been some time since you were sent on an extended trip to parts unknown as your "reward" for ripping and tearing through a demonic invasion on Mars, and without you around, things have gotten much worse. The Legions of Hell have invaded Earth, but it's not just them you have to worry about now. The angelic Maykrs of the divine realm of Urdak, led by the Khan Maykr, have forsaken humanity, and they aren't about to let you interfere in the affairs of Heaven.

Now it's up to you to protect the few surviving pockets of mankind scattered across the solar system from Heaven and Hell, the only way you know how: with guns, chainsaws, powered armor, and your bare hands, slaughtering everything that stands between you and saving humanity. Never resting. Never stopping. Ravenous. Everlasting. Eternal.

Rip and tear, until it is done.

Eternal takes the previous game's mechanics and turns the dial past 11, adding:

• New weapons, like the Ballista and the Crucible.
• New Secondary Fire mods, like a chained "meathook" that can pull you towards enemies for the Super Shotgun.
• New abilities, like a dash move and "Equipment Launcher" alternative weapon doubling as a flamethrower and grenade launcher.
• New enemies, like the Doom Hunter and Marauder, alongside old favorites, like the Arch-Viles, Pain Elementals and Arachnotrons from Doom II.
• New settings, like Hell on Earth from Doom II and Phobos from the original Doom.
• A dedicated 2v1 "Battlemode" for multiplayer.
• Doom Eternal builds upon the gameplay loop of its predecessor, emphasizing not only the quick savage combat but a more tactical approach from the player, with enemies now acting as a source of not only health as in 2016 but also ammunition and armor depending how they are killed. Reduced ammo pools encourage the player to vary their weapons, while endlessly spawning Fodder-class enemies act as living health/ammo/armor drops, encouraging mobility and relentless aggression.

Unlike 2016, Doom Eternal has a single-player campaign DLC taking place after its main story, the two-part The Ancient Gods. Part One was released on October 20, 2020, while Part Two launched on March 18, 2021.

A teaser, gameplay reveal trailer, story trailer and launch trailer for Doom Eternal can be found in the following links; likewise, a teaser and official trailer for The Ancient Gods - Part One and a teaser and official trailer for The Ancient Gods - Part Two.

On March 21st, 2023, a top-down shooter spin-off called Mighty Doom was released for mobile devices, starring the collectible figures of the Doom Slayer and his rogues' gallery as he tries to save Daisy from the demons' clutches.

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Doom Eternal provides examples of:

