DOOM Eternal - The Ancient Gods Part 1 - Review

By the time DOOM Eternal had finished its story, my hands were cramped from being wrapped over the keyboard and mouse, as playing DOOM on anything other than PC is weird, but I loved it. Coming into the first of two DLC’s for the game, I was expecting my hands to eventually get back to those odd positions, but I wasn’t expecting to need it right away.

The Ancient Gods Part 1, while not the best name I have seen for any DLC, drops you into the world of DOOM Eternal, not months later after your defeat of the Icon of Sin, nope it is like an hour later and while the story makes sense for it, the game does not, but more on that in a bit. Basically the story attempts to tell the tale of your victory and the cost of it, not to Earth or the humans on it, but rather now that the demons of Hell are free from control, they seek their own path and of course that includes a dash of revenge. They aim to obtain that by conquering more dimensions than just the one we are in, but the DOOM Slayer, Samuel Hayden and a bunch of nameless humans are out to stop them, by finding the Seraphim. While the story is pretty by the numbers, I won’t disclose to much more, for spoilers, but there was a nice twist as to just who the Seraphim was, that I didn’t see coming.

The campaign will take you anywhere from 8 – 10 hours to blast through, depending on your skill level, but the real challenge is that The Ancient Gods Part 1, basically assumes you just finished the main DOOM Eternal campaign. There is no warmup, there is no refresher course, you watch a cutscene and you are thrown in the deep, not the deep end of a pool but the Mariana Trench, and the game is unapologetic about it. To put it into context, barely an hour into the DLC, you will encounter a Marauder, one of those very hard to kill foes from the main game, that tended to pop up in the latter half of the game, basically if Doom Eternal was a 10 for you, this has been cranked up to 15. That upside to all this is that you are able to use all the weapons from the main game, you don’t have to go and find them all over again, though you won’t be fully loaded for battle, so having shots in the BFG is unlikely.

If you are expecting new mechanics in this, or something that changes up the dynamic, you will be let down, if you are coming in expecting more DOOM then you are getting exactly what you are after. The gameplay is the same, multi-tiered arenas that let you jump, bounce, dash and more around, whilst unloading massive amounts of ammunition into the forces of Hell. There is a lot of the puzzle-ish exploration still present, like hunting down keys to unlock doors, but one nice addition, which breaks up the pace is the ghost dog. I say ghost dog, but pooch-ergiest also works and with it, you have to follow it through this sludge that hurts you, unless you follow the path the pooch-ergiest sets for you, take too long, or take the wrong path and it will end very bad for you. There are more platforming things later on, but the core of the gameplay is still taking on hordes in massive arenas and I am ok with that.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes is the overall themes in the world, no longer are you running down mile after mile of scientific corridors, that all look the same. Now there are swamps, an old military base and even a scientific facility, that is on water and in a storm and each location is vastly different from the one that comes before and after it. New locations are not the only big addition, there are a few new enemies to mix things up, though they don’t replace any of the original ones, so still expect to see plenty of them. The first addition you will discover is that of the turret, these guys will pop up, shoot at you and keep doing it until you take them down, the problem is they are aware and if you get to close, they hide in their shells or if you aim at them and take to long to fire, they will also hide. The other one, which is slightly more problematic is that the Spirit, which as the name suggests is a spirit that can possess other enemies and if you take that enemy down, the spirit just moves to others, discovering how to take them down is fun little task, but both of these guys make you stop, in order to take them down, which goes against the creed of what modern DOOM is all about.

DOOM Eternals first DLC is a great addition to the game, but it isn’t a must have addition. While the new enemies are a welcome addition, they slow down that frenetic pace that DOOM is now all about. The new locations are fun to explore, but the games dropping you in the deep end will make everything feel so much more difficult than it needs to be.

The Score

7.5

Review code provided by Bethesda

The Pros

+More crazy bullet ballet, in some fun new areas

+Story is a nice continuation, but not really something that was needed

The Cons

-Dropping players in the deep end is just wrong and will likely make a few want to stop playing

-New enemies are fine, but stop your moving, which is the opposite of DOOM