My feelings on DOOM Eternal in London

[DoctorObviously]

So, on the 27th of July I went to QuakeCon in London and played DOOM Eternal at 09:30.

 

 

A few disclaimers

 

It may seem strange to put up a post about this two days after the fact but the truth is that I had a ton of new information I needed to process and I didn’t want to make boisterous, fierce, hasty criticisms towards – let’s be fair here – one of the only big-budget single player-focused (hopefully) shooters that I’m excited about in the last years. When it comes to solid, expensive, quality games made with passion I’m actually really starving. I’m a pretty huge fan of the 2016 release and consider it a new standard for other developers to aspire to. It’s a personally important game as well.

 

I didn’t like DOOM Eternal at E3 2018, I really didn’t like it at E3 2019 and now that I’ve played it I cannot say that I enjoyed myself, because I didn’t.

 

I already know that childish comments claiming that I’m a troll are incoming, and I can’t stop those, but know that I’m not from the UK, and I travelled specifically to play Eternal, because I respect id Software and what they produce is usually fantastic stuff. I don’t think a “troll” which is pretty much everybody these days, would pay for and travel to another country to play a game to then bash it on the internet for the lulz. No doubt you will find some tiny thing in the thread to pick apart and take out of context. Oh boy.

 

 

The demo itself

 

To clarify, the demo I played was all the footage you could see in the E3 2019 demo and the b-roll footage you can find on YouTube. Our group (of 09:30) had half an hour to play the demo.

 

To my immediate annoyance, almost nothing could be changed in the options menu. I understand that graphics settings can’t be changed, but the options menu lacked an FOV option (which was too low during gameplay) and rebindable keys, which was an immediate pain in my d*ck. The mouse sensitivity was customizable (thank god) as well as the difficulty setting. I had either the choice of Easy and Medium. Because I could play 2016 on Nightmare in my sleep, I obviously chose Medium. As a small but not unimportant addendum, while we got an expensive looking PC with an equally expensive looking setup and chair, I never sat very comfortably. There’s a big difference to playing a game in your home as opposed to an unknown environment with a time limit and keybinds you don’t like.  

 

 

Playing Eternal

 

If you go into Eternal thinking you’ll have an awesome time, having had a lot of experience with 2016, you’re sorely mistaken. I'll try my best to explain. 

I think, and I feel many people think that DOOM 2016 was absolutely fine - but id changed pretty much everything. They changed the aesthetics, which I have complained about - often and loudly. They created frankly asinine elements which don't belong in a Doom game, such as the coins and question marks.

 

These details fundamentally undermine the entire atmosphere of the game and the threat of the Slayer, because I cannot take the badass struggle of a walking tank-monster taking on the hordes of Hell while collecting Mario coins seriously anymore. And for the literalist morons who don't understand context: I mean seriously not as in Batman-brooding, but rather in tone with what you're supposed to feel in that story and that universe. In earlier interviews Hugo explains that Eternal is very much the Evil Dead 2 to 2016's Evil Dead... and while he describes Eternal to a T, he's also wrong because he forgets that DOOM Eternal is a sequel to DOOM 2016. 

 

How would you like it if Bloodborne 2 or The Witcher 4 came out and you see random giant man-sized question marks spread around in the world? I think the internet would be set on fire, knowing those fanbases.

 

The Doom Slayer runs slower, much slower than previously. You can notice this particulary well in the E3 footage, but enemies blindside you pretty much all the time. There are many more enemies per arena, they take many more shots to go down and are far more aggressive than they previously were, and that's good! However, you're slow as molasses. You can't run infinite laps in the arenas like you did in 2016 because you walk like a snail compared to the enemies. To give you an idea, you feel like you run slightly faster than a protagonist in a regular modern FPS. 

