After a generation of linear shooters and open world sandboxes, Bethesda and id Software brought back the classic arena FPS with the exhilarating 2016 reboot of Doom. Having played through it twice (once on Xbox, once on Switch), I was eager to see how the reboot's sequel could make improvements. So did Eternal build upon its predecessor well? In a word, yes... albeit with some strings attached.
While 2016's visuals were impressive enough, Eternal takes the aesthetics and graphics to a whole new level. Thanks to its transition to id Tech 7, gone are 2016's pop-ins and somewhat dull colors. What we have, instead, is oodles of variety in terms of settings, lighting, and texture work of characters and environment alike. The new engine even allows players to shave off chunks of demons, making each shotgun blast far more impactful.
Speaking of impact, Mick Gordon's music is back and better than ever. Its dynamic build-up and headbanging climaxes are the perfect backdrop to the game's frenetic firefights. I also greatly appreciate his generous use of Ominous Demonic Chanting, courtesy of a choir formed of metal artists, whenever I explored the map and searched for that extra collectible.
The exploration has been substaintially improved. In addition to double jumps and dashing, you no longer die instantly when you fall into the pit. It may not seem like much, but Eternal's Zelda-esque map design encourages creative traversal to reach new areas or secrets, so I greatly appreciate not having to load a save if I made a wrong move.
Given all these positives, it's surprising that the two areas I feel mixed in are the technical stability... and the combat. On my new ROG laptop with an Nvidia GTX 1660Ti, I've ran into framerate drops and freezes during intense firefights. Until the latest patch, I couldn't even boot the game from Steam without disabling the AMD CPU's internal graphics first. My laptop exceeds recommended specs, so I'm puzzled why id let laptop optimization slip through the cracks.
As for the combat, it's fun but it doesn't feel as right as 2016. There are tools that allow you to generate armor from burning demons and the weak-points in each demon adds much appreciated strategy to the mix. However, I felt the pace of fighting the demons itself was off. Like Xilinoc, I experienced unearned difficulty spikes from constant Zerg Rush and a boss demon that becomes a recurring enemy by the endgame.The relentless waltz that is the 2016's pace gets derailed at times, and I hope id takes an opportunity to address these spikes.
Overall, Eternal is a followup that takes two steps forward and one step back. The Slayer's time is now... provided he can handle the uneven combat pacing and the technical issues first.
A Bloody Stage of Evolution
Platform Reviewed: PC
After a generation of linear shooters and open world sandboxes, Bethesda and id Software brought back the classic arena FPS with the exhilarating 2016 reboot of Doom. Having played through it twice (once on Xbox, once on Switch), I was eager to see how the reboot's sequel could make improvements. So did Eternal build upon its predecessor well? In a word, yes... albeit with some strings attached.
While 2016's visuals were impressive enough, Eternal takes the aesthetics and graphics to a whole new level. Thanks to its transition to id Tech 7, gone are 2016's pop-ins and somewhat dull colors. What we have, instead, is oodles of variety in terms of settings, lighting, and texture work of characters and environment alike. The new engine even allows players to shave off chunks of demons, making each shotgun blast far more impactful.
Speaking of impact, Mick Gordon's music is back and better than ever. Its dynamic build-up and headbanging climaxes are the perfect backdrop to the game's frenetic firefights. I also greatly appreciate his generous use of Ominous Demonic Chanting, courtesy of a choir formed of metal artists, whenever I explored the map and searched for that extra collectible.
The exploration has been substaintially improved. In addition to double jumps and dashing, you no longer die instantly when you fall into the pit. It may not seem like much, but Eternal's Zelda-esque map design encourages creative traversal to reach new areas or secrets, so I greatly appreciate not having to load a save if I made a wrong move.
Given all these positives, it's surprising that the two areas I feel mixed in are the technical stability... and the combat. On my new ROG laptop with an Nvidia GTX 1660Ti, I've ran into framerate drops and freezes during intense firefights. Until the latest patch, I couldn't even boot the game from Steam without disabling the AMD CPU's internal graphics first. My laptop exceeds recommended specs, so I'm puzzled why id let laptop optimization slip through the cracks.
As for the combat, it's fun but it doesn't feel as right as 2016. There are tools that allow you to generate armor from burning demons and the weak-points in each demon adds much appreciated strategy to the mix. However, I felt the pace of fighting the demons itself was off. Like Xilinoc, I experienced unearned difficulty spikes from constant Zerg Rush and a boss demon that becomes a recurring enemy by the endgame.The relentless waltz that is the 2016's pace gets derailed at times, and I hope id takes an opportunity to address these spikes.
Overall, Eternal is a followup that takes two steps forward and one step back. The Slayer's time is now... provided he can handle the uneven combat pacing and the technical issues first.