#-D

• 100% Completion:
  • Encouraged in a sense. There are achievements for collecting all collectibles of a given kind, upgrading and mastering all of your guns, maxing out your Praetor suit, as well as completing all Slayer Gates. The last one, in particular, is quite important to remember, as it gives you access to the Unmaykr. One should keep in mind that these achievements require 100% completion on one savefile, so the progression from separate slots will not tally up. Additionally, the game recommends using the unlockable cheats to make cleaning up collectibles easier (though Slayer Gates forbid using cheats to complete them).
  • Completing all Milestones, which are tracked separately from achievements and require playing both the Campaign and Battlemode, is required for Argentas Paladi, the last set of unlockables in the game.
• 1-Up: Unlike the previous game, you can find these collectibles in the environment. Some of them can take a bit of legwork to collect, however, since most of them are secrets. Should you die with an extra life, you won't be booted to the last checkpoint but be revived on the spot instead. These are especially important in Extra Life mode since the game ends and deletes your save when/if you die again after running out of lives. Averted in Ultra Nightmare mode; some of the extra life pick-ups are replaced by Mega Armors or Supercharges, whilst others are outright removed.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Pain Elementals no longer spew hordes of hard-to-hit Lost Souls that require too much ammo to destroy - if anything, they become merely tankier Cacodemons, the latter of which actually deal higher DPS! However, YMMV on this, since the Lost Souls they spew still pack a wallop and unlike Cacodemon projectiles, they chase after you. And also unlike Cacodemons, there is no way to stagger them in one hit.
  • The Archvile has become less aggressive and is no longer a hitscanner whose attacks literally halve your health in one hit. In addition, faltering it with certain explosives or heavy weapons will disrupt its summoning cast, giving you a lot more breathing room.
• Abusive Precursors: Once the Maykrs encountered the forces of Hell, they quickly threw the Argenta under the bus, and also planned to sacrifice humanity the same way. Let's just say it doesn't work out as well this time, thanks to the Slayer and Hayden's shenanigans.
• Achilles' Heel: To compensate for how much more deadly and numerous the demons are this time around, virtually all of the bigger ones have a weakness designed into them that the player can exploit. Cacodemons can be instantly stunned by feeding them a grenade, Tyrants have horrible turning speed, Marauders are vulnerable to splash damage, and so on.
• After the End: The state of Earth following the demonic invasion. A ruined husk where blood runs over the land like rivers, monsters roam freely, and the casualties reach into the billions.
• Air-Dashing: The Doom Slayer's Dash ability propels him a short distance through the air and can be used twice before recharging. Perfect for extending jumps, quickly dodging incoming attacks, or simply closing the distance to any demon ripe for a glory kill.
• Airborne Mook: Eternal expands on its skeet shooting roster with the Gargoyle (basically a winged Imp) and the Pain Elemental (the other floating meatball enemy from classic Doom).
• Alien Blood: The Cacodemons get their blue blood back, and Arachnotrons have blue blood as well.
• The Alliance: The Armored Response Coalition (ARC), formed by the Allied Nations and composed of the remainder of Earth's military forces and non-cultist UAC personnel (particularly Samuel Hayden, who became ARC's director shortly after its formation) to oppose the demon invasion.
• All Myths Are True: It's stated the realm of Urdak, the Father, and His Servants are the basis of many, many mythologies - including, of course, the Abrahamic religions on Earth, but it's noted that other religions have always contained some kind of Creator God or heavenly realm.
• All There in the Manual: As it was in 2016, the Codex is present to give an exposition that's not already explained in the story (though sometimes you'll find a Codex entry, read it, then enter a scene immediately after that briefly repeats what was in the Codex entry thanks to an expanded focus on the plot in Eternal).
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: After the Doom Slayer kills the final Hell Priest, the Khan Maykr takes over the computer systems in the Fortress of Doom, releasing the trapped demons to swarm him and leaving the entire ship with no power. She intended to just leave him trapped there, unaware that the Slayer had the demonic Crucible from the first game (which he obtained during the mission to retrieve Samuel Hayden), allowing him to restore full power to the ship and continue his crusade.
• Almighty Idiot: Kalibas the Sightless Judge is an ancient demon bred with the power to sort souls to determine which are candidates for Argent process but is unable to communicate and can barely move (though downplayed in that it has a mind and can do its job). Titans are also used either as beasts of burden or weapons of mass destruction by the rulers of Hell for their raw power and limited mind.
• Alternate Self: In one of the biggest Wham Episodes of the entire series, The Ancient Gods - Part One reveals that the long-hidden ruler of hell, the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire franchise, is the Doom Slayer's alternate self. He appears at the end of the DLC, his body covered in tattoos and runes, and his eyes fully red, having goaded the Slayer into resurrecting him.
  • As of The Ancient Gods - Part II, this is actually Inverted. The Dark Lord isn't an alternate version of the Slayer. In fact, the Slayer was created in the Dark Lord's image.
• Alternate Universe: It's implied that the Doom Slayer's original Earth is located in a different dimension than the one in 2016/Eternal, which is supported by this piece of cut dialogue from the Khan Maykr.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The demons, as always, are fine attacking each other when there are no worlds to invade. Most of whatever organization they can muster comes straight from the Dark Lord outsourcing it to corruptible beings from other realms.
• Ammo-Using Melee Weapon: The crucible sword and chainsaw both require ammunition, though the chainsaw regenerates 1/3 of a tank naturally.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Eternal features additional unlockable skins for the Doom Slayer that can be used in single-player and multiplayer mode (such as a classic Doom marine outfit or the Marauder's gear). Becoming a member of the "Slayer's Club" via the game's official site unlocks a Zombie Doom Slayer skin for the player upon the game's release. Beating the game on Ultra-Nightmare additionally unlocks a gold-plated Praetor Suit. There are also seasonal cosmetic rewards unlocked by gathering XP from completing weekly tasks in single-player and Battlemode.
• Angelic Abomination: The Maykrs of Urdak are quite disturbing, and not too far removed in appearance from the Legions of Hell themselves. Their appearance is very similar to Olivia Pierce's medical exoskeleton from the previous game.
• Angels, Devils and Squid: This setting has the Demons of Hell (devils), the Maykrs of Urdak (angels that look like squids), and the Wraiths of Argent D'Nur (squid). The wraiths really seem important in the setting's cosmology, as their energies can be mixed with Hell's to create something the Maykrs can use, and the Maykrs knew about the Wraiths before they found their counterparts in Hell.
  • With the reveal in Ancient Gods Part 2 that the Maykrs are actually the first Demons, along with a codex entry that describes the three Wraiths as "Angelic Creatures" and how they seeded life on Argenta when they arrived by the World Spear(which is actually giant space ark that still contains thousands more of them in stasis), this seems to suggest that the Wraiths are the actual angels of the Doom universe. Or at least a more accurate analogue that are truly benevolent, unlike the Maykrs.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The game adds Extra Lives scattered around the levels, items that are automatically activated when Doomguy's health reaches zero, and allow for him to seamlessly continue in action instead of dying and having to go back to the last checkpoint.
  • Unlike in the previous game, falling to a bottomless pit due to failing a platforming segment will bring the player back to the nearest platform instead of killing them. It does take away some health every time you do this, however, so falling into enough pits will kill you eventually.
  • When you're near the end of a level, you gain the ability to fast travel to previous areas in order to backtrack and hunt down secrets you might have missed. And on the subject of secrets, you can see them on the map from the beginning instead of having that be an ability you can gain.
  • When your chainsaw runs out of fuel, it'll automatically replenish its fuel to 1 pip after a short cooldown, meaning that it's usually possible for you to find a fodder demon somewhere and saw it for some emergency ammo. Given how strapped for ammunition you'll be in Eternal compared to its predecessor, you'll be taking advantage of this a lot. In fact, to facilitate this, the game will constantly respawn fodder zombies in arena zones (including all boss fights), so that one will always have something to chainsaw or Glory Kill in case they need health or ammunition.
  • If you're struggling with a Boss, the game will offer you Sentinel Armor, a temporary Rune that massively boosts your damage resistance for no penalty.
  • The campaign provides more Praetor Tokens and Sentinel Batteries than a player actually needs, so one doesn't need to obsessively accomplish every challenge or find every secret to max out Praetor suit perks and unlock all rooms in the Fortress of Doom. Three of the rooms are even dedicated to cosmetics which become permanently available once the player powers up the rooms for the first time, which leaves the player six additional Sentinel Batteries to work with (four if attempting to unlock all the cheat codes).
  • No Fair Cheating is averted with a vengeance; cheats do not interfere with progression, with the caveat that they can only be activated when replaying missions, and Slayer Gates cannot be opened during this time. This gives players some optional reprieve if they just want to focus on finishing off things like level challenges, weapon masteries or secrets.
  • Up to seven Mastery Tokens can be found in the game from the levels Taras Nabad to Urdak. These tokens allow the player to skip a given weapon mod's mastery challenge and instantly grant them the final Mastery upgrade. This can be leveraged to skip the more onerous challenges (e.g. those that require killing a specific enemy), complete those unlocked late in the game and wouldn't otherwise have time to complete, or when playing Ultra-Nightmare or Extra Life Mode (which prevents the player from replaying previously-completed levels and subsequently grinding the challenges). It isn't enough to skip all 13 Mastery challenges, but more than enough to unlock the more difficult-to-achieve ones.
  • If the last enemy in a combat arena can't find you for a while, they will automatically die (this can even happen to a Tyrant!), which helps avoid the situation where you get stuck and have to restart the entire encounter because an enemy got stuck in an out-of-the-way or inaccessible area.
• Apocalypse How:
  • The demons landing on Earth bring with them a planetary societal collapse, with most of humanity dead, cities everywhere reduced to ruin, and what remains of humanity struggling to fight back. It would've caused the extinction of humanity had the Slayer not shown up.
  • The presence of the Icon of Sin is said to warp and twist reality, and if left unchecked would give rise to a universal physical annihilation by spawning a black hole to drag the entire universe down into Hell.
  • From the demons' point of view, the Doom Slayer defeating and killing Davoth hits them with a multiversal physical annihilation. Every demon outside of Hell immediately dies, and with Hell and Argent Energies both out of production, the remaining demons of Hell can no longer reproduce, and are thus doomed to an agonizingly slow extinction.
• Arc Words: "Rip and tear," repeated once again in the intro narration by Novik. A flashback later in the game reveals the Suddenly Speaking Doom Slayer using the same words while being trained by the Night Sentinels. The Codex reveals that it essentially became a battle cry and rallying standard for the people of Argent D'Nur in their battle against the demons.
• Artistic License – Biology: After receiving heavy damage from the Slayer, demons can perfectly manipulate their arms and legs even when the connecting muscle tissue has been blasted off of their bones.
• Artistic License – Geology: The codex for the Doom Hunter Base states how carbon dating of the site revealed that it was constructed roughly eighty million years ago, long predating complex Earth-based life. Eighty million years ago, dinosaurs had already ruled the Earth for over a hundred million years (while multicellular, macroscopic life had existed for well over two billion years at that point). You also can't carbon date something that is millions of years old, since the half-life of carbon-14 is too short.
• Artistic License – Linguistics: In Hebrew, "Seraphim" is actually the plural form of Seraph (who are plurally called "Seraphs" in-game).
• Ascended Extra: Argent D'Nur was a minor element of Doom (2016) but is central to the storyline here. There was a single reference to "seraphim" in 2016, and the entire Maykr faction expands it into another major plot point.
• Ascended Meme:
  • In the Invasion game mechanic reveal, one of the hostile players—a Revenant—has a handle of D00t76, referencing a silly fan edit of the Doom (2016) cover featuring a Revenant playing the trumpet with the word "DOOT" under him◊. Even better, there's a multiplayer skin for the Revenant that gives it brass armour with shoulder-mounted trumpets. The launchers sadly do not make trumpet noises when firing, however.
  • A popular joke on the internet asks if a given platform can run (the original) Doom. In Eternal, once you unlock all cheat codes and fully upgrade your Praetor Suit, you can play the original Doom on a retro PC in the hub level. Yes, this means even Doom can run Doom.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: The E3 2019 trailer starts with King Novik asking "Why are you here?" Answer Cut to the Doom Slayer chainsawing a demon in two - not giving two hoots about why he is where he is when there are demons to kill.
• Asymmetric Multiplayer: Doom Eternal's primary Multiplayer offering is Battlemode, a 2v1 deathmatch that pits a single Doom Slayer against two demons of the opponent's choice in a best-of-five match. Player-controlled demons will have the ability to spawn lesser AI-controlled demons, but doing so presents a risk because the Doom Slayer can glory kill them for health pickups.
• As You Know: Samuel Haydn explains the backstory to Doom Slayer even though he already knows it. It's most prominently demonstrated in Taras Nabad.
• Ate His Gun: Invoked on Mecha Zombies by the Slayer. One of the possible Glory Kills he can perform on them has him forcing the muzzle of their Arm Cannons directly into their mouths and blowing the top of their heads off.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Some monsters now have weak points (typically their weapons) that, if you target them, it'll diminish their effectiveness in combat (for instance if you hit the Arachnotron's cannon enough times, it'll break and force the monster to fight up close). You can tell you're hitting a weak point because it flashes red whenever it is struck.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The first level features demons as tall as skyscrapers wreaking havoc over Earth. The Icon of Sin is just as tall, and it's the Final Boss.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: As with the last game, Mick Gordon's dynamic Industrial Metal soundtrack will kick in once you get into a fight, and trail off once it's over.
• "Awkward Silence" Entrance: Upon arrival to the Phobos base, every worker of the UAC is stunned by the presence of the Doom Slayer, either due to his status, or the fact that he literally walks out of their broom closet.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Unupgraded, the Full Auto mod for the Combat Shotgun is this. While the idea of a More Dakka shotgun does sound appealing, its initially sluggish windup/cooldown animations, movement speed penalty and your maximum shell count being 16 from the get-go make it a clunky and rather wasteful method of mowing down demons. This is greatly alleviated by purchasing upgrades that eliminate those penalties and eventually mastering the mod, which sees Full-Auto kills reward you with Shells depending on the demon class (Fodder and Ambient demons reward 3 shells, Heavies 6 and Super-Heavies 9). Careless use will still see it chew through ammo, while proper use of it as a combo finisher against Heavies and Super-Heavies will see the player showered in a near-endless supply of shotgun shells with which to continue the carnage. That being said, they're one of the only things that can significantly damage a Stone Imp alongside the Sentinel Hammer, which means that using it will become mandatory one way or another.
  • Similarly, the unupgraded Microwave Beam mod for the Plasma Rifle. Compared to the Heat Blast's more obvious and direct applications, the Microwave Beam comes off as an unwieldy and ammo-taxing mod, even when used in its intended capacity as an enemy finisher. This drastically changes once the Faster Beam Charge upgrade is purchased, which allows the weapon to leverage its ability to immobilise enemies in "Plasma Lock combos" ^ExplanationQuick-switching between the Microwave Beam and high burst damage weapons like the Super Shotgun or Ballista, which helplessly locks the enemy in place while the player lays on the damage.. Combined with more auxiliary functions like giving enemy health readouts, detonating energy shields more violently and its mastery causing kills with the mod to release demon-faltering concussive blasts, and literally cooking the demons until they explode has never been more awesome. This is taken further in both parts of The Ancient Gods expansions that feature the Spirit, whose sole elimination method being the Microwave Beam sees mandatory use for that mod.
  • Yet again, the unupgraded Destroyer Blade mod for the Ballista. While a fully charged Destroyer Blade deals the most amount of damage in a single hit by anything that isn't a superweapon and passes through any enemy in its path, it a) locks you in place and b) takes a long time to charge, both of which make using it a risky proposition given the frantic pace of the game. However, when fully upgraded, it takes a more reasonable time to charge, emits a faltering blast at full charge, and can be fired before it is fully charged (albeit with reduced damage and blade width), making it a very effective mod if you can set it up properly.
  • Surprisingly, the Unmaykr. Granted, its firepower is rather obscene for such a rapid-firing weapon, but using it means you're trading the BFG's wide-spread AoE nuking damage for More Dakka, in which case it becomes a glorified late-game Plasma Rifle with no mods that consumes the sparse Argent Cell ammunition as the BFG, that you can no longer get back with the right Rune. It becomes sort of a Situational Sword if you mostly use it on bosses, but there's never an actual moment where using it is necessary, and you can clear the game without having obtained or used it perfectly fine. The good thing is, it's slightly more ammo-efficient than the BFG as it consumes only one Argent cell per shot compared to the BFG's 30, and operates better in more cramped, claustrophobic arenas where a fired BFG ball would be unable to travel far enough to properly clear it out. Also, it is a better option for disposing of super heavy enemies if you can't or don't want to use the Crucible; a Tyrant is able to survive a BFG ball to the face (which costs 30 ammo), but the Unmaykr needs only around 20 ammo to kill it.
  • The Chrono Strike rune. Sure, being given an on-demand slow-motion command may greatly assist at aiming for weak points and grabbing some downtime during a fight, but the rune being activated on every mod instead of a select few makes it highly impractical for use in the late-game.
  • Played for Laughs when the Doom Slayer tries to fire the BFG 10000 at Mars. Pointing the orbital defence Weapon of Mass Destruction at one of the planets it is supposed to be used in the defence of engages safety protocols that keep it from firing, no matter how much the Doom Slayer hits the trigger in frustration. VEGA quickly disables the protocols before the gun can be fired.
• Badass Army:
  • ARC, the remaining forces of humanity. Despite being hopelessly lost between an invasion by the Legions of Hell and being essentially undermined by their own higher-ups, they still manage to put up a considerable fight once some of them regain the presence of mind to retaliate, especially with the help of their powerful planetary defences. Their primary base falls during a convention celebrating 25 years of fighting back.
  • The Night Sentinels back in the day were the epitome of this. Even when they were ultimately betrayed by the Deagic Priesthood and left to die at the hands of the demons, they fought to the last, taking as many of the demons with them as they could in a Last Stand that was the stuff of legend. And the Slayer, the only survivor of that battle, would go on an even more legendary Roaring Rampage of Revenge and strike utter terror into the hearts of Hell.
• Badass Boast: Novik, former King of the Night Sentinels, gives a short proclamation that plays up the One-Man Army aspect of the player.
  Novik: Against all the evil that Hell can conjure, all the wickedness that mankind can produce, we will send unto them... only you.
• Badass Normal: On Phobos, you can briefly see a duo of regular Human Commandos fending off a horde of Imps in the background — and they are winning — showing that training, skill, and guns are all that humanity needs to fight back against the demonic hordes. The issue is that the demonic hordes are literally endless.
• Back from the Dead: The Icon of Sin was resurrected by The Maykrs to rampage across Earth in their name.
• Bag of Spilling:
  • Mostly played straight; the Slayer loses all of his weapons (apart from his trusty shotgun) and upgrades from 2016, but he retains the jet boots that allow him to Double Jump. On the other hand, it's also inverted where The Slayer now operates in an Argent-powered space fortress orbiting the Earth, no longer under the control of Samuel Hayden.
  • A minor, but justified case in The Ancient Gods - Part One Downloadable Content where the Slayer no longer has access to the Crucible after snapping the blade off in the Icon of Sin's brain at the end of the main campaign. However, he gets to keep everything else, including the Unmaykr.
• Barrier-Busting Blow:
  • Cracked walls are a frequent obstacle that the Slayer bypasses by simply punching through.
  • You can instantly destroy a Cyber Mancubus' armor with a Blood Punch.
  • You can also immediately remove an Arch-Vile's fire barrier with a Blood Punch.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: The demons, Former Humans included, apparently have no issue being exposed to a presumably airless Phobos. The Doom Slayer's Praetor Suit apparently protects him from the vacuum, even though it leaves his upper arms exposed. Made even weirder by some of the unlockable costumes, including one that has the coverage of a set of football pads.
• Bayonet Ya: The new double-barreled Super Shotgun features a double-bladed grappling hook you can use to skewer enemies.
• Benevolent Architecture:
  • Switches to permanently open a gate that is required to progress are usually made in the shape of a green, glowing skull embedded in a small, cross-shaped pillar.
  • Several large cracked walls are dotted through the environment; cracks that glow green indicate standard progression pathways, cracks that don't glow indicate secret areas and cracks that glow orange require the use of environmental setpieces to smash through them.
  • Glowing crosshairs or buttons that can be shot/punched to open something that is required to progress.
  • Glowing green punchable marks with three buttons, usually for timed switches and blocks.
  • Flat Climbable walls with horizontal line ridges.
• Benevolent Precursors: The Maykrs appeared as such for the Argenta, sharing most of their advanced technology with the medieval society.
• Beef Gate: The final arena before acquiring the Super Shotgun fills this purpose, locking you into a narrow room with Mancubi, Whiplashes, and an Arachnotron. This would be bad enough if it didn't also set the walls on fire, limiting your mobility. If you haven't mastered the dash and learned how to combo your gear properly, you will die.
• Big Applesauce: The 10-minute gameplay demo of Eternal’s intro shows that the ruined Earth city the Slayer visits to be New York.
• Big Bad: The Khan Maykr, with the Dark Lord of Hell as a Greater-Scope Villain.
• Big Good: Hayden again, but this time with implications that he's a rogue Seraph of the Maykrs who's been doing this job for aeons, rather than just a problem solver for Earth. In some twisted Irony, he becomes the Hero Antagonist Big Bad of The Ancient Gods - Part One.
• Big "NO!":
  • When the Doom Slayer sabotages the Icon of Sin's ritual by destroying the heart used to control it, the Khan Maykr yells, "We will not be able to control it! NOOOOO!"
  • After the Doom Slayer kills the Khan Maykr, a deep, guttural voice from the sky lets out a loud "Nooooo!" The game does not identify who said it, with the captions labelling the source as "Mysterious Voice". The game files reveal he is the Dark Lord of Hell himself.
• Bishōnen Line: The most powerful demons tend to be the smallest, most humanoid ones. The Archvile is only a bit larger than a human, and the Marauder, widely agreed to be the most dangerous enemy in the game, is about the same size as the Slayer himself is. Inversely, the absolute largest demon seen in the game, Thralls, are dumb muscle used for little more than labour and intimidation tactics. And Davoth is practically human himself and can put up a hell of a fight.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Doom Slayer ultimately disrupts the demons' plans to harvest humanity and saves the Earth, but in the process, he destroyed the Maykrs as a race, lost VEGA on Urdak, and forfeited his sovereignty amongst the Sentinels, who now view him as an enemy. The Earth still suffers from the ravages of the demonic invasion (though all of the demonic corruption has apparently receded going by the ending cutscene and the vast majority of demons have dispersed with the death of the Icon of Sin), and the demons themselves still exist, but as long as the Slayer lives, the future looks bright for humanity.
  • The Ancient Gods continues this trend. The Doom Slayer finally kills the Dark Lord, destroying all demons outside Hell and ensuring the ones still in Hell are sealed inside and can never escape again, by Hell's law. Since "The Father" can no longer have a physical form, and the Dark Lord was additionally the true Father, this act also guarantees the death of Urdak and the end of the Maykrs (at least, any not in Hell). But the Divinity Machine that made the Slayer, well, the Slayer was powered by a piece of the Dark Lord's essence, meaning that he too is affected. The Slayer collapses onto the ground and is placed in the same coffin he began the reboot games in. After 28 years plus countless millennia of carnage and war, Doomguy can finally rest... until he is needed once more.
• BFG: As is the tradition in the franchise, the game has multiple weapons as big as the Slayer:
  • Exaggerated with the BFG 10,000, which is actually the BFG 9000 housed in a massive cannon that magnifies the stopping power of a regular BFG shot into a planet destroyer. Naturally, Doomguy gets to fire it, although sadly you do not get to aim or control while doing so. The upside is he takes the power source with him once he's done.
  • The Trope Namer makes an appearance, of course; it's basically identical to its 2016 iteration in both form and function (although this time it lives inside the weapon wheel as opposed to a special button).
  • The Heavy Cannon is described as being a machine gun of such power and kickback that it can double as a sniper rifle in a pinch. Sure enough, its Precision Bolt mod allows you to do exactly that.
  • The Ballista, the replacement for 2016's Gauss Cannon. It's nearly as long as Doomguy is tall and fires twin beams of superheated Argent energy that can turn most high-level enemies to fine red mush with just a few shots.
  • The Unmaykr, which is essentially a laser cannon that uses the BFG's ammo. And as its name suggests, it will send any demon unfortunate enough to be at the end of its barrel back to its maker.
  • The Chaingun is just as enormous and just as devastating as it was in the previous game, but it ups the ante by having the Mobile Turret mod split it into four barrels instead of just three. Even without that, it's still bigger and stronger than its predecessor.
• BFS: The Crucible, a massive energy sword almost as tall as the Slayer himself. It can be used three times, and can pretty much slice up any demon with one hit, similar to the Chainsaw from the previous game.
• Blood Sport:
  • Battlemode is depicted like this, with the Slayer being pitted against two player-controlled demons in a fight to the death, complete with stage entrances and even a cheering crowd during the intro.
  • Though the Sentinels used their Coliseum for "sacred bouts" to choose "worthy" soldiers for their armies, their records indicate that they also just enjoyed gathering to watch criminals and trespassers kill each other. Doomguy is indicated to have been very popular during his time as a gladiator, with the crowds happily chanting "Rip and tear!" during his matches.
• Blown Across the Room: Like their namesake, the Cueball zombies will go flying across the room when shot at, or simply by lightly tapping them on the shoulder.
• Bond One-Liner: Subverted at the very end of The Ancient Gods, Part 2. After being defeated, the Dark Lord asks Doomguy "Have you nothing to say to your creator before you strike him down?", a huge setup for one of these despite the fact Doomguy is notoriously a Silent Protagonist. Doomguy simply stabs him through the chest, before replying "No".
• Book Ends:
