Enjoy this short gameplay sizzle of DOOM: The Dark Ages featured in Developer_Direct 2025! Developed by id Software, DOOM: The Dark Ages is the prequel to t...
That recycled yank-the-keycard-off-the-corpse animation, though…
It doesn’t look like they learned much from Eternal. I think I’m going to give this one a miss. All I’m seeing is more mechanic overload, and a really annoying parry system that’s just going to result in about 1/3 of the monster roster being, “The only way to deal with this guy is to wait for his green attack and parry it, then you get to hit him once. Other than that he’s functionally invulnerable.” Yeah, because the Marauders were totally the highlight of Eternal, and absolutely didn’t grind the entire game to a tedious three minute halt every time you encountered one and played its silly song-and-dance.
I will happily don my asbestos underpants and declare that I really don’t like the direction the new Doom games are taking. Whatever this is isn’t Doom; they could have just as well slapped a new original IP over top of it without any difference.
Yeah, it also puts off people like me who are crap at games but still want to enjoy them. I am in my 50s and missed a couple decades of gaming. Recently got a steam deck and been trying to catch up. Recently finished bioshock! And I’m about halfway through doom 2016, enjoying it a lot. But I know I’m shit, I’m playing on little bitch difficulty and I still got stuck on a boss for two frustrating weeks.
My point is that some of their market is going to be people like me who don’t have time to put hundreds of hours into learning the mechanics but just want to have fun for an hour here or there and blow up some monsters.
Someday I’d like to hope our game design sensibilities evolve enough that we can stop deflecting every negative review with “git gud”. There are absolutely things that hard games can design badly that don’t add to the overall enjoyment of the game.
And here’s the thing with the Marauders, too. They were just in the wrong game.
If having to play silly distance and timing games with solitary enemies were Doom’s jam – If this were ever Doom’s jam – it would be one thing. But it’s not, and it never has been. The fuckers would fit right in the Dark Souls universe and nobody would even notice. But that’s just not how the rest of the game is structured.
The telltale heart thumping under the floorboard here is that the game feels the need to literally give you a popup that pauses the action the first time you encounter one for the explicit purpose of teaching you how to work the fight. If your mechanics are so non-discoverable that this is necessary, maybe that’s a clue that a stop and rethink is in order.
Doom Eternal was actually really bad at that across the board. You will recall that almost every new mechanic was preceded by an action stopping popup and in some cases an incongruous teleportation to a tutorial room to force-feed you the correct course of action (and the only correct course of action, which is my other gripe) for that monster or situation. Very few of its mechanics beyond stick-shotgun-down-monster’s-throat-pull-trigger are organically discoverable, and even the ones that could have been aren’t because of the tutorial popups.
I guess at least you can turn them off… If you know about them in advance.
Except they’re not. Most people like them and agree that they do add to the overall enjoyment of the game. Hell, I loved that part in the DLC when you fight two of them. It’s literally just a couple of people who are mad about them. So, yeah, git gud.
The fact that everyone but 4 people like Taylor Swift make her music great. The fact that all but 4 people use Tik Tok make it a great social media app. The fact that all but 4 people voted for Trump makes him a great president.
Or…
Maybe…
Doom has a history and is shifting further away from it in an attempt to capture a larger audience, like the skibidi toilet crowd that needs 24/7 overstimulation and nearly has a stroke when they need to use more than two neurons to perform an action…
2016 was good enough. More of that wouldn’t alienate anyone.
Totally agree with you. I was a huge fan of Doom 2016 but couldn’t get into Doom Eternal. Will reserve judgement until this is released, but I get the feeling I won’t like this one either.
I couldn’t get myself to finish 2016 but I really loved Eternal. I’m on the fence about this one though. I’ll probably just wait till it’s cheap down the line. No big rush.