 

So, you're slow and the enemies are many, and take lots to go down. So they hit you from every which way because you can't dodge anything (which also is such a wonderfully subtle way to destroy the Slayer's menace), suddenly you run into an enemy because have no more room to maneuver, you try to kill an enemy with a double shotgun, you shoot, expecting to quickly land a glory kill but the enemy is still standing because they are way stronger. And most of the time you won't have any bullets because you already used them on your way to the enemy you bump into. The whole flow and rhythm was off constantly.

 

It's a clusterf*ck, and while I fully beat the demo with no lives lost, I can't say I had fun. The bug where a Prowler was invincible so I had to restart the demo all over again certainly was the cherry on top.

 

You are given many options to kill demons - so very many of them - but you are hampered all of the time by little details that make the game far less fun. Off the top of my head, the weapons I encountered were the following: there's the Flame Belch (shoulder mounted fire), Blood Punch, Dash (blink forward x 2) and a shoulder mounted grenade, plus your weapons' primary fire AND a secondary fire. There are tons of ways to kill demons, and yet the more I think about my short time with it the more I feel like the "less is more"-mantra applies very well here. 

 

Like the dash ability, for example, with it's progress bar to load more charges, feels imprecise in it's usage because you never exactly know when you can use it again. I didn't hear a sound queue for it. While you may scoff at this idea, I have to reiterate that the demons hit harder than ever, so the game's mechanics have to be extra precise so that any fault or death is not the game's fault of telling you information but rather your own fault. The shoulder-mounted grenade felt so clumsy and imprecise, and I almost blew myself up with it. And while it may be too early to say this: I had no idea how much damage I was doing with what. The Flame Belch looks fancy and brutal but I don't think it did much. What affects what enemy in what way? I couldn't tell from a glance.

 

2016 was elegant in its design and it didn't overcomplicate things. Marty and Hugo, like two automatons in every - single - interview love to tell you how much of a "race car"-experience Eternal is, by which I want to ask what was wrong with the original experience. Wasn't the "race car" we were driving with three years ago not good enough for them? Apparently not? 

 

I talked at length with a friend of mine about my feelings towards the game and he responded with saying that we may have a case of severe overcorrection and I think that's the one-word description of how I feel about it.

 

 

Summary

 

Did I "hate" Eternal? No, not at all. I can't hate something that looks like it had so much work poured into. But I do, however, not like it. It's ridiculous in a bad way. In a dumb way. And it doesn't play well with your fingers. 

 

Yet, every time I see new footage, like the Doom Hunter one from a day ago, I cannot deny I feel a little flicker of excitement for it. I can't say with certainty that I will buy it, day one, and I don't think anybody should. I think I - all of us - need to take a wait and see approach, because I feel like Eternal isn't the sequel people are expecting or really want, and knowing the current climate of game releases today, ... I dunno. I'm not really "hyped". It's Darksiders-esque colors and plushie-like unthreatening tone  killed it a bit for me. I was in it for the gameplay, sure, but mostly I was in it for the immersion, and that's been taken out of it. Now it's just a video game with elements of Quake I, Quake II, Quake III, DOOM 1, DOOM II, DOOM 3, it's the entire id Software past releases all in one messy, messy product. It's sloppy and inelegant and most damningly it's frustrating to play.

Edited July 29, 2019 by DoctorObviously

[bj25x]

I played the demo twice this weekend at QuakeCon Dallas. And like you, I went there specifically for Eternal. While I agree with some of your points, I had a much better final impression. 

 

Immediately after the first play through I did think the Slayer was a bit too slow during normal walking speed, and I think the dash actually exacerbates this feeling. And I agree with the grenade launcher feeling underwhelming and the flame belch needing to actually damage a demon, but these things can easily be improved.

 

The second play through actually felt much better for me. It does get hectic with all of those little bastards coming at you from every side, but I definitely would not call it “damningly frustrating,” and I am definitely keeping my pre order.

 

That sucks it burned you so bad! But who knows, maybe it was just a demo made months ago and they will make some tweaks before November 22nd.