  • The first shot of the game is the camera zooming in on the Earth being destroyed by Hellish forces as King Novik gives a Badass Boast on behalf of the player. It ends with the camera zooming out on the Earth with all the infernal runes gone, and Novik finishing his speech from the beginning. On a more comical note, the game both formally begins and ends with a Dramatic Gun Cock from the Slayer.
  • Doom (2016) began with the Doom Slayer awakening in a sarcophagus. "The Ancient Gods Part 2" ends with the Slayer sealed anew in his sarcophagus, to await when he might be needed once more.
  • Doom 64 ended with Doomguy going into Hell to try and kill every last demon in existence to end their threat to Earth. "The Ancient Gods Part 2" ends with the Slayer going into Hell and succeeding in killing Davoth the Dark Lord, which also kills every demon outside of Hell, finally ending the threat of demonkind forever.
• Boom, Headshot!: Headshots grant bonuses in certain situations. Most prominently, Maykr Drones and the DLC-exclusive Blood Maykrs turn into a fountain of pickups if shot in the head. The Mastery bonus for the Heavy Cannon's Precision Bolt mod causes an explosion on headshots that harms nearby enemies.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The Combat Shotgun's Sticky Bomb mod. Between the two available weapon mods, the Sticky Bomb can take out Weak Points and is easier to aim than a normal Frag Grenade from your Equipment Launcher. And because it's a Sticky Bomb, it will stick to an enemy and will blow up on them if aimed right making them easier to hit enemies with and better for dealing with Cacodemons. It's also extremely useful for dealing with large groups of Fodder-type Demons, either immediately killing them or weakening them for a Glory Kill to let you regain health. It remains useful throughout the game and is one of the better options available for dealing with the Marauder, allowing you to bombard him with splash damage without risking the self-damage of the Rocket Launcher.
  • The Precision Bolt mod for the Heavy Cannon. Compared to the Heavy Assault Rifle's Tactical Scope from the previous game, the Precision Bolt is much more useful, with a huge boost in damage per shot. The Mod allows you to take out Weak Points in the same vein as the Sticky Bomb, though with a greater emphasis on long-range destruction. This means you can safely weaken more troublesome enemies like the Arachnotrons, Revenants, or Mancubi from a distance for easier kills; on higher difficulties, learning how to do this on the fly is virtually a requirement if you hope to get very far.
  • The Super Shotgun. Like the last game, it's not a "boring" weapon per se, but rather, it does a very, very good job at blasting demons to kingdom come at point-blank range. While it can no longer be upgraded to shoot twice before needing to be reloaded, its sole mod, the Meathook, allows the player to rapidly close the distance between you and whatever demon is unlucky enough to be caught. Its new Mastery allows it to temporarily set the demon caught by the Meathook on fire to drop Armor Shards upon death or being shot at if it survives.
  • The Energy Shield mod for the Chaingun. It simply lets you bring up a shield to protect your front. While it lacks the More Dakka flare of the Mobile Turret, it makes up for that shortcoming with the invaluable benefit of having a defensive measure in general, especially in a game where you fight enemies head-on with little protection to the front.
  • In terms of runes, there are a few that stand out as this: Savagery (faster glory kills), Seek and Destroy (perform glory kills from further away) and Air Control (better air control).
• Boss-Only Level:
  • Sentinel Prime, which features the fight against the Gladiator. There are no enemies to fight on the way and the only secrets are Codex entries and a single Praetor Suit Token.
  • The Dark Lord in The Ancient Gods - Part 2, which simply consists of the Final Battle between you and the Dark Lord himself.
• Bottomless Magazines:
  • The Haste Power-Up, renamed Overdrive, now grants this for the duration of its power.
  • The Infinite Ammo Cheat Code gives the Slayer exactly that, for whatever mission he uses it in. Unlike Overdrive, it also extends the infinite ammo to BFG Cells and The Crucible.
  • Played with in the case of the Heavy Cannon's Micro Missiles. When fully mastered, the launcher does not need to manually reload its racks, and the player is only limited by their ammo stock, allowing them to unleash a miniature Macross Missile Massacre.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Averted with the Unmaykr. While you do have to complete the toughest non-boss encounters in the game to get it, it's still available a couple of missions before the end of the campaign. An enhanced BFG can make those climactic fights much smoother.
• Broad Strokes: Subverted. Though Doom (2016) implied the previous Doom games occurred in some general fashion Flashbacks in Eternal reveal all of them took place before the events of 2016. Further, the Slayer is in fact the Doomguy from Doom, II and 64, who has been travelling between these Alternate Universes thanks to the Timey Wimey nature of Hell. It also implies that the Denser and Wackier novelizations are canon somehow, as Doomguy's name from the books, Flynn Taggart, serves as the password on his computer to unlock Doom II. His utterly nutterly-butterly characterization from the comic book is also referenced, as, in a flashback, he raves about "huge guts."
• Brutal Bonus Level:
  • Two different flavours of this are presented in this game; there are the Slayer Gates which are tucked away in secret exploration areas throughout the game, and there are Master Levels. The latter are offered throughout various real-time events, functioning as remixed versions of the game's levels with much denser and higher-difficulty arena encounters, while the former pits you in a separate arena to fight against a plethora of high-level enemies.
  • Horde Mode. You'll fight all of the assorted nasties from both the campaign and the two-part Ancient Gods DLC in small, boxed-in Slayer Gate-esque arenas, and you start with a shotgun and gradually acquire other weapons as you progress. Thankfully, the player starts with all arsenal, rune, and suit upgrades already installed, though this is just a small comfort.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • The Arachnotron, Pain Elemental, and Arch-Vile who debuted in Doom II return after being absent from the prior game.
  • The original green-haired Zombiemen and the bald Shotgun Sergeants make a comeback after being absent since Doom 64 and Doom II^note While the latter did appear as enemies in 64, they shared their sprites with the Zombiemen likely to save cartridge space respectively, as the Possessed Soldiers and Security served as ranged zombie enemies in 2016.
  • The Icon of Sin also makes an appearance as the Final Boss and the Khan Maykr's last-ditch measure to try to destroy Earth.
• Call-Back: The first shot of the game is identical to 2016 - the Doom Slayer's symbol burning onto the screen. The narration also ends with the same line, "Rip and tear, until it is done."
• The Cameo:
  • The Dopefish appears multiple times in this game; images of it are on a music track cover, the blade of the Chainsaw, and several candy packages in "ARC Complex", and the thing itself appears three times in "Cultist Base" (destroying these will net you extra lives). Swim swim hungry, baby!
• Canon Welding: After Doom (2016) seemingly being set in (yet another) separate continuity à la Doom³ while still making obligatory references, Eternal outright confirms that the Doom Slayer is indeed the Doomguy from the classic games, at the same time welding Doom 64 into the main canon, despite it being made by Midway Games instead of id Software, as well as confirming the lore bits about the Slayer in Quake Champions to be accurate, despite that game's Loose Canon approach. And if that's not enough, the presence of the lost city of Hebeth during the Mars Core mission heavily implies that Doom³ may have also occurred within the main timeline, albeit with a different protagonist than classic Doomguy. It is further supported by the presence of a Soul Cube on Doomguy's desk. Problems with this approach such as the demons, Hell, and even the UAC marines in Doom 3 appearing to be entirely different than in the reboots or originals, or Hell still being active with nigh-infinite armies here despite Doomguy having explicitly destroyed most of it at the end of Doom II,^note the demons in Doom 64 were all spawned by the Mother Demon. are handwaved as the results of a multiverse and time travel (or rather time passing non-linearly in Hell). Cut dialogue from Khan Maykr confirms that Doomguy comes from "the seventh dimension."
• Cap Raiser: Sentinel Crystals are the currency for Perks that raise caps.
• Carry a Big Stick: The Ancient Gods: Part 2 adds the Sentinel Hammer to the Slayer's arsenal. It stuns all enemies (except Marauders, if you haven't already stunned them the traditional way) around the Slayer, and causes them to drop ammo. Setting them on fire or freezing them will also cause them to drop armor and health respectively when hit with the hammer. Also, unlike the Crucible, it recharges after two glory kills so expect to use it a lot in the already frantic DLC as a general "all big demons need to shut the fuck up so I can think for a second" button.
• Chekhov's Gun: The demonic Crucible from 2016 - after killing Deag Grav, the Khan Maykr takes over the Fortress of Doom, intending to keep the Slayer trapped inside. However, she didn't know that the Slayer had recently retrieved the demonic Crucible from Earth, which allows him to restore power back to the Fortress. Hayden Lampshades the Irony of it all.
  Samuel Hayden: She didn't know you had the demonic Crucible. *chuckles* In the end, the very power source you sought to eradicate from Earth is now what will help you save it.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Commander Valen (a.k.a. The Betrayer), who was last seen providing a crucial item to the Slayer in the base game, returns in The Ancient Gods Part Two, along with an army he's helped assemble, to aid the Slayer during the assault on Immora.
• Chekhov's Skill: Midway through the game, the Slayer visits Argent D'Nur, which was formerly protected by the Night Sentinels and later by the Slayer himself, who established his legend by defeating a Titan with his Crucible. In the final fight, the Slayer uses the exact same method to dispatch the Icon of Sin during the battle on Earth.
• Checkpoint Starvation:
  • The ball-breaking Ultra-Nightmare returns with a vengeance. Not only do you (still) only have one life in this mode, but gone are also all of the checkpoints; the only way to save is to complete a chapter.
  • The Ancient Gods Part 1 features multiple multistaged fights that see the player in a pitched battle for fifteen minutes or more. There are no checkpoints within these fights, so dying in stage five sends you right back to the beginning.
• Circling Birdies: Stunning enemies with a hammer will make stars appear over their heads, accompanied by a "dizzy" sound effect.
• Clean Cut: The Crucible's glowing Argent blade effortlessly slices through nearly every type of non-boss enemy for an instant One-Hit Kill. The only catch is that, unlike the chainsaw, you don't get any pickups from killing an enemy with it.
• Climax Boss: The Gladiator. He's the only enemy fought in his level, his fight comes after a massive revelation about the Slayer's backstory, and the final Hell Priest is killed after he's defeated, completing the Slayer's primary objective for the game so far.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The various Essence Drops that issue from slain demons, as well as the various graphics on the HUD, each have a unique color. Health drops are sky blue, armor chips are lime green, the RAD Suit meter is neon-green, the Flame Belch meter is yellow, and the Chainsaw fuel meter is orange. Shells are mustard yellow, bullets are yellowish-green, plasma cells are lavender, rockets are orange, and the Crucible meter is red.
• Combat Tentacles: Earth is now full of monstrous demonic tentacles that sprout out of the ground and destroy anything near them following Hell's invasion. In some areas, you'll end up dealing with smaller tentacles that might pop out to attack you, while The Ancient Gods introduces much bigger tentacles (with bones inside them, interestingly).
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting:
  • The artbook finally shows the Slayer's face which was modelled after the original Doomguy sprites in great detail, revealing that he looks exactly like a very beefy version of Michael Shannon.
  • 3D model rips have revealed that King Novik's face was heavily patterned after Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister from Motörhead.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: In The Ancient Gods - Part One, the tutorial for fighting the Trial of Maligog shows the Slayer using the Chaingun to destroy the core. This is highly impractical, as the trial favors the use of high-damage, single-shot weapons like the Ballista or Precision Bolt mod.
• Connected All Along: While the previous games exist in a separate Continuity, all of them (including Doom 3) are relevant within the story of Eternal, and the Doom Slayer himself is revealed to be the original Doomguy from the first two games and Doom 64, who seemingly travelled universes altogether during his self-imposed exile and was taken in by the Sentinels, with heavy implications the Khan Maykr's actions were influential to the past games in the series beyond 2016.
• Conspicuous Electric Obstacle:
  • One of the arenas in Exultia has a glowing blue electrified floor. More electrified floors appear in Cultist Base.
  • Many wall climbing sections often have small blue spheres that emit electricity and are better to be avoided.
  • Some corridors, like a circular corridor in Exultia, feature places where lightning bolts shoot out at regular intervals.
• Continuing is Painful:
  • Should you fail a Secret Encounter or Slayer Gate, whatever resources you just spent attempting it will not be refunded, which will make subsequent attempts incredibly daunting if not impossible entirely. And in especially dire cases, even giving up and continuing with the campaign won't help considering what little resources you have left, if any.
  • Extra lives are not reset on loading to a previous checkpoint. If you burn through one or more extra lives and still die in an encounter, any repeat attempts will be done with no extra lives.
  • Also inverted. If you keep dying to a specific encounter, the game will ask if you'd like to respawn with Super Armor, giving the player a massive bonus to damage negation so they can clear the area and continue the game.
• Continuity Nod: There's a statue of Olivia Pierce in Nekravol. She does not otherwise impact the events of this game, and her name is never mentioned outside of Deag Ranak's codex entry.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • Most of the records and characters in the game say it's happening in 2151... except for Dr. Elena Richardson's logs, which for some reason are all dated 12 years later in 2163. The implication is that the invasion started in 2151 and has been ongoing for twelve years. Clearly, the forces of Hell like to make humans suffer.
  • The Horde mode is implied to be set before the Campaign as Deag Ranak is taunting you throughout the game mode, but you encounter enemies and fight in areas from the DLC and the Doom Hunter is just being made as the Slayer is rampaging throughout the Doom Hunter Base in the campaign.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: The Dark Lord fights very similar to the Marauders in the game with his shield up; his shielded position means weapons won't work against him and you have to wait for an opening to stun him. Even when stunned, he is very resistant to the BFG; your other weapons will do more damage to him.
• Cool Gate: The Fortress of Doom has its own Slipgate, a high-tech circular shining blue portal the Slayer uses to teleport to the various locations in the game.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Union Aerospace Corporation is once again trying to sell out the rest of the human race to get a better position in Hell. While the Doom Slayer is walking through the command centre on Phobos, two techs are heard talking about how Corporate wants them to shut down the installation's defences and let the demons in. The other tech is appropriately flabbergasted as to why... though that quickly becomes a moot point when the Slayer walks up to them.
• Cosmetic Award: Quite a few of them, and a majority of them are earned by completing the milestones, the in-game achievements. Reskins of weapons and slight model edits of the playable demons and Doom Slayer himself are earnable.
  • The golden Praetor and Maykr Suits are perhaps the greatest examples. They're unlocked by beating the main campaign and The Ancient Gods Part 1 on Ultra-Nightmare. There's literally nothing else you could do with it that you couldn't already with the other suits, other than wearing it for showing off in Battlemode.
• Cosmic Horror Story: While definitely leaning toward Lovecraft Lite thanks to the Doom Slayer, the Maykrs, an angelic-looking species, are an alien race that had made a deal with Hell to supply them with Human souls to harvest in return for Argent Energy. Meaning that everyone killed by the demons in this universe is sent to Hell to become fuel for Heaven.
• Creator Cameo:
  • A convenience store in "ARC Complex" sells bags of dried meat pieces that have the face of creative director Hugo Martin on the packaging. Said face can also be found on a box of Pizza on the Doom Slayer's desk in his private quarters of the Fortress of Doom.
  • The names of the Quality Assurance team members can be found on a UAC monitor listing them for the "Quality Excellence Award".
• Critical Existence Failure: Averted with the Final Boss, the Icon of Sin, who not only shows damage as the fight goes on and you blow chunks out of his body, but the whole point of the fight is to weaken him enough to deliver a finishing blow with The Crucible.
• Critical Status Buff:
  • In The Ancient Gods - Part One, the Desperate Punch support rune doubles your Blood Punch damage when your health drops below 75 HP.
  • In Battlemode, the Revenant can adopt the Sadist ability after Round 1 or 2, which lets its Twin Rockets deal more damage when at the shores of death.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: As the Codex reveals, the invasion of Earth was met with resistance from Samuel Hayden, who defected from the UAC and led humanity's defence against the demons. It is strongly implied that he ultimately failed solely because the demons could simply afford to send in endless waves of invaders to whittle down humanity's resources: even so, "ARC Complex" seems to take place as they are mounting a last stand to preserve the body of the recently fallen Hayden.
• Cutting the Knot: Short on time and with the next objective near the core of Mars, the Doom Slayer gets direct access by hijacking the BFG 10,000 and using it to punch a gigantic crater into the planet's surface.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • Your Good Old Fisticuffs aren't nearly as destructive as they used to be. Players who used to have Doom Slayer just punch things enough times to open them up for a Glory kill in the previous game will be quick to realize it's no longer the case. Hitting things with your fists in Eternal seems to be only good for environmental interactions or mildly pushing stuff away from the Doom Slayer, dealing negligible damage. When even Zombies - the most basic of mooks - can easily outpunch you in a scuffle, that's saying something.
    • That said, be sure to keep an eye on your Blood Punch gauge because when it's maxed, your punch will do a LOT of good for exactly one hit (as in smashing the guy in front of you, as well as the dipshits standing close to him). The Dash can also be upgraded to stagger enemies that the player dashes into, much like melee attacks did in 2016.
  • Barons of Hell can no longer be chainsawed. Those who used to do that to cheese them in the 2016 game will be in for a nasty surprise when they whip out the chainsaw in anticipation of a Baron running at them and are surprised when they try to One-Hit Kill the beast with it and it does nothing.
    • More generally, most smaller demons (Imps and Zombies) in 2016 can be killed with one unit of fuel, whereas anything belonging to the Heavy-class demons in Eternal will require all three blips, while the Super-Heavy demons can't be chainsawed at all.
  • In general, at least on PC, people coming from Doom (2016) have had to fidget around with the new keybinds. Want to swap out your weapon mod? Whoops, you used your Flame Belch. Want to crouch? Nope, chainsaw! Want to glory kill an enemy? Well, now you're swapping your weapon mod instead! Of course, nothing's stopping you from binding them back to "normal", but the new additions to your arsenal mean it's easier to get accustomed to the new controls than to figure out what goes where.
• Deader than Dead: While the Father did defeat the Dark Lord in the past, he only destroyed his physical body and left his Life Sphere intact. Despite technically being dead, the Dark Lord still existed as a disembodied spirit who could still command the forces of Hell. The only way to truly kill the Dark Lord is to use his Life Sphere to resurrect him in his physical form and then destroy both his body and Life Sphere simultaneously. This is exactly what the Doom Slayer does.
• Decapitation Presentation: After killing the first Hell Priest, the Doom Slayer pulls his head off and examines it. He even readjusts the Priest's crown. Later on in the level, the Slayer interrupts the remaining Hell Priests' meeting by tossing the severed head (and crown) at their feet.
• Defector from Decadence: It's heavily implied that Samuel Hayden is a Maykr who went rogue after learning the source of Argent energy.
• Deflector Shields: One of the Chaingun's weapon mods is the Energy Shield, which temporarily renders the Doom Slayer immune to all incoming damage in the direction he is facing. Some of the enemies also use shields, including the Shotgun-wielding Zombie Soldiers, the Carcasses projecting a shield wall, and Doom Hunters being protected by a shield. Said shield bounces bullets back at you, but they are vulnerable to plasma and will explode if overcharged with plasma.
• Degraded Boss: Both the Doom Hunter and the Marauder are introduced as bosses but show up as reoccurring enemies later in the game. The Tyrant enemy type is essentially a mook version of 2016's Cyberdemon.
  • The Doom Hunter gets a special mention. It's built up as the Hell-Priest's champion for most of the level, including a multi-part foreshadowing of its components being assembled. As soon as it's defeated you must immediately fight two more at once!
• Demon of Human Origin: It's shown that all the demons of Hell are in some way the product of humanity and other sentient species. Many mortals who end up there end up suffering and enduring torture until their souls can be extracted and used for Soul Power, while the soulless body can then be made into a new demon. Although, the Hell Priests were allowed to retain their old personalities for giving up all of Argent D'Nur on a silver platter to the Dark Lord.
• Denser and Wackier: Compared to the more serious 2016, the developers have explicitly stated in interviews that they want Doom Eternal to have a similar tone to a Saturday-Morning Cartoon or a comic book. This can be seen in expanded lore, cutscenes and dialogue with fantasy themes instead of the minimal story and optional Flavor Text, map design emphasizing jumping puzzles and collecting 1-ups instead of more realistic environments, enemies and pickups with designs reminiscent of those from past Doom games, and more vibrantly colorful glowing pickups and HUD, as opposed to the predominant red palette of 2016.
• Detonation Moon: The moon has been cracked into pieces, with large chunks coming off it and random debris floating all around it.
• Destructive Savior: The Doom Slayer is this enough that, as mentioned above, the Phobos base has an entire early warning system devoted to notifying people in the base of his arrival. Considering the amount of indiscriminate destruction he wrought on any surviving Argent technology in the previous game, it's not surprising. He even uses the BFG-10,000 to blow a gigantic hole in the surface of Mars just to get a demonic stronghold faster, so this fear is not unwarranted.
• Developer's Foresight: Even before the release of the Barbarian Slayer skin, which distinctly lacks a helmet, the Doom Slayer has had facial animations regarding his mouth such as when the Marauder appears, and he smirks at the sight of him or when he grits his teeth right before getting into the thick of it.
• Devil, but No God: Double Subverted. The main game implies that, while there is a Dark Lord ruling over the demons, there is no genuine God that led the Maykrs before disappearing on them, with it simply being a highly advanced A.I., potentially VEGA, that had the capacity for creating angel-like beings. However, The Ancient Gods reveals that there genuinely was a bonafide all-powerful God, and that it was VEGA. The reason for the various hints about God simply being VEGA as a highly advanced A.I. gets revealed to be because he deliberately split his soul and mind apart, with his soul becoming a life sphere and his mind becoming VEGA. And even then, it turns out that the Dark Lord was the Father, but he was usurped by the Maykrs, with one of them taking on his title. So while the hints from the main game are still technically true in that there is currently a Devil but no God, the truth is more complicated: that Devil used to be God.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: A rematch example, at that. The Icon of Sin is resurrected, with a proper body this time, and it still proves to be not enough when the Doom Slayer gets him within arm's reach.
  • In The Ancient Gods: Part Two, the Slayer kills the Dark Lord of Hell, who just so happens to also be the Father. Although he does collapse after his victory.
• Didn't See That Coming: The Khan Maykr didn't realize the Doom Slayer would help himself to the demonic Crucible on his way to recover Samuel Hayden, making her plan to trap him trivial to escape.
• Didn't Think This Through: Why yes, Khan Maykr. Bring the universe-destroying, reality-warping Eldritch Abomination that is the Icon of Sin right to your home dimension, when the Doom Slayer is killing his way to your location. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? 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.
• Doom Doors: Several secret doors, as well as the portal you open to initiate missions, will sample the classic swooping sound.
• Door to Before: You'll see this come up in this game a bit, particularly when you find a secret (you can see the secret from the outside and when you actually find it, the door that blocked you the first time you saw it now opens for you to go back to where you started without having to return the way you came).
• Double Jump: The Doom Slayer carries over the ability to jump again in mid-air from Doom 2016, now a part of his starting equipment.
• Downloadable Content: At least two single-player expansions are planned for post-launch release and can be purchased separately when they come out or in the "Year One" content bundle. These make up The Ancient Gods storyline, following on from the ending of the base game and, according to Hugo Martin, will be just as content-rich as a full game.
• Dragon Their Feet: The Khan Maykr is the main villain who orchestrates the plot, and the Icon of Sin is resurrected on her orders to complete the annihilation of Earth. However, the Icon of Sin outlives its supposed master, and is the True Final Boss for the Doomslayer to defeat.
• Dramatic Choir Number: The soundtrack involves a choir composed of members of several heavy metal bands, including Static-X, Black Crown Initiate, Aborted, and Tengger Cavalry.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Twice, once during the intro, and once more at the end of The Stinger.
• The Dreaded:
  • On Phobos, the Doom Slayer walks through a command centre of still-living humans, who all stop what they're doing after noticing him and back away with a mixture of abject horror and awe. Even when the Slayer drags a guy with a key hung around his neck to a door lock, no one objects at all, including the guy he's dragging (granted, given the distance involved, it causes the poor guy only moderate discomfort rather than any real bodily harm). When the guards outside start to tell the Slayer he can't be there, they can't even finish after seeing who they're talking to, and just keep silent even as the Doomguy walks right up to them and takes the Plasma Rifle out of one of the guard's hands. The PA even echoes the sentiment before the mission actually begins.
    PA: Warning: The Slayer has entered the facility.
  • It's not just the Doom Slayer the demons fear, his Super Shotgun is feared just as much. They fear it enough to keep it locked away within the Cultist Base, and its Codex entry tells of what a fearsome weapon it is in demonic lore:
    "The sting of the Slayer's abominable arsenal casts fear into the lowest of our kin. Its blazing barrels of brimstone spew his vitriol and loathing upon us, and cast our brethren to the dirt. Mark the venom of his chosen apparatus of agony, the Diabolical Musket, Lucifer's Bane; its claw of pig iron gouging the flesh of the martyr and hurrying him upon us. Curse the name of his beloved treasure. Curse the Hell Walker's device of torment. We shall cast it into the smelter and gild his entrails with the slurry."
• Drought Level of Doom:
  • No Pun Intended, but the whole game is this compared to the last one. Health, ammo, and armour pickups are much scarcer and what ammo is there goes towards a very low cap you'll quickly burn through. On the other hand, glory kills still restore health, the flame belch produces armour, and a minimal level of chainsaw fuel regenerates. All of these have a limited range, meaning the best way to stay topped up is to get stuck in.
  • The Famine "cheat" ramps this up to eleven, as slain enemies will no longer drop anything. That means Glory Kills won't spawn health, chainsaw kills won't give you ammo, and the Flame Belch doesn't make enemies drop armor.
• Dynamic Entry: Thanks to the Slayer's newfound ability to punch through certain weakened walls, you'll be spending a lot of time bursting through walls and immediately making a lot of red liquid, not unlike a murderous Kool-Aid Man. These walls (barring those that lead to secrets) are helpfully denoted by a green glow, indicating that he can punch or dash right through to access the area behind them. There are often enemies on the other side, and some full-scale arenas are entered this way. One case has him entering his next objective this way, via using himself as a Human Cannonball.