More info in the 11 minute developer direct for the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGFuaVUI6_E
That recycled yank-the-keycard-off-the-corpse animation, though…
It doesn’t look like they learned much from Eternal. I think I’m going to give this one a miss. All I’m seeing is more mechanic overload, and a really annoying parry system that’s just going to result in about 1/3 of the monster roster being, “The only way to deal with this guy is to wait for his green attack and parry it, then you get to hit him once. Other than that he’s functionally invulnerable.” Yeah, because the Marauders were totally the highlight of Eternal, and absolutely didn’t grind the entire game to a tedious three minute halt every time you encountered one and played its silly song-and-dance.
I will happily don my asbestos underpants and declare that I really don’t like the direction the new Doom games are taking. Whatever this is isn’t Doom; they could have just as well slapped a new original IP over top of it without any difference.
They did learn a lot from Eternal. Mainly that people loved it and people complaining about the Marauders just need to git gud.
“git gud” is honestly never a good defense against any given criticism. Saying this as someone who’s reasonably gud
Yeah, it also puts off people like me who are crap at games but still want to enjoy them. I am in my 50s and missed a couple decades of gaming. Recently got a steam deck and been trying to catch up. Recently finished bioshock! And I’m about halfway through doom 2016, enjoying it a lot. But I know I’m shit, I’m playing on little bitch difficulty and I still got stuck on a boss for two frustrating weeks.
My point is that some of their market is going to be people like me who don’t have time to put hundreds of hours into learning the mechanics but just want to have fun for an hour here or there and blow up some monsters.
I’m not really trying to defend anything, though
That’s right, forgive my french
Someday I’d like to hope our game design sensibilities evolve enough that we can stop deflecting every negative review with “git gud”. There are absolutely things that hard games can design badly that don’t add to the overall enjoyment of the game.
Marauders were one of those things.
And here’s the thing with the Marauders, too. They were just in the wrong game.
If having to play silly distance and timing games with solitary enemies were Doom’s jam – If this were ever Doom’s jam – it would be one thing. But it’s not, and it never has been. The fuckers would fit right in the Dark Souls universe and nobody would even notice. But that’s just not how the rest of the game is structured.
The telltale heart thumping under the floorboard here is that the game feels the need to literally give you a popup that pauses the action the first time you encounter one for the explicit purpose of teaching you how to work the fight. If your mechanics are so non-discoverable that this is necessary, maybe that’s a clue that a stop and rethink is in order.
Doom Eternal was actually really bad at that across the board. You will recall that almost every new mechanic was preceded by an action stopping popup and in some cases an incongruous teleportation to a tutorial room to force-feed you the correct course of action (and the only correct course of action, which is my other gripe) for that monster or situation. Very few of its mechanics beyond stick-shotgun-down-monster’s-throat-pull-trigger are organically discoverable, and even the ones that could have been aren’t because of the tutorial popups.
I guess at least you can turn them off… If you know about them in advance.
Except they’re not. Most people like them and agree that they do add to the overall enjoyment of the game. Hell, I loved that part in the DLC when you fight two of them. It’s literally just a couple of people who are mad about them. So, yeah, git gud.
I already have a job, thanks.
Congratulations?
Thank you
I can beat the Marauders no problem, and I can even cheese them with the shotgun trick. That doesn’t magically make them good game design.
Nope. The fact that everyone but like 4 people loves them makes them good game design.
The fact that everyone but 4 people like Taylor Swift make her music great. The fact that all but 4 people use Tik Tok make it a great social media app. The fact that all but 4 people voted for Trump makes him a great president.
Or…
Maybe…
Doom has a history and is shifting further away from it in an attempt to capture a larger audience, like the skibidi toilet crowd that needs 24/7 overstimulation and nearly has a stroke when they need to use more than two neurons to perform an action…
2016 was good enough. More of that wouldn’t alienate anyone.
Yes. Taylor Swift music is great. Don’t you think it’s about time you’ve grown out of your teen angst?
Oh the irony…
We can agree on that.
Totally agree with you. I was a huge fan of Doom 2016 but couldn’t get into Doom Eternal. Will reserve judgement until this is released, but I get the feeling I won’t like this one either.
I couldn’t get myself to finish 2016 but I really loved Eternal. I’m on the fence about this one though. I’ll probably just wait till it’s cheap down the line. No big rush.