Edited August 4, 2019 by bj25x

[Dylanblitz]

The slayer being slow, along with the HUD looking too clunky, are my only concerns so far; However, the HUD is supposedly customizable.

[DefilerPhil47]

I ran into a glitch during my 3 times playing it as well and it didn't exactly ruin my fun.  This is an early build and they even said it was an early build that has even changed a lot since that demo was made...  Remember that this demo was made in like April or May and is far from the final product.  This is the demo that people were playing at E3.  Hugo even stated that. 

 

In the keynote they said that there was going to be collectables, a tiny version of each demon for starters, so the question mark youre complaining about I assume is a blatant placeholder just to show the player that there are and will be secrets to find in the game.  There were multiple secrets you could find in the Demo, not every single one was a question mark.  The HUD they even said was going to be completely customizable. 

 

The combat flowed fine for me, I only had an issue with the last arena because I wasn't used to A) The key bindings and B) the characteristics of the new enemies.  By the time I was used to it, the ONLY thing I could complain about was on foot movement, which felt noticeably slower.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2019 by StainlessSteel

[thewormofautumn]

The coins, question marks, 1 ups, health vials are my biggest gripe with this game (I haven’t played the demo, to be transparent).

The feel of DOOM (2016) is gone and I keep expecting to hear Nintendo sounds when you collect those power ups.

i think you summed it up perfectly in saying these kiddy things (my bit) lessen the threat of the Slayer at a meta level.

[DooM_RO]

I'm not sure how they completely changed the art style. Looks exactly the same as 2016 but better.

 

I like the coins, questions marks and 1ups because it is a celebration of video games. It doesn't ruin immersion in a game like Doom and in fact enhances it for me.  It wouldn't work in any other game but it works in Doom. I'm glad you brought up Mario because for me Doom is in many ways like Mario with guns and demons. That's why it works and that's why immersion through gameplay works.

 

I want pickups to be big, colorful and even a bit obnoxious because I want to be able to see them a mile away, just like in the original. So yeah, big, colorful and spinning weapons is a plus for me.

 

The only thing that REALLY bothers me is that you are slower this time. I just can't understand why you are slower. Were you able to change the FOV? That makes a big difference.

Edited July 30, 2019 by DooM_RO

[DoctorObviously]

7 hours ago, bj25x said:

That sucks it burned you so bad! But who knows, maybe it was just a demo made months ago and they will make some tweaks before November 22nd. Maybe the floating question marks and coins are just place holders for the real secrets and pickups down the road? I mean I doubt they are sitting around twiddling their thumbs after QuakeCon saying job well done... 

 

Even though my impressions of the game haven't been great so far, it would be very silly to assume id Software is already celebrating and drinking champagne. I have no doubt that they are working 24/7 to change the game every single hour. I can only hope they read the most prominent complaints on forums and try to change the stuff that are easy to implement: the more options the more people it attracts, the more copies sold. Everybody wins, right?

 

 

2 hours ago, StainlessSteel said:

In the keynote they said that there was going to be collectables, a tiny version of each demon for starters, so the question mark youre complaining about I assume is a blatant placeholder just to show the player that there are and will be secrets to find in the game.  There were multiple secrets you could find in the Demo, not every single one was a question mark.

 

 

I had no idea! Where did you read that? 

 

 

1 hour ago, DooM_RO said:

I'm not sure how they completely changed the art style. Looks exactly the same as 2016 but better.

 

The only thing that REALLY bothers me is that you are slower this time. I just can't understand why you are slower. Were you able to change the FOV? That makes a big difference.

 

It's subtle, but 2016 felt much more grounded in reality, with far less contrasing colors and goofy-looking, plasticky enemies. It's not worse, or better, it's just different and I personally didn't like this cartoony / Darksiders-esque aesthetic.

 

As I stated before, no FOV slider.