E-L

• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Slayer Gates, being extra challenges, can sometimes feature enemies that won't appear in the game until some time later. The most notable example is the Mars Core Gate, which features Maykr Drones several levels before they appear in regular gameplay.
  • Upon killing the first Hell Priest, the Doom Slayer has a brief flashback, showing two of the priests. While this is elaborated on much later, this initial vision also shows the Slayer's original helmet.
  • Nekravol is visible in the distance at the very end of Level 2, although the player will most likely just assume it's a setpiece their first time through.
• Early Game Hell: An even more pronounced variant than in 2016. You don't get the stronger weapons until about the third mission, and the first two missions have no restraints about throwing a number of stronger demon variants at you with no warning. That being said, you scale up much faster than in 2016, and by the end of the second level, you'll have gained several dozen new moves to compete with the demons on a much more even playing field.
  • This is also why the first three levels, "Cultist Base" in particular, are considered to be the hardest when playing Ultra Nightmare. There just aren't enough collectibles for the Slayer to power himself up with during this time, so you'll be forced to tackle the tight corridors and arenas with minimally upgraded health, weapons and equipment.
  • A substantial part of why this is such a pronounced issue is that the game is very much balanced around the Dash ability, but you don't get it until halfway through the second level. Have fun going up against Arachnotrons and Hell Knights without it! Even once you have it, it's not nearly fast enough to keep up with the game's pace until you unlock the Faster Dashing upgrade, which won't be happening until at least midway through level three.
  • Glory kills are a key ingredient to surviving protracted battles. There is something of a learning curve involved in figuring out the sweet spot with each weapon and fodder demon. Hit them too soft and they'll just keep attacking you, but too hard and they'll die, depriving you of much-needed health pickups. This is perhaps best illustrated by the Heavy Cannon, a full-auto that will stagger an imp with exactly three shots. Fire one too many or one too few in the early game with your exceedingly low health pool and you're going to wind up dead instead of healed.
• Earn Your Fun: In-built cheats, ranging from God Mode to Bottomless Magazines, to instantly unlocking everything under the sun and then some, are present in Eternal as collectibles, and can be toggled on when revisiting previously-completed chapters. They don't disable progression and can be abused to hell and back, with the only caveat being that they bar you from accessing Slayer Gates while on, to prevent players from simply cheesing them to unlock the Unmaykr.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: One possible way to interpret the end of the second DLC, The Ancient Gods - Part Two. The Slayer finally kills Davoth, the master of Hell and effectively God of the Universe, which in turn kills every demon outside of Hell and permanently strands those that remain within. As the Slayer finds out, he is technically included in that number, in that the Divinity Machine which empowered him drew on the essence of Davoth. Reduced to the man he was before, he collapses and is last seen being placed into a stone sarcophagus etched with his symbol in a place of honor on Argenta. While this could be seen as a Bittersweet Ending, the Slayer finally getting a rest after eons of fighting the forces of Hell coming off as mercy. Even then, it's implied he's only sleeping, and will awake again should Hell threaten the universe.
• Easter Egg:
  • One of the books on the bookshelf in the Fortress of Doom is labelled "How to Comb Your Mustache" by Clifton M. Fischbach, which is the name of Let's Player Markiplier's father.
  • There's a hidden rabbit, presumably Daisy, in each level of the game.
  • For a brief period of time, pressing the chainsaw button several times on the Rune select screen resulted in a quick image popping up that said "DOOG Eternal", a reference to Korone Inugami, known for her playthrough of Doom 2016. Sadly, this was swiftly removed for unknown reasons.
  • In the official soundtrack, the main theme ends with a series of screams. However, if you change the sound mix from stereo to mono, the screams become the opening of "Sweet Dead Little Bunny", the ending theme of the original Doom.
  • A few special encounters can be triggered by going through a couple of steps:
    • After acquiring all three Gore Keys in the Super Gore Nest level and putting them in their "locks", three balloons will appear around the area. Popping all three of them will cause a crowd to boo you and spawn a cake near where the "locks" are with a Soul Sphere on top... which spawns two Tyrants when you pick it up. Hope you saved that Onslaught power-up!
  • In Exultia's Hell segment, an isolated classic Doom wall texture can be found. Interacting with it will cause it to rotate 180 degrees, followed by cheering. This is a reference to an error made in 2016's classic levels where one texture was flipped by mistake and a silly Take That, Audience! to those who got annoyed with it.
    • After completing the World Spear and unlocking fast travel, you can warp back to the first arena after the dragon ride cutscene and find a sword. Interacting with it will spawn in five Marauders.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: Averted. Not only does the game not mock you for choosing easier skill levels, it actively encourages replaying a mission with cheats enabled to make optional encounters easier.
• Enemy Civil War: Like in 2016, demons can be sometimes found fighting each other before they spot the Slayer. However, unlike in previous instalments, enemies deal no damage to each other this time around.
• Embedded Precursor: The collectible floppy disks don't just contain cheat codes - they double as installation disks for Ultimate Doom. Collecting them all installs the game on the Slayer's old PC in his mancave in the Fortress of Doom, fully playable with all four episodes included. The PC also has Doom II installed, albeit locked with a passcode^*"FLYNNTAGGART", a reference to the protagonist of the Doom novelizations. That's right, Doom runs Doom! Even more interestingly, the IWAD files for the games are in the game files for the PC version of Eternal. This means that you can load other IWADs in place of them then go to the fortress' computer and you'll be able to run things like T.N.T.: Evilution or The Plutonia Experiment from Final Doom or even something like Chex Quest.
• Empty Room Psych: Unlike the first game, there are more progression items (Sentinel Batteries, Praetor Tokens, Weapon Upgrade Points) in the game than are necessary for 100% Completion. The surplus serves no purpose apart from checking everything off.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Hell has invaded Earth, leaving crumbling buildings, demonic beasts wandering the lands and charred skeletons and corpses littering the landscape. Colossal, burning Hellish sigils have been carved into its surface, on scales so large that they’re visible from orbit.
• Energy Weapon: The Ballista, which replaces the Gauss Cannon from the previous game: a high-tech, oversized crossbow that fires bolts of superheated argent energy. These bolts can even be overcharged with so much energy they explode, or charge up to release a massive beam that cuts through anything but the toughest demons.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The demo shows Doomguy drag a guy with a keycard around his neck to a scanner to open the door to a prohibited area, and when a couple of guards try to tell him to stay back, Doomguy walks right up to the mouthier one and takes the gun out of his hands while the poor guy visibly wilts and his partner steps back out of the danger zone. That's right: the people of Earth are more scared of you than they are of the demonic invasion.
  • This also goes both ways: Doomguy may be a fearsome behemoth of raw power and violence but only towards the demonic forces. Humans who bid him no ill will are merely used for what he needs from them to continue onwards but is otherwise not interested in inflicting undue harm.
  • Not that he really needed another one at this point, but the very first level of the game has the Doomguy literally kick down Nilox's front door and then tear his head off with his bare hands. The entire affair takes less than twenty seconds, serving to firmly establish that the Slayer does not fuck around.
• Evil Counterpart: The Marauders. Their design is intentionally evocative of the Doom Slayer himself along with his Praetor Suit, as is his two weapons of choice, a power ax that heavily resembles the Doom Slayer's own laser sword, and his own custom Super Shotgun. The Marauder is basically the Doomguy of the demons, which makes sense considering they're Night Sentinels who fell to demonic corruption and even received the same power-boost Doomguy did.
• Evil, Inc.: The Union Aerospace Corporation fits this trope to a T, having decided to sell out humanity in order to win favor with the forces of Hell.
• Evil Is Visceral: Unsurprisingly, the invasion of Earth by Hell results in a lot of fleshy environments to traverse full of squishy walls and gore everywhere. While the Maykrs are much cleaner, the Khan Maykr's true face revealed during her fight is rather fleshy.
• Evil Learns of Outside Context: It's revealed that the Khan Maykr, the "archangel" of Urdak, only learned about the demons' existence from the Doomslayer himself after he was stranded on Argent D'Nur. She then made a pact with Hell to provide them with new worlds to devour in exchange for a continuous flow of Argent Energy harvested from tortured souls to fuel her own Dying Race.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: In Nekravol lies The Citadel, a Hellish structure that takes after The Tower of Babel. It serves as a facility where the dead are tortured and their souls slowly wither away, creating new demons and also producing Argent energy for the Maykrs.
• Evil vs. Evil: It's heavily implied that, even in the early days of Hell's invasion, the Maykrs did not have the best interests of the worlds they 'protected' at heart, with many of the Argenta Military actions implying something akin to colonization or invasion of multiple dimensions. Later, after their coalition falls, Hell reneges on the alliance with the Maykrs after the Icon of Sin's seal is broken, leading to Hell invading Urdak.
• Exact Words: As revealed in the second part of Nekravol, the Maykrs and the demons had a deal: the Dark Lord allowed Urdak to siphon souls of the damned into Argent energy so long as they provided the demons with new worlds to devour. When the Khan Maykr loses control of the Icon of Sin, causing it to rampage to a degree that will destroy all of creation (thereby not allowing Hell any new worlds), the deal is called off and the demons invade and begin ransacking Urdak.
• Exploding Barrels: Red barrels (and sometimes red spiked spheres) litter the levels, exploding when hit. You can upgrade your suit to make them regenerate, make yourself immune to their damage and make them drop pickups.
• Eye Scream: The Glory Kills for many different demons, but most particularly the Cacodemon and Pain Elemental, involve stabbing through or ripping out their eyes.
• Fallen Angel: The Ancient Gods - Part One introduces to the enemy roster the Blood Maykrs, former Maykr Angels corrupted by demonic influence when Hell invaded Urdak.
• Falling Damage: Fully negated once again and without an "Impact Compensation" mechanic this time around. The campaign sees the Doom Slayer falling down several floors worth of height at certain points, and he lands on his feet ready to fight immediately, unlike the previous game where he needed a few seconds to recover from the impact.
• Fan Boy: One of the researchers within the ARC research facility (where Hayden's body is being stored) is the only human in the game who reacts with glee at the Slayer's presence, detailing that Hayden explained what was going to happen so the researcher would know to prepare. The researcher even tells the Slayer that it's an honor to meet him!
  • Ascended Fanboy: In The Ancient Gods - Part One, the Intern is the only member of ARC to stand by the Slayer after he destroys the Father's life sphere and retrieves the Dark Lord's sphere instead, understanding his intent to summon the Dark Lord into the physical realm to kill him once and for all. He effectively functions as Mission Control for the rest of Part One and Part Two.
• Feed It a Bomb: Firing a Frag Grenade or Sticky Bomb into a Cacodemon's open mouth will cause it to swallow it accidentally, dealing heavy damage and instantly putting it into Glory Kill state.
• Fake Longevity: While many Weapon Mod Masteries can be quickly unlocked if the player knows what they're doing, some specific ones can be really annoying to complete due to the target demons' relative rarity. Though there are Weapon Mastery Tokens that can help circumvent this, and since progress carries over on loading a save, players can farm encounters by repeatedly reloading a choice checkpoint.
  • Both Combat Shotgun mods are guilty of this. The Full-Auto Mastery requires killing fifteen Pinkies to unlock (their Spectre counterparts also count) and the Sticky Bomb Mastery requires destroying twenty-five Arachnotron turrets. What makes it tedious is that neither demon is that common in this game, especially in larger groups.
  • The Precision Bolt Mastery requires a whopping total of 75 headshots. While the abundance of Fodder enemies does mitigate it somewhat, there is no quick path to gain this Mastery without using a Weapon Mastery Token.
  • The Arbalest Mastery for the Ballista is gained by getting twenty Cacodemon kills. As they are fairly uncommon after acquiring the Ballista itself, it can take a few chapters to master this mod.
  • The platforming segments get more puzzle-like and force you to redo the entire jumping puzzle if you miss one segment, especially in Urdak proper.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Invoked against the Doom Slayer by the first Marauder he encounters, who calls Doom Slayer "nothing but a usurper... a false idol..." He might be referring to the fact that the Doom Slayer was a human taken in by the Night Sentinels and thus not a "true" Night Sentinel, or judging by the end of The Ancient Gods, reflecting the fact that Doomguy is an Alternate Self "echo" from another realm in The Multiverse of the far older and more powerful Dark Lord of Hell.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Argent D'nur is basically Ancient Rome IN SPACE!!, the name being based on the Latin "argentum" (meaning silver). Their suit tokens are even called Praetor tokens.
• Final Battle:
  • The battle against the Icon of Sin in "Final Sin" in the main campaign.
  • The Ancient Gods - Part 2 has the Doom Slayer against the Dark Lord.
• Final Death Mode: Ultra-Nightmare, just like in Doom (2016). The only difference is that the Game Over message is "YOU HAVE DIED" rather than "The torment has ended."
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • Shortly before the climactic battle with the Khan Maykr, you have to go underwater to hit some switches and activate an elevator, but submerged in the water is a giant demon-esque alien with tentacles. Turns out that's what the Khan actually looks like underneath her angelic armour.
  • Both the Doom Hunter and Gladiator bosses have Codex pages about them right before their arenas, giving you a sneak peek at them.
  • Early in the game, tutorials about the weak points of particular enemies pop up just before they themselves do.
• Flame Spewer Obstacle: Some corridors and areas are filled with flame emitter hazards.
• Flunky Boss: All of the bosses are now this, with the arenas where they're fought constantly pumping out fodder demons for the player to kill if they're low on health, ammo, or armour.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Throughout the game, after he is found, Samuel Hayden consistently refers to humans as the Doom Slayer's people and Earth as his planet, rather than their planet, indicating that he is not actually human at all. The exposition becomes more and more blatant over the course of the game from there, with him having information about the Doom Slayer's life (which he could have possibly found from records around the invasion) to information only accessible to Maykrs (which is decidedly impossible to anyone but them).
  • When recovering the Crucible, Doom Slayer breaks it off to keep the blade in the Titan it's been stuck in, causing a blue wave to wash over it and immobilize it forever. At the very end of the game he does the same thing to the Icon Of Sin.
  • The chip Slayer carries VEGA in when going to Urdak looks a lot more like Maykr tech than anything else on the Fortress of Doom (barring perhaps the Unmaykr, which judging by the name probably is Maykr tech anyway), foreshadowing both VEGA remaining in Urdak and his mysterious connection to the Maykrs.
• Friendly Fireproof: Like in 2016, you'll often come across demons fighting with each other before they notice the Slayer enter the battlefield. However, it's purely cosmetic and they don't deal any damage to each other. The same goes for Battlemode, where player-controlled demons are incapable of hurting each other and the AI demons and vice-versa.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Cheat codes are intended to lock the player out of Slayer Gates. On launch, a bug meant that if a Cheat Code was used even once— even on a level without a Slayer Gate, even when replaying a previous level— Slayer Keys never spawned again on that file, locking players who encountered this out of getting The Unmaykr.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Appropriate for the Doom Slayer, known for his cruelty towards demons, you're encouraged to be absolutely cruel to your demonic enemies. Namely, Glory Kills (which involves beating them to death, or eviscerating them) gives you health, and charges your Megaton Punch, using the Chainsaw gives you ammo, setting them on fire gives you armour (and you get even more if you kill them while they're on fire), and you can destroy specific parts, or do other specific acts of cruelty to them, to make them easier to kill.
  • The Codex entries establish that the demons are terrified of the Slayer, and several of their Glory Kill animations (especially the Arch-Vile) back that up by having their last moments be an expression of utter fear and panic.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Upon reaching the BFG 10K station in "Mars Core," the familiar scene from the gameplay reveal plays, where the Doom Slayer once again swipes the Plasma Rifle from a UAC guard before proceeding on his way, complete with dramatic flourishes... except that he already found the Plasma Rifle on Exultia a few hours ago. Seems like the Slayer forgot that he already has one (and no, you can't duel-wield Plasma Rifles now — apparently, the Doom Slayer just threw the other one away).
  • Maykr Drones can be first encountered in the Mars Core Slayer Gate, long before encountering them on Urdak, despite their Codex Entry stating they aren't physically strong enough to leave their realm.
• Gatling Good: The ordinary Combat Shotgun can be turned into a triple-barrel spinning Gatling gun with the Full-Auto mod.
  • The Chaingun also makes its return. Unlike the last game, it no longer needs to be spun up before firing; the Gatling Rotator mod is replaced by the Energy Shield, and the Mobile Turret gains an additional set of barrels.
• Genius Loci: Urdak is described as being itself alive, formed of the gestalt consciousness of the Maykr race, and said to be the physical manifestation of the entity known only as "The Father", the original Maykr. On the opposite end of the spectrum, The Art of Doom Eternal confirms the same of Hell — it is itself a living entity driven only by the need to devour all of reality.
• Genocide Backfire: The Maykrs have facilitated the sacrifice of numerous worlds to The Legions of Hell for their own benefit. The Doomslayer, secretly empowered by one of their own, proceeds to throw a wrench in their plans to create Hell on Earth and ultimately causes the extinction of the Maykr themselves.
• God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Or more specifically the forces of Heaven and Hell are both jerks. The Khan Maykr isn't actually God, just the one warming His seat (she's roughly equivalent to Michael). The Maykrs directed the Demons to invade earth to render the population down for Soul Power, and it's revealed the Khan made a bargain with "The Dark Lord" for it to happen. Hell refines souls into Argent Energy, and Urdak finds them new worlds to conquer. Slightly subverted in that the Khan claims that she can turn Argent back into souls, and from there, Angels, but this is rather dubious. Incidentally, the actual God archetype, The Father, is actually the most benevolent being in the entire franchise. The problem with him is that he is too nice.
  • However, this gets more complicated in The Ancient Gods Part Two, as it's revealed that the Dark Lord was the original Father, with the current Father being one of his servants who betrayed him and stole his powers and his name. This is what spurred the Dark Lord to create the legions of Hell so he could get his vengeance by destroying everything the Father created with his stolen power.
• God Mode: Subverted. While the specific cheat itself is named "IDDQD", toggling it on simply enables Sentinel Armor at all times instead of making the player invulnerable to damage.
• Godzilla Threshold: After the death of the three Hell Priests, the Khan Maykr resorts to her final failsafe to ensure the destruction of Earth and releases the Icon of Sin, which allows demons to freely enter Urdak.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Midway through The Ancient Gods Part Two, the Slayer activates a beacon that signals to any remaining allied forces that he intends to follow through on his quest to chase The Dark Lord to Immora and permanently destroy him. When the Slayer arrives at Immora, however, he is confronted by The Dark Lord (now in a suit of Powered Armor), who sends an army against him with no apparent way to get around them. Cue a series of portals opening up behind him, where allied forces (led by The Betrayer (a.k.a. Commander Valen), who have arrived to give the Slayer support.
• Gorn: It should be obvious by now, but Eternal adds more creative ways to maim the enemy, such as using the Doom Blade (which the Slayer can jam into a former human's mouth to serve the coup de grace) or ripping off an Arachnotron's foot to shove into its eye. There's also the "destructible demon" system implemented on the new idTech 7 engine that allows any of your attacks to blow chunks of the demons' flesh, exposing their bones and organs.
