Review: Doom Eternal (PlayStation 4)

by Jim Smale · Published March 17, 2020 · Updated March 17, 2020

Hell’s armies have invaded Earth. Become the Slayer in an epic single-player campaign to conquer demons across dimensions and stop the final destruction of humanity. The only thing they fear… is you.

Pros:

Gorgeous graphics.
45.03GB download size.
Platinum trophy.
3 save slots.
HDR support options-Brightness/saturation/min stops/white point/max stops.
Colorblind settings.
Invert axis and sensitivity slider.
Ui-Six colour schemes/crosshair style/presets/Hud style.
Seven control layouts including custom.
FPS gameplay.
Customize character-Demons/Slayer/Gun skins.
Player card-unlock avatars and name cards. Shows your EXP level and rank.
Event-looks and acts like a season pass, you do tasks and just play the game to earn EXP and unlock cosmetic rewards.
Boost-Add 3 friends and you get to share an earned EXP percentage.
Fov slider.
Master levels-remixed levels.
Six difficulties-I’m too young to die/Hurt me plenty/Ultraviolence/Nightmare/Ultra nightmare/Extra life mode.
Banging heavy metal soundtrack.
Collectibles-Lore/toys/cheat codes.
Milestones-own in-game achievements with rewards.
Two modes-Campaign and Battle mode.
Armour/health/ammo/lives pickups in the level.
Clever level design with hidden routes and all secrets have teleporters or hidden doorways.
Lives-if you die you instantly come back and carry on. If you have no lives you restart at the checkpoint.
Empowered demon’s-these show up in your game after killing another player in their game and they invade you. They have more loot.
Wall climbing and pole swinging interactions.
Actions-double jump, double dash, main gun, grenade or ice bomb and fire belch which causes enemies to drop armor. Chainsaw ( needs fuel) kill small enemies to get ammo drops.
Glory kills-visceral and satisfying kills on staggered (flashing) enemies and give health.
Mod stations-allows you to pick one mod for your gun per mod station.
New mods trigger a video showing them in use or let you use the gun in a separate practice area.
Runes-like the mod station, you get to pick a rune to unlock and can equip three at once. These are like buffs adding things like faster glory kills or regain dash quicker etc.
A constant stream of unlocks and upgrades.
Demon prison- are a practice area.
Buff totems- Spawn endless amounts of empowered enemies and only stops once you find and melee attack it.
Fortress of Doom-your hub which is a multi-layered ship and has unlocks to find thanks to Sentinel batteries which are the keys to open the unlocks.
Armour points-Find these discs in the game and use them to unlock permanent buffs and its split into 4 areas like exploration, ice bombs, and frag grenades and adds buffs like enemies take more damage or use more items, etc.
Mission challenges-optional side missions. Do 1 for a suit point or all 3 for a Sentinel battery.
Classic soundtracks can be played in your ship by interacting with their pictures on the wall.
Auto map-find in the level to fully uncover and show all pickups in a level.
Sentinel armor (optional) if you die enough you get to have a buff whereby you take much less damage.
Secret encounter events. Timed fight against waves of enemies.
Slayer gate-needs a key and is a much harder variation of the secret encounters.
Sentinel crystals-use in upgrade tree, each section has 2 unlocks, pick both and get a bonus buff. Each part gives either an armor/health/ammo capacity increase.
Big boss encounters.
Constant checkpoints.
Can change the difficulty whenever you want.
After game completion, you can carry on with your save and use mission select.
Map-Full 3D.
Cheats-Old school cool. Find and activate cheats like infinite health or ammo, Stronger enemies, etc.
Level select showing how many collectibles you have left to find.
Corruption meter-fills in by killing enemies and the different enemy types.
In-game cutscenes.

Cons:

Small text pop-ups.
Difficult.
A tiny tiny bit of slowdown.
Not always clear where to go.

10/10

Graphics - 10/10
10/10

Sound - 10/10
10/10

Accessibility - 10/10
10/10

Length - 10/10
10/10

Fun Factor - 10/10

10/10

Summary

Doom is back! I never played the last one as it made me feel sick and that put me off. Scared that it could happen here I soldiered on. I changed some of the many many settings and made it all a lot smoother and stable for my weak stomach! Right here we go, bear in mind I will sploosh over a lot of mechanics from the old Doom but this is my first exposure to it so deal with it. Doom Eternal is the best Doom game ever made! There it’s out there and it’s fucking true. The game is fast, visceral and so Goddam satisfying I kept grinning and swearing like a trooper. Levels have poles for swinging around which create content saving captures and awesome kills and deaths. Encounters generally get boxed in a set arena and you clear them out to progress. Glory kills are back and where you stagger an enemy then click a button and do an upfront brutal melee kill which rewards you with health. Talking of brutal melee, your chainsaw has you mowing down low-level enemies to get ammo from them, use your flame belch to have enemies take damage and drop armor. With these mechanics you build the killstreak, you build your legacy and best of all you survive! The enemies all look like the enemies from the og games but in a new 3D variation and all act uniquely. I lost count the number of times I would stop and take location pics or commentate on my kills like an esports caster on LSD whilst drinking Red Bull unfiltered. The story took me around 20 hours with only a bare minimum of exploring for exploration is encouraged and really shows off the devs level design chops, every secret area has a way to loop back to your starting position. Seriously couldn’t stop playing the game, Fortress of Doom is your ship that acts as a hub and houses unlocks, level select, arena practice areas and secrets. Lore is a pick up you find in the levels and add a lot to the game. To further demonstrate how mental this gets, you get these demon’s that can summon enemies and will continue to do so until you kill the summoner, likewise, a buff totem can spawn and spawns enemies much the same as the demon except with the totem they are stronger and faster and you must melee the totem to smash it. It’s a mechanic that turns a hectic situation into a shot I gotta survive the moment. Trust me when your in a room then the words Buff totem has arisen pops your hearts beats faster, the swear gets colder and your eyesight gets better. Battlemode is the mp but was unable to play at time of review with exception to the tutorials which allow you to try out all the demons and the slayer. When live Battlemode is a slayer vs 3 demon’s first to 3 events. Back to the single-player and aside from collectibles, replayability is alive and kicking thanks to guns, gun mods and gun masteries where you do a special task to get yet another attack option. Events act as a season pass and again have you playing the game more to unlock more rewards. Milestones are like achievements again with rewards. Master levels are special events that remix original levels and offer more challenges. I was on a time crunch so the bits in between combat did grind on me, having to solve simple but reflex heavy traversal with wall climbing and pole swinging I didn’t care for this. Like I said though it was purely because of the time crunch. I highly recommend Doom Eternal to anyone that enjoys FPS or gore or guns or gorgeous graphics etc. Doom Eternal is the new definitive Doom experience.