 

[DooM_RO]

Just now, DoctorObviously said:

It's subtle, but 2016 felt much more grounded in reality, with far less contrasing colors and goofy-looking, plasticky enemies. It's not worse, or better, it's just different and I personally didn't like this cartoony / Darksiders-esque aesthetic.

 

As I stated before, no FOV slider.

 

 

I don't want it to be grounded in reality. There are plenty of games that do that and I am kind of sick of them. I want fun game spaces with cool and ridiculous art slapped onto them. I just want to have fun.

[Novaseer]

You mentioned that the FoV was low. That might be why the Slayer feels "slow". Doom 2016 has the same issue until you crank that mother up to 120/130 and fucking have at it.

[DoctorObviously]

Just now, Novaseer said:

You mentioned that the FoV was low. That might be why the Slayer feels "slow". Doom 2016 has the same issue until you crank that mother up to 120/130 and fucking have at it.

 

Yes, I was very used to an FOV of 130 in 2016, and I heard that the demo was hardlocked at 90, so that issue could be immediately resolved.

[Chezza]

In terms of equipment use, feeling of combat and speed I think it's more of a teething issue.

 

They made changes and included more tools which gives the Slayer a even bigger edge. They probably reduced speed as a handycap for all the other buffs he is getting. But with everything thrown at you and given all at once while adapting to the changes I can understand how it could feel off.

 

I believe if you played the game from the start and gradually unlocked all the tools then everything will come together.

 

As for the cartoony powerups I hope they're just place holders but it won't break the experience if not. Chances are they're for an Arcade mode and that was the demo.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Chezza

[zen4040]

You're going to have hud customizations and fov sliders, they confirmed that. At the very least there's going to be a command for it, they did it in doom 2016 so why wouldn't they now? And again they confirmed that in that 2018 gameplay.

You complained about the slow movement without mentioning dashes at all.

I get the immersion complaint but you just got to have a little bigger imagination.

[DoctorObviously]

1 minute ago, ([zen3001]) said:

You complained about the slow movement without mentioning dashes at all.

I get the immersion complaint but you just got to have a little bigger imagination.

 

I did mention dashes in the original post, though.

[zen4040]

24 minutes ago, DooM_RO said:

 

I don't want it to be grounded in reality. There are plenty of games that do that and I am kind of sick of them. I want fun game spaces with cool and ridiculous art slapped onto them. I just want to have fun.

you're going to be disapointed because doom is starting to take the story way more seriously, which I like since so far they've been handling it very well, haven't found myself rolling my eyes yet which I get to do a lot these days watching movies and games trying to have an emotional story

[zen4040]

1 minute ago, DoctorObviously said:

 

I did mention dashes in the original post, though.

yeah but you didn't mention if it makes up for the slow movement, from the gameplay I've seen with dashes and that dshotgun hook you're way more mobile now.

[DoctorObviously]

1 minute ago, ([zen3001]) said:

yeah but you didn't mention if it makes up for the slow movement, from the gameplay I've seen with dashes and that dshotgun hook you're way more mobile now.

 

Because it doesn't. It's a charged ability to be used in a pinch, and it doesn't replace quick movement. Novaseer already mentioned that this is due to the FOV, which I believe will be fixed in the full version:

 

13 minutes ago, DoctorObviously said:

 

Yes, I was very used to an FOV of 130 in 2016, and I heard that the demo was hardlocked at 90, so that issue could be immediately resolved.

 

[DooM_RO]

1 hour ago, ([zen3001]) said:

you're going to be disapointed because doom is starting to take the story way more seriously, which I like since so far they've been handling it very well, haven't found myself rolling my eyes yet which I get to do a lot these days watching movies and games trying to have an emotional story

 

No I'm not. It's 90s cheese. I like it.

[Kryt1caL]

I hated the glory kill animation when i first saw the Trailer in 2015 from doom16, but now it doesnt bother me. I hope id will give us the possibility to change icons more to serious. Anyone here in contact to marty Maybe? He listens to us and bethesda cant get another Desaster like rage 2 and fallout 76. 