• Gotta Kill 'Em All: Your objective is to kill three Hell Priests in order to stop the demonic invasion that ravages Earth.
• Grand Finale: The two-part DLC The Ancient Gods, which shows the Doom Slayer trying to resurrect the Dark Lord for one Final Battle. Even the Tagline for Part II emphasizes this: Your war with Hell ends here. By the end of it, The Slayer has killed Davoth the Dark Lord, killing all demons outside of Hell, finally ending the demonic threat forever.
• Grapple Move: The Super Shotgun's sole weapon mod fires a bladed grappling hook that then pulls the Slayer into point-blank range to mess up a demon up close.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Exaggerated. The Doom Slayer has a grappling hook, named the Meathook, on his Super Shotgun that serves as the weapon's only mod.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Once again, the Dark Lord who rules all Hell remains unseen, with the Big Bad role being filled instead by his celestial counterpart, the Khan Maykr. However, a Deal with the Devil forged between the two in the past is a key plot point, and The Ancient Gods finally features him as the Big Bad and Final Boss.
• Guide Dang It!: During the Final Boss against the Icon of Sin you’re encouraged to make liberal use of the Crucible in order to fend off the hordes of Heavy and Super Heavy demons that constantly spawn so you focus your attention on the boss itself and Crucible ammo pickups respawn in order accommodate this. The problem? The game never tells you that the pickups respawn and, since the Crucible is generally Too Awesome to Use due to the scarcity of its ammo everywhere else, you will likely still conserve Crucible charges, making the Final Boss much more frustrating than intended.
• Gun Accessories:
  • The weapon mods system returns from Doom (2016), allowing players to hot-swap between various modes on the fly.
  • Amusingly, the BFG 10,000 turns out to be a humongous example of one - the entire installation is a lens that focuses the BFG 9000's plasma discharge into a deadly beam of energy.
• Half the Man He Used to Be:
  • Samuel Hayden has seen better days, with him reduced to nothing but his head, chest and arms in Eternal.
  • Much like the last game, you can also use the Chainsaw and the Crucible to slice demons in half.
• Harpoon Gun: The Ballista's "Arbalest" weapon mod lets you shoot demons with large exploding Argent flechettes that stick to them and detonate after several seconds.
• Have You Seen My God?: According to the Codex, Urdak's "Father" disappeared one day, leaving the Khan Maykr as the sole authority. It's suggested Dr. Hayden kidnapped him and turned him into VEGA, with the DLC clarifying that the Father himself ordered Hayden to do so in order to hide his essence from the Dark Lord.
• Head Crushing: Several Glory Kills involve smashing an unlucky demon's head into a fine paste, either from above with his boot or the demon's head being between the Doom Slayer's fist and a hard surface.
• Healing Boss: The final battle with the Dark Lord in the Ancient Gods DLC has him healing up some of his health when he hits you with one of his shield or sword attacks. The Dark Lord has multiple health bars that must be taken down in order to end him for good, but this healing ability only applies to the current health bar and cannot be used to bring back those already taken down. Considering that the Dark Lord is essentially Hell's version of the Doom Slayer, who can heal through Glory Kills, this is quite justified.
• Heaven Versus Hell: In an unconventional fashion. The Maykrs are an alien race that is the closest thing the Doom universe has to angels, and at first, they're actually directing the demonic invasion. However, the Khan Maykr ends up breaking their pact with Hell by summoning the Icon of Sin in a desperate attempt to stop the Doom Slayer's rampage, leading the demons to invade Urdak, the Maykrs' homeworld, thereby sparking a war between angels and demons.
• Hell Invades Heaven: In the penultimate mission, "Urdak," the Khan Maykr attempts to resurrect the Icon of Sin and send it to Earth to destroy it utterly. However, due to the Doom Slayer's intervention, the Icon awakens too early (presumably meant to be awakened on Earth itself), beyond the Maykrs control, and sets out to destroy everything. Doing so breaks the pact between Urdak and Hell that had included the idea that no (presumably living) demons would be allowed in Urdak and no Maykrs allowed in Hell, giving the demons free reign to invade the city and seemingly eradicate the entire species.
• Hell on Earth: Turns out Hell's corruption of the UAC went well beyond just the Mars facility, and now Hell has been summoned to Earth. And just like in Doom II, it has led to a war that has filled the planet with rivers of blood and fire, demons roaming the landscape, and billions dead.
• Heroic Mime: Once again, Doomguy. It's even stated that at some point during his time with the Argenta military, he stopped speaking at all. He DOES mumble some words in flashbacks when he was first taken to Argent, but they're broken thoughts about killing demons that aren't even complete sentences, and it's stated he stopped talking entirely after this.
• Heroic Second Wind: Invoked with the extra life system: Even if a group of demons manage to knock out all your health, you'll force yourself back up in order to finish them all. Too angry to die, indeed.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The security systems identify the Doomguy as a greater threat than the massive armada of bloodthirsty demons. Apparently, the higher-ups are trying to turn favour against the Slayer in a pitiful effort to distract their underlings from seeing the real threat.
• Hidden Depths: Impressively considering he never speaks, the Doom Slayer is a much deeper character than was hinted at in the previous game. A quick look around the Fortress of Doom shows that he displays his collection of records all over the ship. This, combined with his impressive collection of custom guitars, indicates that he's probably a music fan. In addition, he is also an avid reader, having a full bookshelf of various titles (even though the majority of them are about killing demons in some way), along with a heaping stack of comic books and a magazine on toy collecting. He proudly displays his collection of Pop Vinyl-esque demon toys on the shelf next to his reading chair. Finally, a large painting shows him holding his beloved rabbit Daisy, and he even wrote a book about her titled My Best Friend, Daisy. All of these factors paint a picture of a man who, despite his Unstoppable Rage, is more than he appears to be.
• High-Tech Heaven:
  • Urdak, the analogue to Heaven in the Doom franchise, consists of flying cities of marble-white/gold/crimson metals and crystal glass, perched on rocks whose composition more resembles motherboard circuitry than minerals. Its inhabitants, the Maykrs, are all cybernetically enhanced, capable of levitation and armed with energy weapons. This is in stark contrast to Hell's Meat Moss-encrusted gothic architecture and primitive, bestial inhabitants.
  • Later inverted, as it turns out the capital of Hell/Jekkad is also very technologically advanced and more than prepared for the final battle against the Slayer and surviving Night Sentinels, and the Dark Lord even has his own badass Mech-Praetor Suit for his final battle against Slayer.
• History Repeats: The fall of Argent D'Nur is a mirror image of how Earth was shaping up to go down until the Slayer waking up on Mars threw it all out of whack, with the entire civilization becoming dependent on Argent Energy to the point of not caring once it became known how it was made, all this at the behest of their trusted leaders who they were looking to for guidance. This is heavily implied to be due to the Khan Maykr manipulating them just as she manipulated Earth. Hayden and the Slayer throw a wrench in her plans and cause her attempt at doing it again to blow up spectacularly, breaking the cycle.
• Horrifying the Horror: The Codex establishes that the armies of Hell are terrified of the Doom Slayer (and his Super Shotgun in particular), cursing him and dreading his appearance. This extends to the game too, where some enemies show a look of pure fear as part of their Glory Kill animations.
• Hostile Terraforming: Besides slaughtering the population of Earth, the demons have begun the process of turning it into a mix between Fire and Brimstone Hell and Bloody Bowels of Hell.
• Hub Level: Between missions, the Doom Slayer will hang out in his Fortress of Doom, a Sentinel spaceship which he's turned into his personal headquarters to analyze the worldwide situation, listen to ARC broadcast, unlock artifacts the sentinel batteries he's collected, train with captured demons, or plainly hang out and admire the collectibles he found.
• Hub Under Attack: After the Doom Slayer kills the last of the three Hell Priests fueling Hell's invasion of Earth, Big Bad Khan Maykr retaliates by taking over the computer systems of the Slayer's hub, the Fortress of Doom, cutting off its power and releasing the demons imprisoned within. The Slayer must then deal with the demons and restore power to the fortress in order to continue his crusade, with the demonic Crucible from the first game luckily being the perfect tool to achieve the latter task.
• Human Cannonball: On Phobos, the Doom Slayer uses a giant cannon as a method of travel from the moon to a nearby warship.
  • He does it again in The Ancient Gods - Part Two At the siege of Immora, when he uses a Sentinel catapult to break through a wall. Unlike the Phobos example, he doesn't need to reset the controls: the Night Sentinels manning the catapult wordlessly go along with it, implying that the "Launch yourself at a weak spot in a wall" maneuver is something the Sentinels are familiar with.
• Human Resources: As seen in the first level, the demons are killing and gathering humans from Earth and transporting their corpses in crates and shipping them to Hell for use as raw materials in creating Hell energy and its purified form, Argent energy. Once the soul has been extracted, the body can be converted into a demon.
• Humongous Mecha: Both Argent D'Nur and Earth used these against the invasions they faced. Earth's run the gamut from Mini-Mecha to this trope. What's left of them can be seen slumped against buildings or in the middle of streets, several of them having been left non-functional after mortal combat with equally-enormous monsters.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The five difficulties from 2016 return, with the addition of Extra Life Mode which can be applied to the first four. Ultra-Nightmare is also now available from the start, as opposed to being unlockable.
  • I'm Too Young To Die:
    QUICK REFLEXES and EXPLORATION are the keys to success in DOOM Eternal.
    At this difficulty setting, there will be dramatic fights and you will push through low health states and occasional deaths on your way to mastering the experience.
    Enemies attack less often and do less damage. Some items you pick up in the world like Health and Armor, are worth more than higher difficulties.
  • Hurt Me Plenty:
    QUICK REFLEXES and EXPLORATION are the keys to success in DOOM Eternal.
    If you have good reflexes and enjoy exploring for progression items, then this difficulty setting is for you. Invest in your weapons and abilities to keep up with the enemies as you progress.
    Enemies attack often and do meaningful damage. Death and low health states will be common early on as you learn to master the skills required to DOMINATE the combat experience.
  • Ultra-Violence:
    QUICK REFLEXES and EXPLORATION are the keys to success in DOOM Eternal.
    If you're an experienced FPS player and you love exploring levels for progression items, then this difficulty setting is for you.
    Enemies throw power attacks more often and deal significant damage. Death may be common early on as you learn to master the skills needed to DOMINATE the combat experience.
  • Nightmare:
    QUICK REFLEXES and EXPLORATION are the keys to success in DOOM Eternal.
    If you're an expert FPS player with lightning-quick reflexes and you are a game completionist, then this difficulty setting is perfect for you.
    Enemy attacks are more frequent and deal maximum damage. Few mistakes are allowed and complete mastery of the combat loop is required.
  • Ultra-Nightmare:
    This is Nightmare with one major adjustment - if you die your campaign is OVER and a death marker will be left behind as a reminder of how far you progressed.
    You can save your campaign upon completing a mission.
    One death and you fail. Enemies are just as aggressive as Nightmare difficulty.
    Once you begin a game in Ultra-Nightmare you will not be able to alter any of the difficulty settings without exiting to the main menu and starting over. Are you sure?
  • Extra Life Mode:
    Extra Life Mode is a special Campaign mode for players looking for an old-school experience.
    Run out of Extra Lives and then die, it's Game Over. Select this mode and then select your difficulty (I'm Too Young To Die to Nightmare).
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Some of the new glory kills involve stabbing enemies through their heads with your new Blade Below the Shoulder.
• Implacable Man: The Doom Slayer, again. He will blow a hole in a PLANET to get to his target if he has to.
• Incendiary Exponent:
  • Quite a number of skins will add fiery effects to the Slayer or the player demons, including the Demonic Slayer and the Inferno Lord Marauder.
  • On the more practical side is the Super Shotgun's mastery upgrade, the Flaming Hook. Once the mastery is unlocked, hooking onto demons with the Meathook will set them on fire and cause them to produce armor like the Flame Belch, albeit for a much shorter time. And of course, the hook itself is on fire.
• Industrialized Evil: When the forces of Hell first clashed with the Sentinels and the Maykrs, they had infinite legions empowered by Hell energy, but no technology. The process of creating Hell energy was slow and inefficient, taking eons. The Maykrs created towers (directly compared to slaughterhouses) where the damned were sorted and tortured with cruel efficiency, allowing souls to be extracted far faster than before. Once extracted, the Hell energy was refined with the Sentinel's Wraith energy, becoming the far more powerful Argent energy.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Unmaykr, a rapid-fire Argent plasma superweapon that is unlocked after completing all six Slayer Gates found throughout the single-player campaign. It shares the same weapon slot as the BFG.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The BFG-9000 is this, if only because the Unmaykr is both optional and much harder to get, while the BFG is earned by progressing through the campaign.
• In Medias Res: The game opens with the Slayer arriving on the barge of the first Hell Priest, already knowing what his mission is, with VEGA active and the Fortress of Doom mostly operational. Later on, it's also revealed that each Priest has a Guardian that has to be defeated first. So, not only has Doomguy found a way out of wherever Hayden had sent him to at the end of Doom (2016), got himself a spaceship and turned it back on, but he's also defeated a major boss just moments before the player takes control of him.
• Interface Spoiler: The main menu promo for The Ancient Gods - Part One spoils the Doom Slayer killing the Khan Maykr at the end of the campaign.
• Invisible Wall: The game has plenty of occasions where an invisible wall stops players from progressing out of the intended field. Sometimes you can encounter them just by running off the beaten path, like in Sentinel Prime.
• Kaiju: Several demonic Titans appear as set pieces, either dead or lumbering along in the background. In particular, the Icon Of Sin is the size of a skyscraper, and is fought atop a literal skyscraper.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In-universe; Nilox, Grav and Ranak got away with betraying Argent D'Nur for an untold period of time, but once the Slayer gets back into action, he swiftly tracks them down and dispatches them.
• Keystone Army:
  • The demonic invasion of Earth is dependent upon the Hell Priests, who command its activities outside of Hell. Thus, a primary objective for the Slayer is to hunt down the Hell Priests to halt and reverse their advance—by the time two out of three are dead, their force has already diminished by 68%.
  • Justified for the Dark Lord. As a Primeval God, his very existence allows demons to venture outside of Hell, since they use him as a connection back to their home dimension. When the Dark Lord is permananetly killed, the connection is permanently severed, resulting in every demon outside of Hell being instantly destroyed.
• Kill It with Fire:
  • The Doom Slayer's Flame Belch allows him to set demons ablaze, also causing them to drop armour shards.
  • The Super Shotgun's Flaming Hook mastery causes the Meathook to burn whatever demon it attaches to, burning them like the Flame Belch.
• Kill the God: At the end of the Blood Swamps in The Ancient Gods - Part I, the Doom Slayer destroys the Father's Life Sphere, not trusting Samur with it and intending to revive Davoth so he can decapitate the demonic armies for good.
• Laser Blade: Various characters now have access to swords, axes and more made out of pure Argent energy, including the Doom Slayer's Crucible.
• Last Chance Hit Point: The Saving Throw rune returns from Doom (2016). It triggers upon taking fatal damage and restores a minuscule amount of health while activating Bullet Time, allowing the player to decide whether to keep fighting or plan a way out of the situation they're in. It Only Works Once per "life", however, and recharges on death.
• Lemony Narrator: Subverted. The Codex tip for Imps includes the snarky, honest-to-god "Weakness: Bullets". However, it's also valid advice as it specifically refers to the Heavy Cannon and Chaingun, which are better suited to cause heavier damage at longer distances, compared to a close-range shotgun shell or an energy cell.
• Lighter and Softer: While the game is by no mean light nor soft, it can feel like it by comparison with the previous instalment which had an austere post-apocalyptic atmosphere and a small cast of (living) characters making the world feel desolate and dark. Here, the environment is more colorful and some levels take place in broad daylight, adding to that, the setting is more populated and home to some humorous moments.
  • This also applies to the demons, as most of them have been given new looks that turn down the horror element. Instead, they resemble their designs from the original Doom much more closely.
• Lightning Bruiser: The developers have noted they want to put even greater emphasis on the Doom Slayer's speed and power, with the Doom Slayer having access to wrist blades, a dash move, and a grappling hook mounted to the Super Shotgun.
• Light Is Not Good: The Maykrs have angelic appearances, and are all coated in a silvery-white and gold sheen, despite standing in the way of the Doom Slayer's attempt to save Earth.
• Limit Break: The Blood Punch needs to be charged by performing Glory Kills. Once charged, it improves your next melee attack, massively increasing its damage and creating a shockwave that damages multiple demons around you.
• Little "No": At the end of The Ancient Gods - Part II, the Dark Lord asks if the Doom Slayer has anything to say to his creator before striking him down. The Slayer replies with the first word he's spoken in decades and stabs the Dark Lord in the chest.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: The game's intro depicts the Slayer readying himself before launching his one-man invasion on a demon-infested Earth.
• Locomotive Level: To access Deag Ranak's Doom Hunter Base, the Doom Slayer hops on a moving platform that links the fortress to the Cultist Base. During the brief transit, several Demons teleport into the platform and try to kill him.
• Loophole Abuse: The game won't actually end when the player runs out of lives in Extra Lives mode if one quickly reloads from a checkpoint before the screen has completely faded to black. Of course, they will be resuming play without their life stock restored, but hey that's something.
• Lore Codex: The codex is a series of data entries that contain information about enemy monsters encountered during the campaign, in addition to weapons and modifications which have been acquired.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me:
  • Several enemies have energy shields of one variety or another. The Possessed Security from 2016 make a return as the Shield Zombie Soldiers; the Carcass is a mid-ranged support demon who can place large energy shields around the battlefield to block both the Slayer and his weapons, and the Doom Hunter is protected by a forcefield covering his organic bits. The Doomguy can get in on the fun with a mod for the Chaingun, deploying a mobile energy shield to protect him while he lays down suppressing fire. All of these shields are susceptible to being overcharged by plasma-based weaponry; being near one when it goes critical is not advisable.
  • Exaggerated with the Marauder. It doesn't matter if it's a blast from a shotgun, the Ballista, or even the BFG, if the Marauder isn't too busy attacking to raise his shield, it's going to be a No-Sell.
  • The Ancient Gods: Part 1 introduces the Blood Maykr, equipped with full-bodied energy shielding which renders it immune to nearly all forms of damage. Said shield is only dropped when the Blood Maykr prepares an attack, or if struck by a BFG tendril.
  • The Ancient Gods: Part 2 features Riot Troopers, a variant of Shield Zombie Soldiers with indestructible shields; as a trade-off, they turn much slower than their normal counterparts and are weak to explosives, allowing the Slayer to demolish them from the flank. Davoth himself employs a Marauder-like shield during the final showdown, which he can also use for some powerful attacks.
• Ludicrous Gibs:
  • As is tradition for the series, enemies explode spectacularly when dealt enough damage. For instance, stabbing a Pain Elemental through the eye will cause its entire body to explode into a dozen bloody pieces.
  • The Plasma Rifle now has the Microwave Beam mod. When fired at a demon, the creature visibly swells and trembles as it is being literally cooked alive, until its body can no longer take it and then, "Pop!" Goes the Demon. Those that are blown up this way will deal Splash Damage to their fellows around them. Bigger demons take more time and ammo for the beam to kill but also result in a bigger, more damaging explosion as well, making the mod a potent finishing attack.

