Steam Rating: Very Positive (85,000+ reviews) | Metacritic: 89/100 (PC)
Developer: id Software | Release Date: March 20, 2020 | Steam Price: $39.99
"The Steam community has broadly crowned Doom Eternal as a landmark for the FPS genre in the 2020s. Where DOOM (2016) was a triumphant resurrection of the franchise, Eternal is something more radical — a total reinvention of what a first-person shooter can demand from its player. The most telling sign of how good this game is? The most common negative reviews don't complain that it's bad, but that it "ruined other FPS games" by setting the bar impossibly high.
A World Swallowed by Hell
Doom Eternal picks up immediately after the events of DOOM (2016). Earth has fallen. Hell's armies have consumed 80% of humanity, city skylines are replaced by demonic spires, and civilization's ruins stretch across every horizon. The Doom Slayer operates alone from the Fortress of Doom — a skull-shaped stronghold orbiting what remains of the planet.
The narrative ambition here far exceeds the 2016 predecessor. Through Codex entries scattered across the environment, the Slayer's true history is slowly excavated: his connection to the Sentinels of Argent D'Nur, his relationship with the Seraphim, and his transformation into something ancient civilizations fear more than death itself. It's lore delivered through discovery rather than exposition, which suits this game's relentless kinetic energy perfectly.
New characters like Hayden and Urdak's Khan Maykr add intrigue and a few expected betrayals. But the most effective storytelling in Doom Eternal happens not in cutscenes but in geometry. Sprinting across a ruined New York skyline with a hellish citadel dominating the horizon, or setting foot on the alien shores of Urdak for the first time — these moments communicate the epic scale of this conflict in a way no dialogue ever could.
The Combat Loop: A Symphony of Controlled Chaos
Calling Doom Eternal "a fast shooter" is a bit like calling chess "a game where you move pieces." The combat system is, at its core, a resource management engine running at 60 frames per second.
Three critical resources govern every encounter:
- ▶Health: Restored almost exclusively through Glory Kills — brutal finishers on staggered enemies
- ▶Armor: Generated by burning enemies with the Flame Belch shoulder attachment
- ▶Ammo: Replenished by chainsawing demons, which causes them to explode into ammunition
Every fight becomes a dance between depletion and replenishment. You fire your best weapons to burn through ammo, then chainsaw a weak imp for refills, then dash through a cluster of zombies for a Glory Kill to top off health, then burn a Cacodemon to harvest armor. The first hour feels overwhelming. By hour ten, it feels like conducting an orchestra.
The weapon mod system deepens this further. Every primary weapon carries two distinct modification slots, each fundamentally altering its role. The Super Shotgun's Meat Hook grapples onto enemies, functioning as both a combat tool and a traversal ability. The Ballista's Arbalest mode punches through Doom Hunter shields. These aren't passive stat boosts — they're verbs that expand what you can do in any given second.
Movement is equally critical. Dash charges, a double jump, wall-climb ledges, and the Meat Hook combine into a movement toolkit that lets skilled players essentially fly across arenas. Standing still — even for a second — results in rapid death. Forward motion is both survival strategy and offensive weapon.
Enemy Design as Puzzle Architecture
Doom Eternal's most brilliant design decision is treating each enemy type as a puzzle piece rather than a health bar. The game never tells you this directly, but it trains you through failure: certain enemies require specific approaches to kill efficiently.
- ▶The Marauder: Shielded with both a shotgun and axe, it only becomes vulnerable when its eyes flash green during its attack animation. Too far? It throws the axe. Too close? The shield blocks everything. Middle distance, precise timing.
- ▶The Archvile: Endlessly spawning enemy shields means you must kill it first or accept being permanently outnumbered.
- ▶The Pain Elemental: Killing it without explosive damage spawns Lost Souls across the arena. The "wrong" kill method creates new problems.
The result is that mixed-enemy arenas become complex simultaneous puzzles. Identifying which demon to kill first, with which weapon, while maintaining resource levels, while not dying — all within reaction-time windows — is the purest expression of the game's genius.
Visuals and Audio: The Sound of Hell
The id Tech 7 engine renders Doom Eternal with extraordinary technical competence. Dense particle effects, dozens of enemies on screen simultaneously, and consistent 60FPS even on mid-range hardware at launch — the game is a showcase of how good optimization looks when it's taken seriously. The visual design blends organic hellish architecture with sleek Maykr technology, creating environments that feel genuinely alien.
But the crown jewel is Mick Gordon's soundtrack. The score fuses industrial metal, electronic, and ancient choral elements into something that functions as a psychological weapon. It calibrates perfectly to combat intensity, surging when things get desperate and receding during brief traversal moments. The Marauder's unique theme is practically Pavlovian — players who've faced that enemy know exactly what the music signals. The OST stands as one of gaming's finest, regularly revisited by fans long after the credits roll.
Campaign Length and Post-Game Content
The main campaign spans 13 levels across roughly 15–20 hours of play time. The variety of settings is exceptional: burning Earth cities, the medieval-magic realm of Cultist Base, the demonic plane of Taras Nabad, and eventually the angelic realm of Urdak itself. Each environment brings new enemy combinations and arena designs.
Completing the campaign unlocks Master Levels — remixed, brutally amplified versions of existing stages designed for players who found the base campaign insufficient. Two paid DLC expansions, The Ancient Gods Part 1 and Part 2, extend the story to a satisfying conclusion.
Tips for New Slayers
The most common beginner mistake is hoarding ammo. In Doom Eternal, ammo is infinitely renewable via chainsaw kills — the design actively encourages spending it freely. Trying to be conservative leads to passive play, which leads to rapid death.
Five essential habits:
- 1Always be moving — standing still is a death sentence
- 2Glory Kill constantly — health will always be your most critical resource
- 3Use the Flame Belch on cooldown — armor feeds are easy to miss
- 4Prioritize threat elimination — Archviles and Marauders first, always
- 5Cycle weapons aggressively — mono-weapon play depletes ammo instantly
Doom Eternal also includes granular accessibility options under Assist Mode and Slayer Mode, allowing individual tuning of damage sliders, invincibility frames, and enemy modifiers. There is a version of this game that is playable and enjoyable for everyone.
Final Verdict: A Genre-Defining Masterpiece
Doom Eternal is one of the high-water marks of first-person shooter design. Every system points toward a single purpose; every difficulty curve is earned; every victory feels like a physical accomplishment. The initial hours are genuinely hard, and the game makes no apology for that.
But what waits on the other side of that learning curve is something most games never achieve: a state of pure flow. Navigating a packed arena with no health, one chainsaw kill away from ammo, threading Glory Kills between shotgun blasts while managing cooldowns — and surviving — delivers a euphoria no passive entertainment can match. Once felt, it's never forgotten.
GamePeak Score: 94/100