[DooM_RO]

I also got the impression that they reduced the speed. I really hope that isn't the case. I simply can't see a reason for that.

[bj25x]

2 hours ago, DooM_RO said:

I also got the impression that they reduced the speed. I really hope that isn't the case. I simply can't see a reason for that.

There is a post on reddit where a guy claims he asked Hugo and Marty directly about the speed after playing the demo. According to him, they said the speed is EXACTLY the same as 2016. So yeah, I’m thinking the FOV will improve it. But, I also wouldn’t mind if they sped him up just a bit from 2016’s speed...

[DooM_RO]

Just add a rune that increases your speed when you pick up an item.

[Linguica]

This is silly. They went into extensive detail about how they had to make the enemies more aggressive because the dash move meant that nothing could ever catch you. There is no universe in which this makes the Doom Slayer "slower".

[Hunting4r2d2]

1 hour ago, bj25x said:

There is a post on reddit where a guy claims he asked Hugo and Marty directly about the speed after playing the demo. According to him, they said the speed is EXACTLY the same as 2016. So yeah, I’m thinking the FOV will improve it. But, I also wouldn’t mind if they sped him up just a bit from 2016’s speed...

Here's the link to the reddit post: 

 

[Zemini]

I think most of your problems with the game can be explained by the fixed FOV.  Someone at the booth told me it was at 90 so that will make your movement speed appear slow.  You also got dash and the meathook which will also speed up the doom slayer.

 

The Mars Core demo is based on a build of Doom Eternal from March of this year.  So the items such as the secrets were just place holders.  The hub, items and demons have gone through significant polish since then.

 

I wouldn't worry about the weapon pick ups as well as they were placed to help drip feed all the new stuff in the game.  I do agree that the Demo was overwhelming with the new combat cycle.  But by the time I played it my 4th/5th session I pretty much had it mastered.  I was lucky to get about 3 1/2 hours of play time.

 

The full game will start you off with less abilities and weapons before throwing you into the lions den.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Zemini

[DooM_RO]

I hope they keep the big, goofy pickups. I want to be able to read the battlefield in a milisecond. This is exactly what the game needs.

 

I repeat, in the case of a game like Doom it is actually immersive because immersion is so intimately tied with gameplay.

Edited July 30, 2019 by DooM_RO

[MrHofmann]

For now I am pleased with what I saw. The only things that kind of bothered me are: (1) falling of the map does not cost lives and (2) cracks on the main path of the level are colored green and the ones on the secondary path (secrets) are black, which also implies that the levels are not truly non-linear. Not sure how I feel about these two things, will have to play and see.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Hofmann

[thewormofautumn]

Give me the option to use less intrusive power ups on the map and I’m happy. A toggle in the menu will be fine.

also the ability to remove 1ups

or they might as well give green and red mushrooms and fire flowers to complete the arc.

[DefilerPhil47]

17 hours ago, DoctorObviously said:

 

 

 

 

I had no idea! Where did you read that? 

 

 

 

I was at the Keynote at Quakecon and heard those words come out of Hugo and Marty's mouths.  Unfortunately I do not have written proof, but I'll find the video.

 

But yes, to reiterate, there will be lots of different types of collectables.  I too do not like the big question mark but after seeing the Slayer Key that you can find, I assume the floating question mark is just a place holder.

 

I am excited for little toy demons.

 

EDIT: and here it is!  I time stamped it for you.  

 

Edited July 31, 2019 by StainlessSteel

[Dylanblitz]

14 hours ago, Hunting4r2d2 said:

Here's the link to the reddit post: 

 

I was curious about this as well...

[deuce]

On 7/29/2019 at 11:45 PM, DoctorObviously said:

So, on the 27th of July I went to QuakeCon in London and played DOOM Eternal at 09:30.