M-Z

• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • Along with the Revenant, one of the Doom Hunter's attacks has it fire a barrage of missiles from its mechanical sled. Destroying it disables both the attack and its energy shield.
  • The Micro Missiles mod returns as well, giving the Slayer the ability to enact this, especially with the Bottomless Missiles weapon mastery.
  • When Mastered, the Rocket Launcher's Lock-on Burst mod can fire a volley of three rockets at two demons at a time.
• Magikarp Power: The Destroyer Blade mod for the Ballista is all but useless when it's first introduced, with an awfully long charge-up time that could easily get you killed in the chaotic nature of Eternal. Upgrade it enough to unlock the Mastery, however, and it becomes the Siege Mode mod from 2016, but better; with high enough damage to shred through almost anything short of a Tyrant and a MASSIVE area-of-effect at maximum charge, you can slash apart entire crowds of foes in a single moment.
• Magnetic Weapons: The Chaingun's codex entry states that the AE cartridges fired by the weapon use "a special electromagnetic casing designed specifically for the M220's rail system". You read that correctly: the Chaingun is, in actuality, a chain-railgun.
• The Mall: The first part of the Super Gore Nest level has the Doom Slayer fight through a shopping mall mostly infested by, appropriately enough, Zombies.
• Marathon Level: As with Doom (2016), playing on Ultra-Nightmare turns the entire game into a singular Marathon Level due to Checkpoint Starvation. It's downplayed, however, since you do get to return to the Fortress of Doom after certain levels. Chained levels like Nekravol (part 1) to Final Sin and both parts of "The Ancient Gods" provide more literal examples of this.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": All humans in the command centre go quiet the moment they see the Doomguy and try not to get noticed or piss him off, including the armed guards.
  • Everyone (except the Intern) immediately decides to evacuate when The Doom Slayer brings back the Dark Lord's life sphere instead of the Father's.
• Meat Moss: The Super Gore Nest level features a once-shiny metropolis overgrown by lots and lots of fleshy demonic biomass, some parts of which have grown horns and teeth.
• Megaton Punch: The Doom Slayer uses a rather "hands-on" strategy for dealing with cracked walls, or large blocks that need to be pushed. He also gets the Blood Punch ability, which can be charged up by performing glory kills for a devastating melee attack that gibs anything weaker than a Hell Knight.
• Mêlée à Trois: As with the last game, demons that used to be humans, like the Zombie Soldier, and demons from Hell proper, like the Imp, will occasionally pick fights with each other. At least, until they notice you.
• Mercy Mode: Dying repeatedly on a single combat encounter will prompt the game to add to the option of "Sentinel Armor", which drastically cuts incoming damage until the next checkpoint. Much like cheats, it doesn't prevent progression at all, but can never activate on or be carried into Slayer Gates. It also doesn't activate in the True Final Boss fight against the Dark Lord either.
• Metaphorically True: After the Super Gore Nest level, UAC spies embedded within the UAC cultist organisation report to ARC News that Ranak was "removed from his office" by the Slayer. This is accurate, so far as it goes; he was removed from his office - or at least, his head was. The rest of him stayed there.
• Mission Control: Following the Slayer creating a backup of his program in the previous game, VEGA continues to perform this role, creating portals where needed, advising the Slayer on useful strategies and handling the development of weapon modules for his Praetor Suit. Midway through the game, Samuel Hayden returns to this role after the Slayer recovers what's left of him and plugs him into the central core within The Fortress of Doom. After Hayden returns to his Maykr body, his mission control duties are transferred to an ARC intern, while VEGA, now as the Father, joins him after another trip to Urdak.
• Model Museum: The Collectible Viewer, a mechanic that functions similarly to the instance in its predecessor; you collect figurines as part of secrets and can freely view them and their animations, encompassing various characters and demons alike.
• Modern Stasis: Downplayed. Much of the civilian infrastructure (cars, buildings and so on) seen throughout the game would not look out of place in the present day. However, some of their designs are a bit sleeker and evidence of advanced technologies such as mechas and interstellar travel is present throughout the game even outside ARC and UAC bases.
• Money for Nothing: A player studious about gathering collectibles and completing optional challenges will discover that there are more Weapon Upgrade Points, Praetor Suit Tokens and Sentinel Batteries in the game than there are unlockables to buy with them.
  • However, this becomes very useful in Ultra Nightmare Mode, where the player has one life and one shot at each level. The surplus points, tokens and batteries can be lifesavers if you weren't able to collect everything on a previous map, or were unable to complete a challenge because the finite number of enemies necessary to do so were not cooperative with your objective.
• Money Spider: All enemies drop pickups, the type and volume are dependent on how you kill them and certain other factors. Enemies will drop small amounts of health when killed, with a bonus if done with a Glory Kill. Enemies killed by the chainsaw drop ammo, which you'll do every so often to replenish your limited ammo supplies. Enemies currently on fire drop armor pickups.
• Monstrous Scenery: In the first level of the game, Hell on Earth, an enormous demon called a Titan can be seen in the background after terminating the first hell priest, but can't be interacted with in any way by the player.
• Mooks: Fodder-class enemies are basically this. Zombie-type enemies are of special note since they don't even need to be killed to finish a combat encounter. Even the codex doesn't bother with any actual tactical information, just pointing out they're ideal for farming resources.
• More Dakka: Along with the returning Chaingun and its mods (and helped by the Chaingun no longer needing to spin up first so you're firing at the max output as soon as you pull the trigger), the Combat Shotgun has a Full-Auto modification that transforms it into an automatic, multi-barrelled shotgun.
• Mouth of Sauron: The UAC Spokesperson holograms return, this time in the form of a woman proclaiming the wonderful nature of Hell on Earth and urging people to submit to the invasion, in between mocking their hope that the Doom Slayer will save them. Where the last game’s spokesman spouted cultist-flavoured corporate propaganda to UAC employees, this one directly represents the UAC to the much saner human population.
• Mucking in the Mud: Various levels feature purple sludge that slows the Slayer down considerably and renders him unable to jump, which is bad enough by itself even without Hell Knights bearing down on you.
• Multiple Reference Pun: The opening religious transmission by the street prophet can be interpreted as telling everyone to pray to maybe God, maybe Satan, or maybe just the terror of all of Hell, the Doom Slayer himself.
  Prophet: We must pray now. Pray that he is watching. For it is he that they fear. Not man. Or his armies. They fear the mark of the beast.
• Musical Nod:
  • When the Khan Maykr depowers the Fortress on your return trip from Sentinel Prime, the battle theme for the ensuing fight against every demon on the ship is "BFG Division", the most recognizable battle theme from the previous game, which is also used during the Demon Prison segments.
  • Similarly, the music that plays as you search for Samuel Hayden at the ARC Base includes snippets of his theme from 2016.
  • The first track of classic Doom, "At Doom's Gate", closes out the final boss (serving the opposite purpose of its 2016 appearance), while the last track of classic Doom, "Opening to Hell", plays on the main menu.
  • The forlorn guitar in "Betrayer" is a riff on "The End of DOOM", the intermission text screen music.
  • At the ARC Complex, both the swelling intro chords of "The Imp's Song" and the high-pitched whistling of "Dark Halls" are mixed into the song.
  • When the Slayer returns to Sentinel Prime, the background music is an orchestral rendition of "Sign of Evil".
  • The much-hyped "metal choir" cover at least two classic tracks:
    • "Countdown to Death" -> "Call of Hell".
    • "Sinister" -> "Cultist Base".
  • The intro to "The Only Thing They Fear is You" is a heavily-distorted, sped-up version of "Into Sandy's City".
• Necktie Leash: The now-famous scene of the Slayer unlocking a gate in Phobos with a key card, without even bothering to take it off the neck of the poor guy who had it.
• Nerf: Several elements of the Doom Slayer's arsenal are less effective this time around. On the other hand, some of the enemies have also suffered a visit from the nerf bat.
  • Basic melee attacks are almost completely ineffectual. You're likely to lose a boxing match with a zombie on anything above the easiest skill. Offset by the Blood Punch mechanic, which instead makes melee attacks a crowd-clearing tool.
  • The Chainsaw can never have more than three units of fuel, and Super-Heavy demons are completely immune to it. While it's more vital than ever to keep your guns loaded, it's completely lost its secondary purpose as a single-enemy-deleting panic button. That function instead lies with The Crucible.
  • Ammunition is much more stingy with four weapons in particular: the Combat Shotgun, the Super Shotgun, the Rocket Launcher and the BFG-9000. Shell ammo has been nerfed to the point where you can only hold 16 max at the start, and upgrades only improve them by a whopping two shells per upgrade, up a max of 24 (for comparison, your base in 2016 was 20, and max was 60.) The Rocket Launcher had a massive hit to its ammo capacity as well, resulting in a max of 13 instead of 35. The BFG, meanwhile, can only hold two shots instead of three, and there's no rune to spawn Argent ammo randomly anymore, making it even more situational than before.
  • As far as enemies go, the Imp, Possessed Soldier and Possessed Security were constantly present and VERY dangerous in 2016, the last of those three being hated by many due to their frustrating ability to block your attacks. In Eternal, the Imp's fireballs don't do nearly as much damage, the Blaster Zombie Soldier's charged attack is far smaller, slower, less damaging and doesn't explode anymore, while the Shield Zombie Soldier's shield is far less durable and can be overcharged with the Plasma Rifle for a massive explosion; their attack can still quickly shred you to bits at close range, but does no damage at all if you're more than a foot or so away from them. This is somewhat offset by the fact that the most frustrating elements of the Possessed Soldier and Security were given to new, more dangerous enemies; the Arachnotron has gained the Soldier's charged shot with its quad-bomb volley, and the Marauder takes the Security's shield and makes it impervious to damage.
  • Hell Knights were brutally-dangerous, close-range bruisers who forced you to stay on your toes in 2016. However, they have received no new moves or mechanics to help them keep up with the Slayer's mobility in Eternal - they are noticeably faster with their attacks and use their ground slam attack more often, but neither of these adjustments allows them to overcome the Dash ability. This is also slightly offset by the inclusion of the Dread Knight, whose arm-blades give it a greater attack reach, area-denial properties to its ground slams and an additional projectile attack for long-range combat.
  • The Super Shotgun, fully upgraded, could be fired twice per 'magazine' in 2016, with each shot having as much damage as giving them both barrels did before. This has been removed in Eternal, although the Shotgun instead gains the incredibly useful and fun Meathook.
  • The Ballista, Eternal's equivalent to 2016's Gauss Cannon, zig-zags this trope. It's still the undisputed ruler of single-shot DPS, and its two mods fulfil the same purposes as the Gauss Cannon's did; however, they've both been tweaked to demand greater skill from the Slayer. Both mods now fire projectiles instead of hitscan bolts. The Arbalest can be fired more quickly and deals additional damage to airborne enemies, but takes longer to charge up. The Destroyer Blade is a straight nerf - until you master it, at which point it becomes superior to Siege Mode when used properly.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The Gameplay Trailer showcasing the Phobos moonbase ends with the Archvile making a grand appearance from the entrance of the BFG 10K, followed up by DOOM Slayer rushing at him with the Crucible Sword. In the game, the Archvile and Crucible don't make an appearance until much later in the game, and new demon intros are absent for all varieties excluding bosses.
• New Weapon Target Range:
  • Right after obtaining the Blood Punch, a lift takes you down and opens up to a trio of demons at an uncomfortably close distance - perfect for the Blood Punch to demonstrate its power.
  • After obtaining the Chaingun, the floor gives way and puts you right into a small circular arena with a single Dread Knight. More Dakka is touted as the bane of Hell Knights, Dread Knights and Barons of Hell in their individual codex entries, and the Chaingun does not disappoint - it does not take long before the Dread Knight is staggered into a Glory-Kill state.
  • Just like last game, after obtaining the BFG-9000 you pass through a few doors and come face to face with a horde of demons. Once again, a single shot reduces them all to gore.
  • Invoked with the Crucible. Once the Doom Slayer restores its blade, he jumps directly down to the area below the forge to test it out on the demons. This is Lampshaded by Samuel Hayden.
    Samuel Hayden: I'm sure you want to try out your weapon first before you leave.
• Nemean Skinning: Done hilariously with the Unicornguy skin series obtained via Twitch Prime; they feature the top half of a unicorn's head stretched over the Doomguy's helmet, not unlike the infamous horse mask.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Slayer destroys the heart of the Icon of Sin, which doesn't weaken it in the slightest but causes it to go on a rampage to destroy everything, while also breaking the pact between Hell and Urdak. Both Samuel and the Khan Maykr call the Slayer out for this. Of course, Samuel notes that while the Slayer acted rashly, it's ultimately the Khan Maykr's fault for bringing the thing to Urdak, not to mention everything else she's been doing for millennia. The Khan Maykr does not makes this connection, and her last words are blaming the Slayer for ruining paradise.
• No Fair Cheating:
  • Averted for the most part. Cheats, when activated, do not disable achievements or trophies, and in fact, are encouraged to be abused to a degree by the loading screen tips. The only caveats are that they can only be used when replaying a level, so one can't just toggle them on and cheese through harder difficulties like Ultra-Nightmare, and they disable Slayer Gates when toggled, so if the player hasn't unlocked the Unmaykr already they won't be able to use cheats to get it.
  • Numerous invisible walls to discourage those who can jump large enough to bypass the intended path.
• Nonlethal Bottomless Pits: Falling down a pit teleports the Doom Slayer back to solid ground, after taking away some of his health.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: As in the last game. In a rare instance of the hero qualifying as this, the Doomguy wastes absolutely no time in dealing with his enemies. The moment he's able to kill Nilox, Ranak and Grav, he does so without any form of a preamble.
• No Sense of Personal Space: In the command centre on Phobos, the Doom Slayer takes a still-living human by the keycard around his neck and drags him over to the door lock that's stopping the marine from getting to ripping and tearing more demons. He then walks right up to a nearby guard and takes the Plasma Rifle out of their hands.
• Notice This: Everything the player needs to interact with will be glowing green, as are objects that mark where they should go next. Upgrade points like Sentinel Crystals and Praetor Tokens glow blue instead, and so on.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • According to the codex entries, the Maykrs gave the Sentinels the "Divinity Machine" so that they could find and kill someone foretold to destroy the Maykrs. Samur used it to empower the Doom Slayer in order to fight against the demons (and, by extension, the Maykrs), eventually resulting in the destruction of the Maykrs. Of course, as with everything else, there's quite a lot of ambiguity going on. Subverted by "The Ancient Gods: Part 2", where it's revealed that the Divinity Machine was originally intended to empower someone by turning them into a host for a piece of the Dark Lord's soul, meaning that Samur was using it for its intended purpose after everyone else was using it wrong.
  • In gameplay, the Microwave Beam's meter indicates how far the enemy is from dying and exploding. However, this is also the only way to get an HP readout of enemies outside of any boss health bars, giving the mod usage outside of its actual attack.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Averted, unlike the previous title. All of the basic undead humans in Eternal are explicitly referred to as "Zombies", in lieu of titles like "Possessed" or "Unwilling".
  • Lampshaded in reference to the Demons, as the official title is "mortally challenged", with the UAC Spokesperson even stating that "demon" is an offensive term. It's interesting that even the ARC refers to the demonic horde as "mortally challenged".
• Number of the Beast:
  • "It's a Magic Number" is an achievement you get after you kill 666 demons.
  • In an apartment the temperature of the room is set at 66.6 degrees.
  • The UAC Spokeswoman at one point states "in case of an emergency, dial 6 three times on your phone."
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Samuel Hayden, Crucible in hand, leading Earth's resistance forces in the fight against Hell. It's all laid out in a couple of Codex entries.
• Oh, Crap!: The Doom Slayer is good at eliciting this from enemies and normals alike.
  • The Hell Priests repeatedly suffer this when the Slayer manages to pull out a means to kill them permanently, tear his way through their forces, and as the end of the first level demonstrates, toss the severed head of the first to fall before them, causing the remaining two to immediately double-take and realize he's damn serious on killing them.
• Ominous Floating Castle: The Fortress of Doom, a giant space castle floating in orbit around the Earth that adds to the Doom Slayer's The Dreaded vibes. Codex entries indicate this was the standard for Argenta spaceships.
• Once-Green Mars: Mars was once an Argenta colony world on the edge of their empire, home to the port city of Hebeth. An unspecified disaster rendered the planet uninhabitable and triggered seismic upheavals so fierce that Hebeth sank deep into the crust.
• One-Hit Kill: Not only can the Chainsaw kill a demon with a single attack like last time, but the Crucible also turns out to be able to do the same thing, only with a lot more style and against a wider variety of enemies.
• Only a Flesh Wound: The demonic legion in this game is tough. Although you can slowly blast off most of their flesh and skin, it will do little to slow them down without killing them outright. Special mention goes to the Baron of Hell, whose final moments typically have him being almost completely skeletal.
• Our Angels Are Different: The angels in Doom Eternal, known as the Maykrs of the realm of Urdak, have a cybernetic appearance rather than looking like humans with wings. If the Khan Maykr is any indication, they're really no different than demons underneath their angelic visages. They may invoke Light Is Not Good and Starfish Aliens when you see the Khan Maykr’s face, but as far as we’ve seen, they’re the closest thing the Doom universe has to actual angels, even downright to living in a Heaven-like world and having been created by a god-like figure known as "the Father". They even get directly referred to as “angels” and “angelic” multiple times in the story. The Maykrs are actually the first Demons created by the Father, completely subverting this trope.
• Le Parkour: The Doom Slayer's mobility has definitely been improved upon as now he can swing across poles, make quick dashes, climb certain walls and use the grapple hook on his Super Shotgun.
• Path of Inspiration: The myth of Heaven and Hell was spread throughout all universes by Urdak. While it is true that the valorous go to Urdak on death and sinners go to Hell, morality plays little part in it, and it's all about who the Khan Maykr considers worthy. Not to mention this system only exists because Urdak made a deal with Hell for power.
• Photo Mode: An upgrade from Doom (2016), now with a stylized menu, Slayer visibility, posing and offset.
• Piñata Enemy: The game turns all enemies into potential supply drops when some conditions are met. A glory kills earns health, damaging an enemy set on fire earns armour, and using the chainsaw on them earns ammo. This is done to alleviate the increased difficulty of the game and the natural ammo and armour supplies scattered in the map less frequent.
  • The Maykr Drones stand out in this regard as killing them with a headshot from any weapon causes them to explode into loot.
  • The Slayer will occasionally encounter "empowered" demons (scripted demons that originally killed another player). These particular demons have a HUD indicator, buffed stats, and drop a load of loot on death.
• Planetary Core Manipulation: The Doomslayer must access a portal in the ancient city of Hebeth, located in the core of Mars. To reach it, the slayer fires the BFG 10,000 into Mars, blowing off a gigantic chunk of the planet, exposing the planet's core, and dropping inside through an Escape Pod.
• Planet Looters: The Maykrs, though it's more like "dimension looters."
• Player Data Sharing: When a player is killed by a demon, the servers record it and can spawn it as an Empowered Demon for other players. The demon's stats are boosted and it is guaranteed to spawn ammo and extra health when killed.
• Player Headquarters: New to Eternal is the Fortress of Doom, a space station orbiting Earth that serves as a Hub Level and the Slayer's headquarters between missions. The player can collect Sentinel Batteries in stages to unlock more areas and items within the Fortress, such as new weapons, costumes, and a Ripatorium to practice your moves in without the risk of dying or losing inventory.
• Pocket Rocket Launcher: The Micro-Missile weapon mod from 2016 returns, this time mounted on the Heavy Cannon and featuring an additional pod, doubling its missile output per volley from 6 to 12.
• Political Overcorrectness: Played for laughs with the UAC recording that reminds everybody to refer to demons as "mortally challenged" because the word "demon" might be considered offensive.
  • Even the ARC, who are fighting a desperate last stand against the demons frequently use the "mortally challenged" terminology.
• Point of No Return:
  • A polite example of this: The mission to Nekravol leading to Urdak, the home dimension of the Maykrs. Hayden outright asks the Doom Slayer if he has any unfinished business left, warning him that he cannot return until their mission is complete.
  • Averted with the Mission Select feature: players can still return to previous missions, then use the Return to Campaign function to resume their progress even when they're already in Nekravol and beyond. The only place they cannot return to is the Fortress of Doom.
• Post-Victory Collapse: In the finale of the The Ancient Gods, the Slayer collapses and passes out after defeating Davoth.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Argent Energy is created through a process using Hell Essence, the tortured souls of humans condemned to Hell. The Loyalist Night Sentinels were horrified when they learned the Argent Energy fueling their war was derived from their own fallen comrades.
• Powerful and Helpless: The Doom Slayer, despite becoming a demon-slaying force of nature, couldn't prevent the fall of the Night Sentinels and Argent D'Nur due to treachery from their leadership and from within their ranks.
  Samuel Hayden: "All your strength, all that rage, and you couldn't save this world from itself. But this time, Earth will be different...."
