‘Doom Eternal’ Gameplay Footage: Ripping and Tearing is back and somehow even better than before

I’m being serious, my dudes. I got fucking chills watching this Doom Eternal gameplay footage. Fucking chills. Embedded above is the entire fucking Doom keynote, but if you’re looking specifically for the footage, hop to 1:16:22 for the first batch, 1:24:14 for the second, and 1:29:50 for the third. As well, shout out to Rock Paper Shotgun for the handy time-stamps.

Rock Paper Shotgun:

It should be pretty clear by now that I am an enormous fan of Doom 1 & 2, and 90s FPS design in general. While I greatly enjoyed Id Software’s 2016 reboot of the series, I didn’t love it. After watching three good chunks of footage live from QuakeCon, I’m feeling a lot more positive about its sequel, Doom Eternal. Green-haired zombies, spiky imps, semi-abstract urban/demonic hybrid environments and a bunch of new ideas were on display. Check out the gore-drenched action below, along with the extended and wooly thoughts from a certified Doomhead.

While I’m glad they didn’t name this one Doom 2: Hell On Earth (for the sake of keeping retro mods separate), that’s exactly what Doom Eternal looks like. Doom 2’s monsters are all represented, including Pain Elementals, Arachnotrons and (being introduced as a possible boss), the Archvile. Existing enemies have regressed to something a bit closer to the originals, too. Mancubi look less high-tech, Former Human soldiers have goofy green haircuts, and Imps are covered in spikes. There’s also some new critters, like a poison-spitting winged Imp-like thing.

We’ve time-stamped to the start of the Doom presentation, but if that fails, skip to 1:09:10. First new gameplay is at 1:16:22, second is at 1:24:12, and third is 1:29:50.

While it’s hard to judge from the footage, level structure feels a little more old-school as well. There felt like a lot less ‘player walks into arena, doors lock, kill demons and continue’ scenarios. Instead, levels look larger and more open, with interconnected secrets. Vertical mobility is even greater than in the previous game, thanks to a powerful grappling hook that lets you use any demon’s body as a hook-point to pull yourself to – even flying enemies, letting the Doom Slayer launch himself skyward to new areas and hard-to-reach ledges. There’s even fast ground/air-dashes.

Level design feels more playful and willing to be abstract, too. Great thing about hell itself melding with earth is that it doesn’t have to make sense. You can have a shopping centre full of sci-fi advertisements, that you swing off a pole out of (another new mobility tool) and into wall-to-wall demon meat-tunnels. I even spotted a very obvious crusher trap, smashing down on top of a bundle of powerups, tempting the player to take stupid risks that of course you will.