 

 

A few disclaimers

 

It may seem strange to put up a post about this two days after the fact but the truth is that I had a ton of new information I needed to process and I didn’t want to make boisterous, fierce, hasty criticisms towards – let’s be fair here – one of the only big-budget single player-focused (hopefully) shooters that I’m excited about in the last years. When it comes to solid, expensive, quality games made with passion I’m actually really starving. I’m a pretty huge fan of the 2016 release and consider it a new standard for other developers to aspire to. It’s a personally important game as well.

 

I didn’t like DOOM Eternal at E3 2018, I really didn’t like it at E3 2019 and now that I’ve played it I cannot say that I enjoyed myself, because I didn’t.

 

I already know that childish comments claiming that I’m a troll are incoming, and I can’t stop those, but know that I’m not from the UK, and I travelled specifically to play Eternal, because I respect id Software and what they produce is usually fantastic stuff. I don’t think a “troll” which is pretty much everybody these days, would pay for and travel to another country to play a game to then bash it on the internet for the lulz. No doubt you will find some tiny thing in the thread to pick apart and take out of context. Oh boy.

 

 

The demo itself

 

To clarify, the demo I played was all the footage you could see in the E3 2019 demo and the b-roll footage you can find on YouTube. Our group (of 09:30) had half an hour to play the demo.

 

To my immediate annoyance, almost nothing could be changed in the options menu. I understand that graphics settings can’t be changed, but the options menu lacked an FOV option (which was too low during gameplay) and rebindable keys, which was an immediate pain in my d*ck. The mouse sensitivity was customizable (thank god) as well as the difficulty setting. I had either the choice of Easy and Medium. Because I could play 2016 on Nightmare in my sleep, I obviously chose Medium. As a small but not unimportant addendum, while we got an expensive looking PC with an equally expensive looking setup and chair, I never sat very comfortably. There’s a big difference to playing a game in your home as opposed to an unknown environment with a time limit and keybinds you don’t like.  

 

 

Playing Eternal

 

If you go into Eternal thinking you’ll have an awesome time, having had a lot of experience with 2016, you’re sorely mistaken. I'll try my best to explain. 

I think, and I feel many people think that DOOM 2016 was absolutely fine - but id changed pretty much everything. They changed the aesthetics, which I have complained about - often and loudly. They created frankly asinine elements which don't belong in a Doom game, such as the coins and question marks.

 

These details fundamentally undermine the entire atmosphere of the game and the threat of the Slayer, because I cannot take the badass struggle of a walking tank-monster taking on the hordes of Hell while collecting Mario coins seriously anymore. And for the literalist morons who don't understand context: I mean seriously not as in Batman-brooding, but rather in tone with what you're supposed to feel in that story and that universe. In earlier interviews Hugo explains that Eternal is very much the Evil Dead 2 to 2016's Evil Dead... and while he describes Eternal to a T, he's also wrong because he forgets that DOOM Eternal is a sequel to DOOM 2016. 

 

How would you like it if Bloodborne 2 or The Witcher 4 came out and you see random giant man-sized question marks spread around in the world? I think the internet would be set on fire, knowing those fanbases.

 

The Doom Slayer runs slower, much slower than previously. You can notice this particulary well in the E3 footage, but enemies blindside you pretty much all the time. There are many more enemies per arena, they take many more shots to go down and are far more aggressive than they previously were, and that's good! However, you're slow as molasses. You can't run infinite laps in the arenas like you did in 2016 because you walk like a snail compared to the enemies. To give you an idea, you feel like you run slightly faster than a protagonist in a regular modern FPS. 

 

So, you're slow and the enemies are many, and take lots to go down. So they hit you from every which way because you can't dodge anything (which also is such a wonderfully subtle way to destroy the Slayer's menace), suddenly you run into an enemy because have no more room to maneuver, you try to kill an enemy with a double shotgun, you shoot, expecting to quickly land a glory kill but the enemy is still standing because they are way stronger. And most of the time you won't have any bullets because you already used them on your way to the enemy you bump into. The whole flow and rhythm was off constantly.