• Precursor Killers:
  • The Argenta used to have an inter-dimensional empire, and they were aided/manipulated by the Maykrs, who were their own Precursors. Then Hell happened, they lost the Wraiths, and now they are but a few scattered enclaves that can't stand up to Hell's onslaught anymore, with the Deagic Council having sold out to the demons.
  • Considering what the Doom Slayer did (and continues to do in this game), he is more or less a one-man precursor killer.
• Prolonged Video Game Sequel: The game has the same number of levels as its predecessor but ups the ante by having said levels be significantly bigger and having additional side challenges to complete. This is on top of having a hub in between levels. With the two-part Ancient Gods DLC included (which Doom 2016 only had for its multiplayer), the game is 6 levels longer.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Argenta, with an intensely strict and unyielding warrior code that emphasized Asskicking Leads to Leadership. As expected, this made them highly effective at resisting the corrupting powers of Hell and also made them incredibly disciplined and effective warriors. It also made them completely inflexible and their laws and oaths cannot be broken, even when they are being perverted by those who have fallen to Hellish corruption.
• Punch Catch: One of the possible Glory Kill animations for the tough-as-nails Marauder, and a rare subversion that doesn't help the catcher. The Marauder catches the Slayer’s fist as he goes in for the finishing hit, but the Slayer simply extends the Doom Blade right into the Marauder's head.
• Puny Humans: The Khan Maykr questions if a mere human thinks they stand a chance against their millennia-long empire.
  The Khan Maykr: For millennia we have survived, made others sacrifice in the name of our prosperity - so that they may, in turn, find redemption. Who are you, a human, once a mortal, to defy our traditions!?
• Puzzle Boss: Underplayed, but all bosses have a small puzzle element to them.
  • Doom Hunter, both as a boss and as a Degraded Boss later on, has a shield that has to be blown up with the Plasma Rifle, and a rocket sled that has to be destroyed to initiate the second phase of the fight.
  • Both the Marauder and the Gladiator in its first phase can only be damaged immediately after their eyes flash green, which also indicates that they're about to unleash a powerful attack.
  • Khan Maykr has shields that have to be destroyed, and once they're down, can only be reached by the meathook and damaged with a Blood Punch, which takes away an entire health bar, but also recovers the shields.
  • The Icon of Sin has eight distinct body parts, each of which has to be destroyed to bring down its (cumulative) health bar; hitting an already-destroyed part will deal no damage.
• Quad Damage: Makes a return in Eternal, now renamed Onslaught. Other than the name change, it's functionally identical to Quad Damage. With one of the collectible "Cheat Codes", you can activate the power-up for an entire mission.
• The Quisling: Members of the UAC upper brass have once again turned to demon worship, with UAC holograms delivering messages to the populace to help the new visitors accommodate themselves to their new home and not to refer to them as "demons", but rather as "mortally challenged", and "Corporate" telling the facility on Phobos to just let the invading demons in. According to the lore, the Hell Priests had a hand in not only this corruption but influenced the rise of Olivia Pierce, the Big Bad of the previous game, as a demon cult fanatic.
• Ragnarök Proofing: Many pieces of Argenta technology remain functional despite having been abandoned for millions of years. Most notable is the slipgate in the city of Hebeth, which is still functional millions of years after a planetwide seismic event buried the city deep in Mars' crust.
• Rare Candy: Weapon Mastery tokens. There's a finite amount of these things in the game world and they are hard to come across, but they can be spent to instantly buy your way out of a difficult mastery challenge, allowing you to immediately unleash a weapon mod's full potential without having to spend time grinding for it.
• Rated M for Manly: So much so that the game is practically oozing testosterone.
  • The Doom Slayer is a hulking Barbarian Hero with biceps too big for his armour to contain, a Cool Sword, and a SERIOUS vendetta against his foes. He's on a quest to slay hordes of vicious monsters who are in the process of destroying the entire planet. His backstory is up to scratch, too; after his first three one-man rampages, he rose from a nameless peon in the arenas of Argent D'Nur to become their king through nothing more than guts, rage and prowess.
  • Further compounded on in the "Story of the Sentinels" codex entries, Argent D'Nur is a World of Badass inhabited by a Proud Warrior Race par excellence, who are best described as Space Vikings with sci-fi Templar aesthetics. The story of how life began on their homeworld involved a giant spear flying out from space and impaling the planet, and things only got more metal from there.
• Reclaimed by Nature: The aptly named "Reclaimed Earth" level in The Ancient Gods: Part 2 is set in a UAC facility after Hell's failed invasion of Earth, which the Doom Slayer arrives at to activate the Gate of Divum so that he can go to Immora and face the Dark Lord. Notably, an observant player can notice that much of the vegetation looks very similar to the demonic Meat Moss that covered cities during the invasion, up to and including tentacle-like tree branches wrapped around buildings. Either it is an egregious case of Palette Swap or an implication that all the demonic material transformed into vegetation when the invasion was halted.
• Recoil Boost: Ballista's recoil can be used to propel the player.
• Regional Redecoration: To get to his next objective near the core of Mars, the Slayer uses the BFG 10000 to blow a massive crater in the surface of Mars.
• Reimagining the Artifact: Not one that's specific to Doom (or was ever in Doom until now), but one that's present in other games: Eternal's 1-up system makes an appearance here as a means of continuing immediately from death upon the moment the Doom Slayer's health is depleted, complete with Mercy Invincibility, given the game's increased difficulty relative to its predecessor. It makes a huge distinction from the "restart from checkpoint" method other games with limited lives use. Suffice it to say, Meaningless Lives is absolutely defied here.
• The Remake: Much like 2016 was for the original Doom, Eternal takes the basic premise of Doom II: Hell on Earth and recreates it with modern graphics, gameplay elements, and so forth. Played with, in that we get confirmation that both this game and its predecessor are canon sequels to the classic series (possibly excepting Doom 3, which might or might not be an Alternate Universe connected to the main canon).
• The Reveal: Several twists are introduced in this game, changing the lore at large:
  • The truth behind Argent Energy is that it is an unholy combination between Sentinel and Hell energy, the latter being remnants of tormented human souls, and it is being mass-produced in a Nekravol factory. Demons of the new age are birthed through the souls' bodies. The reason why it was made was because the Khan Maykr had betrayed Argent D'Nur and left it to die, while she struck a Deal with the Devil - her people would be supplied with Argent Energy, in exchange for granting the Dark Lord's legions more worlds to devour - such as Mars and Earth. Samuel Hayden, who was seemingly a big proponent of Argent Energy in Doom 2016, is appalled by this (though, given his true identity, he almost certainly already knew this).
  • The Doom Slayer is in fact the same Doomguy as the original 90s duology, 64 and perhaps 3, having been recovered by the Hell Priests after spending centuries fighting demons.
  • The Ancient Gods - Part One reveals that Samuel Hayden is the Seraphim that granted the Slayer the powers he has now, and that VEGA is The Father, ruler of the angelic realm Urdak.
  • The Ancient Gods - Part One also reveals the Dark Lord is an Evil Doppelgänger of the Doom Slayer from Hell rather than Earth. Furthermore, the Doom Slayer is his Alternate Self, born from Alternate Universe in The Multiverse as an echo of the Dark Lord long after his own birth.
  • The Ancient Gods - Part Two reveals in the lore and the final battle that the Father isn't actually the real Father: Davoth is. Having been betrayed by the Maykrs, his own creations, he was sealed away as a life sphere for eons and had his name and power stolen in the process.
  • Lastly, as it's made clear in the lore and after the final battle, Davoth was never just Doomguy's Alternate Self; rather, Davoth personally created the Doom Slayer to enact his vengeance against Maykrkind. Doomguy was naturally born with Davoth's likeness, and Davoth tricked Samur Maykr into empowering Doomguy with the Divinity Machine, which was powered by Davoth's essence.
• Re Vision: It's never stated who the Seraphim who helped the Doom Slayer escape Hell in the previous game was. Eternal reveals that "Seraphim" refers to a class of Maykrs, and that it was someone who is very likely Samuel Hayden's previous guise.
• Rewatch Bonus: Near the end of the first level, one who's already played through the game may notice that the statues at the entrance to the demonic citadel are not of demons but of Maykr Angels, foreshadowing Urdak's alliance with Hell.
• Rule of Symbolism: Notable during the fight with the Khan Maykr. On the surface, the Khan Maykr and her people are meant to represent Heaven, with their white-and-gold aesthetic, broad wings, and their history of being worshipped by the people of Argent D'Nur. Their "holy" appearance directly contrasts with the Obviously Evil and monstrous demons. However, it is revealed late in the story that the Maykrs are no better than demons, with the Khan Maykr herself setting up a deal with the forces of Hell to provide them with worlds to conquer, in exchange for a constant flow of Argent Energy to keep Urdak powered. During the fight with the Khan Maykr herself, the Doom Slayer gradually punches off more and more of her armor, revealing a decidedly less-than-angelic appearance underneath. When she is defeated, the Doom Slayer confronts her directly, and it is revealed that she (and presumably the rest of the Maykr species) looks disturbingly similar to demons, with an exposed brain, segmented lower jaws full of needle-sharp teeth, and tentacles instead of legs. In case you were curious...◊
• Sad Battle Music: Well, it's a very minor example, but it bears mentioning that a Doom game of all games has this. The battle theme of the Gladiator is an amped up, intense Boss Remix of Sentinel Prime's background music, which is a slow, haunting and depressing ambient remix of "Sign Of Evil", standing in stark contrast with the majority of the soundtrack.
• Sanity Slippage: In place of the Slayer Testaments are the logs of Dr. Elena Richardson, a scientist observing the Slayer. While the first of her entries has her try to observe him with some level of scientific objectivity while denouncing her colleagues for declaring him a god, in the second entry she sees him as an avenging angel of some sort. By the fourth entry, she is outright worshipping him.
• Sapient Ship: Samuel Hayden's cybernetic body is now a destroyed non-functional husk, though his consciousness is still there - once hooked up to the Fortress of Doom, he immediately integrates himself into the ship's systems.
• Scary Dogmatic Aliens: The Maykrs' entire civilization is based on the exploitation of other species, including a literal Deal with the Devil and harvesting the souls of those who never consented. In the boss fight with the Khan Maykr, she chides the Slayer on having the gall to challenge Maykr tradition. Said tradition would require consigning all of Earth's population to Hell, that their bodies may be converted into demons and their souls used to power Urdak.
• Scenery Gorn: The game offers many sceneries of Hell on Earth with ruined cities overtaken by demons under a stormy sky, tentacles coming out of the clouds to grab buildings while titanic demons walk the earth in the background, while the Super Gore Nest is a wrecked mall overgrown with flesh littered with the mangled corpses of human victims. Hell itself is still as bleak with some parts covered in tortured souls.
• Scenery Porn:
  • Doom Eternal also showcases some pretty breathtaking scenery of Sentinel cities, whether they are overgrown ruins or still occupied and well-maintained. The Sentinel levels' sci-fi/baroque architecture combined with a more serene atmosphere makes them quite beautiful when the Slayer isn't busy killing demons.
  • Urdak is an utterly alien and serene locale unlike anything else in the game, with its own distinct color scheme and haunting music. The first third or so of the level doesn't feature any enemies beyond the endless depth of space, allowing the player to take it all in as they traverse it.
  Dr. Hayden: Magnificent, isn't it?
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: A codex entry that can be collected in the Terrordome refers to the remains of behemoth-like creatures that were dated to 80 million years ago, and states that these creatures predate all complex life on Earth, despite the fact that the fossil record has indicated for decades that Earth has been home to complex lifeforms (such as dinosaurs) for over 300 million years.
• Self-Imposed Exile: The Betrayer of Argent D'Nur exiled himself to hell as punishment for helping the demons conquer his homeworld. When the Doom Slayer comes for him to repair his celestial locator to find the remaining hell priests Valen tells him that he told him and the other Night Sentinels to leave him here and that he is where he belongs.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: When the classic Doomguy had stranded himself in Hell at the end of 64 to keep Demons from invading Earth again, the story played it up as a Heroic Sacrifice. When he stumbles into the Night Sentinel's homeworld due to the dimensional logic of Hell, what's left is a man in broken armour, insane and driven to a homicidal madness that can barely form coherent sentences thanks to untold amounts of time in such a terrible place.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The game doesn't even bother to give you a pistol, as the preceding titles did; it cuts right to the chase and gives you the Combat Shotgun as your starting weapon. Continuing the series' proud tradition, it will be the workhorse of your arsenal. Even late-game, it remains versatile and effective, be it taking out enemy weak points, cleaning up Fodder or finishing off Heavies and Super Heavies. The Super Shotgun, meanwhile, combines an excellent mobility tool with hideous stopping power, and, when mastered, its meathook will briefly set enemies ablaze, making every victim of it an armor pinata waiting to be blasted open making it a critical part of both movement and damage combos.
• Showy Invincible Hero: Played with, the lore and story of Eternal heavily imply that Doomguy is, canonically, on a playthrough with all the Runes and Cheats on, as they are extremely fast, superhumanly durable to the point of surviving several pieces of Hell dropped on them, is heavily implied to be immortal, have destroyed entire armies with their bare hands, et cetera. In normal gameplay, however, Doomguy is vulnerable.
• Secret A.I. Moves: The playable demons tend to have different kits than they do as computer-controlled enemies.
  • Player-controlled Archviles cannot attack with flame waves. Instead, they gain the ability to launch fireballs, erect flame walls, and set small patches of ground ablaze in order to hamstring the Slayer. They also don't function as mobile Buff Totems (although there is a "Buff Minions" powerup that any player demon can use in a match) and their teleportation is limited by their crosshair length whereas AI-controlled Archviles can zoom anywhere on the map regardless of range and obstructions.
  • Player-controlled Mancubi cannot use the computer's Ground Pound move to push the Slayer away from them. On the opposite end, they get access to Smoke Bombs while AI-controlled Mancubi do not.
  • The Marauder loses his shield, his movement speed is a bit slower and the only thing he does with his axe is throwing it; he has no melee options whatsoever.
  • Averted with the Pain Elemental and Revenant; player-controlled ones have the same moves as the AI-controlled ones.
• Sequel Escalation: The game features twice the number of enemy types, even faster movement, more abilities, more glory kills, and more worlds to rampage through (including Hell on Earth and Phobos from Doom II and the original Doom). As if waging a one-man war against all of Hell wasn't enough, there is a new angel faction of who are shown to be antagonistic to Doomguy as well.
• Sequel Hook: While the overarching plot concerning Argent Energy and the Maykrs has been rather finally dealt with at the end of the main campaign, several important mysteries are left for the DLC to answer, primarily the ones revolving around where Vega came from, the whereabouts of the Father, how to finally stop the demons, and what Hayden's connection to the Maykrs is. Although still leaving plenty of loose ends for a third game, The Ancient Gods more or less answers all of the above-mentioned mysteries.
• Silliness Switch: Some of the unlockable skins make the Doom Slayer look absolutely ridiculous, while not affecting how story cutscenes play out. For example, linking your Twitch Prime account will grant you outfits such as the DOOMicorn, which has the Slayer dress up as a white-and-pink pony, and the Mullet Slayer, who has a beer gut and an "EXTRA THICC" t-shirt. There's also the Cosplay Slayer skin, a crappy cardboard costume including a badly duct-tape Doom Blade that he has to pull out by hand, and the Patriot Slayer, who's basically a walking 4th of July parade.
• Sinister Subway: During the "Hell on Earth" mission, one brief section involves entering and crossing a subway station. It is naturally full of Demons, but fireball-spewing turrets have also been installed.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Exaggerated - the upper arm portions of the Doom Slayer's full-body protective armour have been removed in this game, in part to illustrate visually that he's more of The Berserker than ever. The sort of biceps one develops from a steady regime of tearing demons apart barehanded is in clear view. Drawing attention to this, the Milestone for unlocking the 2016 game's Praetor suit is called "Concealed Guns".
• Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Some platforming sections in levels like Cultist Base have crushers, blocks of spikes that frequently smash together, acting as an obstacle.
• Socialization Bonus: You can add up to three other players as Boosters if they are on your friends list or if you encounter them in Battlemode. If you pick three very active players, it’s possible to get around 30,000 to 50,000 XP a day and get most of the series rewards without even playing the game. A common tactic is to add people who advertise on the game’s Official Club forums since they’re usually some of the most active players.
• Something Only They Would Say: Played with. It's not quite something only one person would say so much as information only one kind of person would have: Samuel Hayden has an extremely in-depth amount of information regarding the workings of the Maykrs, including their Dark Secret in the form of Nekravol and the true nature of Argent energy, including information he himself admits only is known to other Maykrs, making him extremely likely to be Samur Maykr, the same figure that empowered the Doom Slayer in the first place.
  • That said, Samur Maykr also uses Hayden's "It's a gift, take it" line from Doom (2016) when giving the Slayer a powerup (in this case, putting him in the Divinity Machine to give him his powers in the first place).
• Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography: Averted throughout the game and the Ancient Gods expansions. In only the very first two levels, you go from an infernal, demon-infested Earth, to the beautiful ancient kingdom of Exultia—and then right into Hell itself. This continues throughout the game, as almost every level's appearance differs chaotically in tone.
• Soul-Powered Engine: Played straight, as expected of any game with Hell and souls involved. The miraculous Argent energy is finally revealed to be the refined product of all living souls transported to Hell, tortured beyond their breaking point, drained, mixed with Wraith energy from Argenta and siphoned to Urdak as an energy source in a mirror image of Humanity's own dependence on it. This essentially means the trope applies to all of Human civilization since they also run everything on Argent energy.
  • Another revelation: Hell uses mostly unrefined energy and is comparable to only a tiny fraction of what is sent to Urdak, meaning the Hell Energy siphoned and filtered into Argent Energy by the UAC is barely a speck of what the Maykrs use to maintain their dying race/world.
• The Soulless: With the reveal that Demons are former people slain by other Demons, before having their soul broken and extracted and their bodies warped by Hell for years, this means that, while Demons are powered by Souls, the Demons themselves lack souls of their own.
• Speed Run Reward: Beating the first mission of the game, Hell on Earth, in less than 11 minutes gives the player the A Bat Out of Hell milestone.
• Spikes of Doom: Spikes are present in some levels. They're most commonly encountered in platforming sections.
• Spikes of Villainy: The demonic imp enemies now have spikes growing out of their bodies, much like their original counterparts from Doom and Doom II. Downplayed with the Doom Slayer, whose custom Praetor Suit is now covered in half-spike studs to illustrate his monstrous nature.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: In many combat arenas (and sometimes even outside that) there are jump pads that launch the player into the air.
• Squee: Downplayed, but just before the first Marauder fight you meet a bunch of UAC employees who stammer about how amazing you are and what an honor it is to meet you.
• Starter Gear Staying Power: The first weapon the Doom Slayer sets out with on his demon-slaughtering campaign is the humble Combat Shotgun, which deals decent damage to most Fodder demons at close range. It becomes an incredibly versatile and important utility weapon early on, through the acquisition of its two weapon mods; Stickybomb Launcher, which can instantly dispatch fodder hordes and demon weak points, and Full Auto, which can rapidly whittle down Heavy demons from increased range. By upgrading and mastering these mods, the Combat Shotgun remains a key tool within the Slayer's arsenal by the end of the game and beyond.
• Stealth Sequel: As 2016 implied, Eternal explicitly confirms the new series as canonical Sequels to the original games, with Flashbacks in the later half revealing the Slayer to be the Doom Marine from the original games.
• Sticky Bomb: The Sticky Bomb mod for the Combat Shotgun fires adhesive grenades at enemies with respectable damage. It also works just as well as a normal grenade against Cacodemons.
• The Stinger: A post-credit scene reveals that a Zombie left on the Fortress of Doom after the Khan Maykr attempted to use it to contain the Slayer is still alive, playing with several of the collectibles the player collected during the game. The scene ends as the Slayer walks up and cocks his Combat Shotgun, causing the Zombie to react in shock.
  • The Ancient Gods - Part Two has another post-credit scene of the Intern thanking you for playing the game.
• Stop Hitting Yourself: A few Glory Kills involve the Doom Slayer shoving a demon's hand, claw, blaster or fractured bone straight through their own skull.
• Storming the Castle: Nekravol. This represents the point where the Slayer stops merely cleaning up the Khan Maykr's schemes and comes gunning directly for her, trashing the Argent Factory completely. For bonus points, this is also a case of Climbing Climax and It's All Upstairs From Here.
• Stripped to the Bone: Multiple human and demon skeletons litter Earth's landscape, still perfectly intact despite everything else on them somehow having been stripped clean.
• Studio Audience: The QUAKECON cheat provides the player with one, in the form of the cheering and hooting you'd normally see at a convention. The crowd cheers over basically everything the Slayer does, and Glory Kills are met with thunderous applause.
