Doom Eternal

Very interesting and family friendly game, no violence at all, I recomend it for kids
10/10

Shotgun shells are red,
Demons are nocturnal,
Halo may be Infinite,
but DOOM is Eternal...

Characteristically, I'm late to the party and went in blind. Doom Eternal had sat in my library untouched for about 3 years before this for no particular reason, maybe because I thought Doom 2016 was alright but a little overhyped. I hardly remember that game at all now.
I played on Nightmare difficulty, which took me 30 hours for the base game and DLC, which I will refer to as the "game" as a whole from here on out because you'd do yourself a disservice not to play all of it.
First off, I want to say that the difficulty curve is incredible. Going back and watching someone play the first levels is almost comedic now, but I can also remember when they were genuinely challenging for me at the time as well. Aside from one instance, the difficulty ramp in the game never felt jarring and was always within my means to handle, which given the dramatic difference between the beginning and end is an achievement indeed.
The exception I refer to is the introduction of the Marauder; an inflection point in the game. This is the first time the game expects you to employ rapid weapon swapping to progress, technically you don't have to but it's the intention.
I had not used this mechanic up until this point as the game had only brought it up once and I wasn't yet onboard. I think encouraging the player to try it out a few times prior to the Marauder would have been better as having to both learn the mechanic and fight this new, difficult, enemy was a stretch both on my ability and my enjoyment of the game.
For a while I considered there to be two Doom Eternals, the one before the Marauder and the one after. I was digging the arena based combat and having a lot of fun, then this wall appeared which, when it cropped up, made me instantly dislike a section. Of course eventually I got good and started to enjoy fighting Marauders once I had a greater mastery of the combat loop, but I think separating the two lessons of weapon switching and the Marauder introduction more distinctly would have been an ambrosia to my bitterness. Also, the crucible should probably kill Marauders.
Somewhat related, I was a little resistant to the weapon swapping at first. It almost seemed cheesy. This quickly stopped being the case when I realised how satisfying and, later, essential it was. The immense power granted to you by this mechanic, when properly used, truly made me feel like the Slayer for the first time.
There's something inherently rewarding about feeling like you're breaking a game because you have knowledge of its systems, and that's kind of what the weapon swapping and combat loop feels like the whole time, even though it's intended.
One aspect I deeply appreciated was how the player's time is respected. Almost always when hunting for secrets or having opened a new path, shortcuts will be unlocked either as jump pads, some bars retracting or a door opening up. None of these had to be in the game but I was happy to see them on every occasion they appeared.
A game that respects your time like that is a very quick route to my approval, it signifies developers who really understand what playing the game will be like. The single exception to this is the inability to save and quit during a mastery level, which was disappointing.
The main criticism I have of the game is that Id cannot design boss fights. All of the bosses were low points in the game other than at the end of DLC 2, which was almost good. The first boss, The Gladiator is probably the most mechanically interesting in the base game, but none of the bosses are fun to fight, and I think that's in part because they have to compete with the core arena combat loop in this game which is... well I'll put it this way: Id couldn't improve on it in Dark Ages.
Buff totems are a bit annoying if you're unable to find them, which isn't usually a problem but occasionally can be frustrating. I think a delayed HUD element to show the direction of the totem if you've not found it for a while wouldn't go amiss.
After completing the game, I became aware that the platforming sections are rather maligned by a portion of the playerbase. Though I didn't find them inspired, I thought they fit well into the game for the most part and were both varied and sparse enough to remain interesting.
There are more bugs than I would have expected. You will often clip the camera into walls during a glory kill and falling through floors or into walls will probably happen a few times in a playthrough. The consequences for this are usually mild, but this shouldn't happen, especially in a game with a permadeath mode.
I played on max settings, 1440p, full ray tracing on an RTX 5070 Ti and was usually over 200 FPS. The game looks stunning, even being 5 years old. RT does add a lot and is, amazingly, not hard to run relative to rasterised performance. The Maykr levels in particular are visual feasts, The Holt is my favourite and one of the best looking levels I've ever seen in a game. I didn't stutter a single time. The only repeatable source of performance problems were the particle effects from shooting a large group of frozen enemies, which did noticeably drop the framerate albeit briefly.
While you do need mad skillz to beat the game on Nightmare difficulty, it's not all about actions per minute. You need to understand the rules, timing and overall flow of combat to make split second decisions in a way that makes Eternal surprisingly cognitive.
Doom Eternal is best played on the highest difficulty you can manage.
When you are in the thick of it, against overwhelming odds and under siege by hordes of the mortally challenged, Doom Eternal's core combat is truly outstanding; Id have squeezed everything they could out of it. The tension in the latter stages of a big fight keeps your focus sharp and your heart beating; only this intensity of ripping and tearing could give you the feeling of being the Doom Slayer.
Mick Gordon helps a bit too.