 

It's a clusterf*ck, and while I fully beat the demo with no lives lost, I can't say I had fun. The bug where a Prowler was invincible so I had to restart the demo all over again certainly was the cherry on top.

 

You are given many options to kill demons - so very many of them - but you are hampered all of the time by little details that make the game far less fun. Off the top of my head, the weapons I encountered were the following: there's the Flame Belch (shoulder mounted fire), Blood Punch, Dash (blink forward x 2) and a shoulder mounted grenade, plus your weapons' primary fire AND a secondary fire. There are tons of ways to kill demons, and yet the more I think about my short time with it the more I feel like the "less is more"-mantra applies very well here. 

 

Like the dash ability, for example, with it's progress bar to load more charges, feels imprecise in it's usage because you never exactly know when you can use it again. I didn't hear a sound queue for it. While you may scoff at this idea, I have to reiterate that the demons hit harder than ever, so the game's mechanics have to be extra precise so that any fault or death is not the game's fault of telling you information but rather your own fault. The shoulder-mounted grenade felt so clumsy and imprecise, and I almost blew myself up with it. And while it may be too early to say this: I had no idea how much damage I was doing with what. The Flame Belch looks fancy and brutal but I don't think it did much. What affects what enemy in what way? I couldn't tell from a glance.

 

2016 was elegant in its design and it didn't overcomplicate things. Marty and Hugo, like two automatons in every - single - interview love to tell you how much of a "race car"-experience Eternal is, by which I want to ask what was wrong with the original experience. Wasn't the "race car" we were driving with three years ago not good enough for them? Apparently not? 

 

I talked at length with a friend of mine about my feelings towards the game and he responded with saying that we may have a case of severe overcorrection and I think that's the one-word description of how I feel about it.

 

 

Summary

 

Did I "hate" Eternal? No, not at all. I can't hate something that looks like it had so much work poured into. But I do, however, not like it. It's ridiculous in a bad way. In a dumb way. And it doesn't play well with your fingers. 

 

Yet, every time I see new footage, like the Doom Hunter one from a day ago, I cannot deny I feel a little flicker of excitement for it. I can't say with certainty that I will buy it, day one, and I don't think anybody should. I think I - all of us - need to take a wait and see approach, because I feel like Eternal isn't the sequel people are expecting or really want, and knowing the current climate of game releases today, ... I dunno. I'm not really "hyped". It's Darksiders-esque colors and plushie-like unthreatening tone  killed it a bit for me. I was in it for the gameplay, sure, but mostly I was in it for the immersion, and that's been taken out of it. Now it's just a video game with elements of Quake I, Quake II, Quake III, DOOM 1, DOOM II, DOOM 3, it's the entire id Software past releases all in one messy, messy product. It's sloppy and inelegant and most damningly it's frustrating to play.

Hey man. I was at Quakecon London too. I was playing at the same timeslot as yourself. Were you in the "hell" booth or the "cafe" booth? I was in the latter.

 

I not going to respond to each point you make and at the end of the day, we all have different tastes and ideas of what Doom should be.

 

I loved all the over-the-top floating objects (question marks, gold coins, etc) makes the whole experience very "video gamey" and not taking itself too seriously. Even Marty and Hugo have said this is the direction they are taking the franchise and I feel it's for the better. Helps it stand out from the ultra-serious AAA FPS games we get nowadays.

 

About the player speed. You know we can now dash in this game? Again, quoting Marty and Hugo, they said that having 2016 movement speed with the dash ability actually broke the gameplay. They had to change things up to make the whole experience refined.

 

In term's of the FOV, I found it alright to play at 90 but I do find it odd how the options had mouse sensitivity and controller sensitivity but no fov options.