• Subsystem Damage: The "destructible demons" system isn't just cosmetic— in some cases, you can destroy a certain body part on an enemy to disable any attacks using that body part. For example, the Arachnotron's gun turret can be destroyed.
• Suddenly Speaking:
  • After spending the entire franchise as The Voiceless, the Doom Slayer himself can be heard speaking during a pair of Flashbacks.
  • At the end of The Ancient Gods Part 2, the Dark Lord asks if the Doom Slayer has anything they want to say to their creator before finishing him — the Doom Slayer stabs him in the chest where his life orb resides and simply growls "No."
• Superboss: The final Slayer Gate in The Holt has the absolute strongest enemy in the game, a Spirit-possessed Marauder. Have fun.
• Superhero Packing Heat: The Doom Slayer in addition to his guns has super strength, invulnerability and super speed, travelling across space and time to give Hell... Hell.
• Super-Soldier: After years spent as a Badass Normal, Doom Eternal finally makes Doomguy one, as revealed in flashbacks that show Samur Maykr imparting the power of the Maykrs upon him via the Divinity Machine and transforming him into the agile, brutal Doom Slayer. In other words, he is (almost) like a demonic Captain America.
• Swamps Are Evil: The The Ancient Gods - Part One introduces the Blood Swamps, an area of Hell that the Doom Slayer must traverse to complete several trials and reach the Father's life sphere. It is particularly hostile even for Hell; the whole place is crawling with demons (including a giant version of the tentacles), the local flora releases deadly spores, and multiple areas a blanketed by mist. Some areas have mists so dense, it becomes difficult to see further than point-blank range, while others have noxious mists that would kill the Slayer in an instant if he stepped in it unprotected.
• Sword of Plot Advancement:
  • There's an entire objective in the Cultist Base dedicated to reclaiming the Slayer's Super Shotgun.
  • To get to Sentinel Prime, where the last Hell Priest was located, the Slayer travels to the UAC base on Phobos and forcefully takes control of the BFG 10,000 to shoot a hole in Mars in order to access the slipgate leading to Sentinel Prime. As soon as he has done this, he rips out the BFG 10,000's power source for his own use, revealing that it was powered entirely by the BFG 9000.
  • Near the end of the game, the Slayer has to retrieve his own Crucible and reforge its blade, as it is the only thing truly capable of killing the Icon of Sin.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Eternal is almost as much of a puzzle game as it is an FPS; in order to get anywhere, you need to learn how to use the varying tools in the Slayer's arsenal to deal with different threats. Every weapon has a specific use, to the point that all of them remain relevant straight through to the end of the game. This plays into the Achilles' Heel aspect of enemy design, as specific weaponry is often key to exploiting a demon's weakness - for instance, the Precision Bolt can shut down Revenants, Mancubi and Arachnotrons by destroying their weak points in a single hit from long-range.
  • The shotguns are all-purpose tools that are as useful for blowing up fodder as they are blasting heavies.
  • The Plasma Rifle is unmatched in DPS until you get the Chaingun, and even then, it remains helpful for mopping up swarms of fodder and overloading energy shields.
  • The Rocket Launcher is excellent for virtually every situation, and its mods make it even more versatile. It occupies a middle ground between the absurd damage of the Ballista and the crowd-control of the Shotgun's grenade launcher; however, unlike the latter, it can deal self-damage, demanding caution from the player.
  • The Ballista is the tool you turn to for bringing down the biggest, baddest threats on the battlefield; even the Marauder will quickly go down when he's hammered by it.
  • The Chaingun is essentially the next step up from the Plasma Rifle in terms of rapid-fire medium-range DPS, and it is particularly potent against big, fast enemies like the Hell Knight.
  • The BFG and Crucible are still Awesome, but Impractical; by the time you get them, the game is three-fourths over, and there's very little ammo to be found. They will see a LOT of use against the Final Boss, however.
• Take That!: The UAC continues to be used as a punching bag for corporate corruption and tone-deafness.
  • One line of dialogue from a hologram seems to be a dig at Political Overcorrectness, suggesting that demons be called "mortally challenged", as "demon" may be offensive. Judging by how the demons murder every human they see, it seems unlikely anyone actually had the chance to ask if this was the case.
  • Another line seems to be a dig at corporations who downplay their businesses causing damage to the local or global environment for their own profit, addressing a literal hellscape of fire and blood as "a slight change in the environment."
  • Within the Doom Slayer's personal room, there is a book titled "Why I'm So Awesome: Part II", written by one Dork Norkem.
• Teleportation: Used often by humans and demons alike. Teleportation technology is now safe to use and the Slayer will teleport from his fortress to any place on Earth or even in other universes. Similarly, demons teleport to Earth and will appear out of thin air to attack the Slayer.
• Tempting Fate: At one point, the Slayer must venture to the lost city of Hebeth, located in the core of Mars. To do this, he decides to commandeer the BFG 10,000 to break through the planet's crust.
  Samuel Hayden: You can't just shoot a hole into the surface of Mars.
  OBJECTIVES: SHOOT A HOLE IN MARS.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When using Finishers, most of the enemies in the game will very briefly react to their incoming demise, right before the Slayer does what he does best. In a closely-related vein, the Slayer shows Nilox the coin that makes him vulnerable moments before ripping his head off; he has just enough time to comprehend what it is.
• Theme Music Power-Up: "BFG Division" is promoted to the level of a Leitmotif, being used as the music for the Demon Prison. It's also used when the Khan Maykr takes over the Fortress of Doom and sends a group of minions against the Slayer, forcing him to battle his way out.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Played for Laughs — The hidden milestone "Phew, That Was A Close One!" is awarded for using a direct hit from the BFG to kill a single zombie (and nothing else).
• Threatening Shark: In The Ancient Gods - Part One, the Slayer encounters a huge shark during an underwater segment. The shark will ignore him unless he approaches it, which will cause it to bite him repeatedly. You cannot attack underwater, so the shark cannot be harmed.
• Time Abyss: In The Ancient Gods - Part One, we learn that the Lord of Hell, Davoth is this. Having presided over his home realm of Jekkad (later Hell) since his creation, he was already assumed to be eons old. However, the friendly intern drops a bombshell in casual conversation, revealing Davoth to be roughly one decillion years old. If accurate, this makes him, at a minimum, one of the oldest characters in all of fiction, having existed for about 72 sextillion times the age of the known universe. The DLC's reveal that Davoth was the original Father seems to put this into question, implying that if he isn't a decillion years old, he's most likely numerous times even older.
• Time Skip: The action picks up months after the end of 2016, with the Doom Slayer back in action and now in charge of a cathedral-like space station appropriately called the Fortress of Doom.
• Timed Mission: The "A Bat Out of Hell" milestone requires the player to beat the first mission of the game, Hell on Earth, in less than 11 minutes.
• Tomorrow Land: In The Ancient Gods - Part Two Immora, capital of Hell, turns out to be a high-tech fortress, looking much like a hellish version of Urdak, standing in stark contrast to the rest of Hell.
• Took a Level in Badass: Both the Slayer and some of his returning foes from the previous game have become substantially more powerful; additionally, pretty much every enemy in the game is substantially faster and more deadly than they were in 2016.
  • The Slayer can now use a dash to stay one step ahead of his foes; he also gains the Blood Punch ability, allowing him to pulverize or severely injure even the heaviest enemies. His Super Shotgun also gains a meathook that lets him zip around the battlefield even more quickly.
  • The Barons of Hell have become substantially tankier, being immune to the Chainsaw and able to tank a direct BFG shot, and gained flame-based powers.
  • Zigzagged with Cacodemons. In 2016 they were dangerous, but not so much so that they needed to be priority targets. In Eternal, they pose a massive threat at any range. Their bite can obliterate most of your HP bar, or flat out gib you if you haven't upgraded your health yet. Their projectiles hurt almost as much, and they gain the ability to spit out a volley of five energy balls in a continuous stream. If you leave them to their own devices, they'll sneak up on you and make you regret it. At the same time, however, they gained a crippling weakness to grenades/sticky bombs; both of them are obtainable in the first mission before fighting them, staggering them for an easy One-Hit Kill and making them substantially less dangerous than other heavy demons.
  • The Mancubus was a Mighty Glacier in 2016, but he's now surprisingly nimble, able to leap onto ledges to ambush you. Worse yet, his fireballs are faster and have a bigger explosive radius, and he gains several close-range attacks to prevent you from getting in close and mincing him as easily.
  • A series-wide example for the Icon of Sin. When last we saw him, he was just a skull on a wall you shot at. Come this game, and he’s become a huge giant that will take all your effort to destroy.
• Too Awesome to Use:
  • The Crucible: it can kill most non-boss enemies in one hit, be that a lowly Zombie or a mighty Tyrant^note Doom Hunters take two hits (one for each of its phases), while the Marauder will always block it unless you go out of your way to set up the kill, and unlike the Chainsaw it only uses up one pip of energy per-use. It's also much harder to find "ammo" for, with the red sword sigils being a lot rarer than spare ammo for the BFG this time around, thus encouraging its use as a weapon of last resort, instead of an uber-powerful weapon that can be casually wielded.
  • Averted with the Icon of Sin fight, where the arena is filled with lots of replenishing Crucible ammo, encouraging players to use the Crucible generously against the legions of powerful demons in their way.
  • In The Ancient Gods - Part One, the BFG-9000 and Unmaykr are relegated to this as the Slayer no longer has access to the Crucible and its One-Hit Kill properties. The Argent Cell pickups are rarer compared to the base game. Also, their ammo no longer gets replenished between levels. So it's best to conserve it until you really need it.
• Toppled Statue: The path to the second part of Nekravol is opened by punching over a large statue of Olivia Pierce, which creates a hole in the floor.
• Touched by Vorlons: How the Doom Slayer got his powers - after Doomguy from the original games was taken in by the Maykrs to potentially inform them about Hell for their need of finding cost-efficient means to produce Argent Energy to ensure their immortality, the Hooded Figure slipped Doomguy away in secret at some point and used the Maykr's own technology to induce the same powers on Doomguy, turning him into the present day Doom Slayer.
• Truer to the Text: Many of the visuals in this game are modelled after elements from the classic Doom titles. Several enemy designs are updated to closer resemble their original appearances, as do certain weapons. Even many of the environments reflect this.
• Ugly All Along: The Khan Maykr on the surface looks like a heavenly divine being, but over the course of her boss fight, as the Doom Slayer knocks off more and more of her armor, her face is revealed to be hideously monstrous and bearing an uncanny resemblance to a demon, serving as a symbolic representation that, for all her claims of herself being divine and superior, she is no different from demons the Slayer fights.
• Ultimate Life Form: Invoked in Dr. Elena Richardson's logs.
  Dr. Richardson: There is only one dominant life form in this universe, and it carries a steel-barreled sword of vengeance.
• Underestimating Badassery: The villains of this game know the Doom Slayer is the greatest warrior the Night Sentinels have ever produced, to the point of being perhaps the only man ever that managed to fell a Titan with but a Crucible blade on foot. They still proclaim that he is Just One Man to his face to try to discourage him from coming after them, and then think that he's going to be a pushover in a direct confrontation. He's not. And this is especially egg on the Maykrs' faces, given that they are completely oblivious to his prior crusades and One-Man Army extinction events he's pulled on Hell as the original Doomguy before they even met him.
• Underwater Base: The UAC's Atlantica Facility has an underwater zone built on the very seafloor. The Doom Slayer grabs a submarine and dives to the bottom of the sea to enter it. Some sections of the base are destroyed and flooded, and he must swim on several occasions.
• The Unfought: As in the previous game, there are occasional references to the Dark Lord, the actual ruler of Hell in Eternal proper. You only get to take him on as the Big Bad of The Ancient Gods - Part Two.
• Unreliable Narrator: The Lore texts that can be found throughout much of The Ancient Gods are apparently written by Samur Maykr, who is not really a reliable source. The entire origin story of Davoth, aka the Lord of Hell, is changed to make him essentially a perfect Satanic Archetype: a sort of archangel created by the Father who rebelled against Him and was locked away in Hell for his wicked deeds. Davoth is in fact the original Father, whose position was usurped by the Maykrs, who banished him and made one of their own into the new Father. He seeks vengeance on all of creation for this betrayal.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Deag Ranak of the Hell Priests proclaims that it was the Doom Slayer that doomed Argent D'Nur due to the discovery of Argent energy in an attempt to create a Breaking Speech. He's not lying; when the Slayer (then at the time still the Doomguy) was found by the Night Sentinels and brought before the Maykrs, his insane ramblings about having to kill the demons caused the Maykrs to investigate and ultimately discover Hell, which set both 2016 and Eternal into motion by one man's pure misfortune.
  • After the Slayer destroys the Icon of Sin's heart, making it go berserk, Hayden points out that by setting it free from the Maykrs' control, he has inadvertently created a connection between Urdak and Hell. This means one of the few places in the universe completely safe from demonic invasion is now vulnerable to attack, and a full-scale war between Hell and Urdak may have dire consequences. Of course, Hayden points out that it was incredibly arrogant of the Khan Maykr to bring the heart and the Icon of Sin into Urdak to begin with, allowing the seal and the pact between Urdak and Hell to be broken, meaning that the Khan Maykr is as much, if not more, liable for causing the demonic invasion of Urdak than the Doom Slayer's own actions.
• Utility Weapon:
  • When striking a locked-on enemy with the Plasma Rifle's Microwave Beam weapon mod, a small meter below the reticle appears representing their progress towards being "popped", gradually filling up as the enemy takes damage. This meter can essentially be used as an inverted health readout, allowing a player to best plan out the most viable/ammo-efficient course of action to take out the locked-on enemy.
  • The Super Shotgun's Meathook can be used for traversal, although since it only grapples onto enemies this does take some finesse and planning.
• Version-Exclusive Content: At the time of writing, the Cultist Base master level along with the Doot Revenant and the Classic Combat Shotgun skins are only available to players who have pre-ordered the game. In a similar vein, the Demonic skin for the Doom Slayer is only accessible if one has purchased the Digital Deluxe edition.
• Video Game Caring Potential: After the Slayer, as the Revenant drone, retrieves his Super Shotgun, he's presented with a defenceless demon that he can freely shoot. Instead of this, the player can elect to spare the Revenant and leave the room via the elevator they came in.
  • However, if you have read how the Revenant is created, shooting him is a version of this as well.
• Urban Ruins: The demonic invasion on Earth has devastated pretty much all of Earth's cities. The missions "Hell on Earth", "Super Gore Nest", "ARC Complex" and "Final Sin" feature ruined urban levels that the Doom Slayer must traverse. Highlights include a plane in "ARC Complex" that has crashed into a building, the very earth having cracked and creating large deep canyons in the middle of the streets, and demonic flesh having invaded some building, covering the remaining walls in flesh.
• Videogame Dashing: The Doom Slayer now has the ability to gain a short boost of speed in any direction on the ground and in the air, in order to either close in on enemies or dodge their attacks. Two dashes can be used per jump.
• Villains Want Mercy: After defeating the Doom Hunters, Deag Ranak tries bargaining with the Slayer in exchange for his life. Unfortunately for him, Doomguy isn't interested.
• Villainous Breakdown: The UAC Spokeswoman who frequently pops up during the Earth levels starts out really chipper and smug as she nonchalantly promotes the ongoing invasion. However, she becomes increasingly exasperated and annoyed as the Slayer keeps making progress and the demons keep failing to stop him. By the time of Final Sin, she's seemingly gone off the deep end, and at one point snaps at, presumably her underlings or the demons around her hologram, angrily demanding someone to just go ahead and kill the Slayer already.
  UAC Spokesperson: Can someone kill this idiot, please?!
• Virtual Sidekick: VEGA returns from the previous game to act as exposition.
• Wall Crawl: The Doom Slayer can now climb certain walls in the environment to get to new places.
• Was Once a Man: Besides the Zombies, it's revealed that practically ALL the demons you fight are the result of the drained husks that once belonged to mortal, human victims. Their bodies are warped and corrupted by long years in Hell after their souls are drained for Argent Energy.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The BFG 10,000 takes the form of a gigantic anti-orbital defence cannon with a similarly gigantic laser beam; its mere recoil causes visible shockwaves on the surface, and the laser bathes everything in a several-mile radius in bright green light every time it's fired.
• Wham Episode: The Ancient Gods - Part One turns out to be this for the entire series, Samuel is indeed the Seraphim as hinted. The Slayer betrays him by destroying The Father's Life Sphere, so he can have an opportunity to kill the Dark Lord of Hell himself in an attempt to banish the demons on Earth back to Hell once and for all. And then it turns out that, unbeknownst to the Doom Slayer, the Dark Lord is in fact the "original" archetype that the Slayer is an "echo" of, and as such shares all the same Determinator and World's Strongest Man qualities as the Doom Slayer, but in service of his own home of Hell, rather than the Slayer's Earth.
  The Dark Lord: You feel you are prepared now, for this...?
• Wham Line:
  • Of all people, Doomguy speaks in flashbacks, confirming he can indeed talk:
    Doomguy: Rip...and...TEAR!
  • From VEGA when he is plugged into Urdak's architectures:
    VEGA: I can see now... Am I... the Father, Dr. Hayden?
  • Another from The Father, describing the Dark Lord and just what he is, in The Ancient Gods - Part One:
    The Father: The Dark Lord is the leader of Hell's armies. Not a king, but a warrior of the Dark Realm. The fiercest among them, as only the strongest could rule the demons. He is you, in their world.
  • The Father drops another bombshell on the Slayer right before the final battle in The Ancient Gods - Part Two:
    The Father: [The Dark Lord] is the first being, and my creator. When he fell, I ascended.
• Wham Shot:
  • On Sentinel Prime, the Doom Slayer receives a flashback of him being brought before the Sentinel priests that would eventually become the Hell Priests. This is already a bit of a shock if you haven't been reading the codexes, but the much bigger one is that a Sentinel presents what is unmistakably the helmet of a UAC marine from the original Doom to the priests, thus proving once and for all that the Doom Slayer and Doomguy are in fact one and the same.
  • The Ancient Gods - Part One ends with the true form of the unseen Dark Lord finally being revealed: He is an Evil Doppelgänger of the Doomguy himself.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The last we see of VEGA in the main campaign, the Slayer had left him behind in Urdak. However, considering this character is heavily implied to be this universe's version of God, this might be more of a case of the character returning to where they belong. The Slayer reunites with him (sort of) in The Ancient Gods - Part One.
  • The Betrayer is likewise never seen again after he gives the Slayer the Celestial Locator. The Slayer reunites with him in The Ancient Gods - Part Two.
  • The UAC Spokesperson seems to have pulled a Karma Houdini, since nothing is known of her whereabouts after her final rant and the demonic invasion has gone completely south. This is emblematic of the UAC in general, which at the end of the main campaign still seems to exist as a coherent entity. The Ancient Gods - Part One indicates that they're still attempting to defy efforts to clean up the last of the demonic invaders.
  • The last act of The Ancient Gods - Part Two starts with The Remnant of the Night Sentinels besieging Immora, the capital city of Hell, serving as a backdrop to the Slayer's mission to kill the Dark Lord. This siege is left hanging: after the Dark Lord dies, a cutscene shows every demon outside Hell following suit, but the state of things inside Hell goes unresolved.
• Wrecked Weapon: The Doom Slayer shoves the Crucible right in the Icon of Sin's brain, and breaks it in half as he pulls away. The Icon of Sin does NOT survive.
• Your Head Asplode: For nearly every fodder demon, dealing the killing shot to the head causes them to pop with an accompanying cork-popping sound. Headshots can be achieved more reliably against other demon classes with the Heavy Cannon's Precision Bolt mod and the Ballista.
  • Taken to its logical conclusion with the Precision Bolt's Mastery, Headshot Blast, in which headshots create a violent explosion that damages and stuns enemies around the headshot target.
• You Will Not Evade Me: The Slayer has several weapons to deal with those pesky demons that like to run away, such as the rocket launcher's Lock-On Burst that tracks Prowlers even after their Flash Step, or the Plasma Rifle's Microwave Beam that stunlocks a demon in place until either it dies or the player runs out of ammo, and the Super Shotgun's Meathook, which lets him pull himself towards a distant enemy to blast them full of pellets.
• Zerg Rush: Forces of both Earth and Argent D'Nur are not able to push back the demons because of their number and how fast they swarm in once a gate is open. Only the Doom Slayer can slaughter and scare them out of their momentum.
  Dr. Elena Richardson: The only thing they fear - is him. We watched as the horde overwhelmed the very best and most advanced machinery and weapons technology that we could muster against the opposition. It was useless, they moved too quickly, they cared not for themselves, only sought out the blood of humanity. They were willing to sacrifice their own to get to the heart of our world. We slaughtered thousands and millions more followed, but then he came - he cut through them like a sickle through a field - his fury surpassing their own. He is faster - more relentless. I believe him now to be more than just a man - he is...DOOM.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Many of the humans not ripped to shreds on Earth and Phobos during the demonic invasion have been turned into Zombies. Like in the previous game, these zombified humans make up the "Fodder" rung of enemies.

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"...may the blood of your sword never dry, and may we never need you again."