A great way to cool off after a stressful session of hello kitty island adventure

I recommend *if* you plan on playing mouse+keyboard. I played this at launch on PS4 expecting a game similar to the slower paced DOOM 2016, and did not have a good time with the micromanagement of cooldowns, constant weapon swapping, llmited ammo counts, focus on rapid movement, platforming, highly vertical environments, ect. The game moved faster than DOOM 2016, but felt slower because I was either pausing for the weapon wheel every few seconds, spending most of the time flying through the air to reposition unable to shoot (can't instantly 180 on a controller), or stopping to hit a cooldown timer and getting pummeled (gotta move thumbs off the sticks). The whole game just felt like a slog to get through compared to DOOM 2016, caused by the excessive micromanaging of the new rock-paper-scissors combat model.
After revisiting on PC, turns out the combat REALLY shines with mouse+keyboard since you're not limited by physical inputs. It's much easier to multitask movement, shooting, and timers, plus you have instant hotkey access to everything, which allows you to focus on actually engaging in combat and experimenting with combos. It feels playing like an old school arena shooter (e.g. Unreal Tournament) at double speed, and I can't think of any other combat models like this.

Definitely DO NOT look at my hour count nor my steam name :D It's my most played Steam game. This game has literally gotten me through my college years since it's release, and mastery of the game is paramount BUT will give you a HELL of a time (see what I did there?) Having explored most of the modded Master Levels kept me hooked for years, and the modding community is awesome with what they have done. If you're even remotely interested in the upcoming DOOM: The Dark Ages, I highly encourage you to make sure you have played 2016 and Eternal first, because neither one should be left forgotten after this new game comes out. I'm hoping TDA will complete the trifecta of my 3 favorite FPS games of all time. As of 3/14/25 this game is on sale so get it, GET IT!!!

I came back to Doom Eternal after playing through The Dark Ages, and the opportunity to make a joke about these two games' respective subheadings is way too obvious even for me.

What Eternal loses in the franchise's classic open levels, puzzling layouts, keyhunting teleporter nightmares and sheer length, it gains in state of the art enemy design, weapon design, level design, and environmental storytelling. The player character is by far the absolute strongest thing in the game's universe, but you never really feel truly overpowered, as you will die fast if you're ever doing less than your best on the harder skill levels.

It systematically provokes all of your usual gameplay sensibilities with rising challenges over the first few stages, from simple linear corridors filled with odd demon combinations, to arena battles where things continue to spawn over time, until you're just comfortable enough with the game's controls to continue onward, only for it to throw in new threats that require an evolution of your playstyle, with very few options to cheese any of it.

It doesn't waste time with hours of tutorial content, or senseless grinding for better gear and stats, or an unskippable plot that has no depth to it - It just drops you right into the action and lets the peaks and valleys flow naturally through its varied sprinkling of combat and platforming.

I remember when the game first released and many were quick to complain about the platforming elements, though to me it feels absolutely vital to the health of the game, as it's a way to teach the player how to move Doomguy. Learning how he controls until the feeling of jumping around the map is second nature is almost a requirement when considering later stages, where you have to do such things whilst also getting shot from every direction. Movement is so important in Eternal that even on easier skill levels it's never advisable to stand still while there are demons about. Even the absolute weakest of fodder demons can crowd you, and do significant damage if you're not paying attention to their proximity.

It's all a bit overwhelming at first, but by the time you've gotten the Super Shotgun and its invaluable grappling hook, the game starts to take shape and (assuming you're not terrible at video games) you feel yourself accomplishing things you never thought possible. The lightning pace of Eternal's moment-to-moment gameplay gives you feedback on your progress immediately, until you're hotswapping your weapons mid-air and prioritising appropriate targets with a well-aimed ice bomb before you've even hit the ground because you needed to reload a module.

The weapons are the best in the series, with each one fulfilling a specific niche to the point where even the worst mod on the first weapon you get is still punching up against some of the literal strongest, most frustrating enemies in the game better than every other normal weapon. Every single one of them sees use during the campaign (and especially in the Master Levels), and not because the game lazily makes certain demons immune to certain damage types, but through simple variety in the encounters. Even the humble Microwave Beam that nobody likes is useful when faced with a single tough enemy in a poor place to be fighting it - 1 HP against a Baron of Hell in a tight corridor? Get stunlocked, idiot.

The enemies themselves are again the best in the series too, taking almost the entire roster of Doom 2 and removing the things that made them all annoying (Hitscanners don't exist anymore, Pain Elementals can't bloat the map with Lost Soul spam, Archviles can't infinitely revive everyone) and gave them all the Doom 2016 treatment in how they act and try to kill you. They rush you, they crowd you, they gang up on you, they sneak up on you, they try to flank your escape routes - I've no idea what magic was flowing over at Id, but they managed to nail it. They are used to frighteningly good effect in the Master Levels too, showing just how well the team got to understand all their little demon minions.

Then the Marauder shows up and completely changes the pace of the game, like the demons have their own Doomguy that you have to consider. A divisive enemy to sure given you have to fight it on its own terms, but that's a greater challenge that I love to see.

The Hub area is cute, and provides some form of player-selected metaprogression in between the stages, and holds all of your collectibles in a physical form so you can laud over your trophies, which is something more games should have, really.

The game bleeds effort from every orifice, and I haven't even touched upon the multiplayer or the weird Horde mode they added in after release; they're just there, because why not.

Trying to objectively rank the best game ever made is folly obviously, there are simply too many different flavours of game to come to an answer that everyone can agree with - But if someone told me that they ran the numbers, checked all the data, and it turns out that Doom Eternal is the best game ever, I'd have a hard time contesting it. It's that good.

I'm excited to see where FPS demon murderising goes from here, assuming it can progress any further than this - Given how Dark Ages panned out, this might be the pinnacle.