I got to spend my Thursday night with the finale of Doom Eternal and I think it was really well done. Part 2 managed to maintain everything we love about Doom Eternal while giving us a big finish feeling. There really isn’t a whole lot to tell here as the DLC is pretty straight forward. The intro cutscene for the final set of levels just makes that final battle feel so big and epic. The difficulty was dialed way back from The Ancient Gods 1 and to be honest I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not a big Doom speed runner or out to get ultra nightmare but I’m going to assume this was the same difficulty as the base game. That said it took me essentially 6.5 to 7 hrs to comelete the dlc at the “Hurt Me Plenty” setting which is what I consider “normal” difficulty. This makes it feel short even though it seems like roughly the same amount of content as part 1, which took me over a week due to part 1’s difficulty. Perhaps they could’ve left the difficulty up just a little bit higher or made the arenas just a touch tougher and truly taken advantage of the Sentinel Hammer.

The grapple points were a great addition to being able to traverse the terrain. It’s one of those little things I found myself wondering why this wasn’t in the game from the beginning. I cant tell you how frustrated I was at times simply trying to climb things and get to places, only to fail because my timing or something was just a little bit off. This fixed that. It was one of those things where they could’ve left it alone and nobody would’ve complained but they went ahead and “fixed” it anyway. Well done id.

I do have a few complaints though. Small ones, but complaints none the less.

First is the Sentinel Hammer. While it is a cool item, I didn’t find it terribly useful. Maybe it was the difficulty I played on that I didn’t feel the need to use it often. Could be that the difficulty of Ancient Gods 1 prepped me incredibly well for part 2 and thus I didn’t need to use it, until I was essentially forced to. Maybe it’s a little of both. The few times I did use it, before I had to use it in the final battle with the Dark Lord, it didn’t feel… satisfying. It didn’t have that “oh my god this thing just saved my ass” feel to it. Maybe because it’s so easy to charge. Or it could be, because at least in my play through, there was an abundance of ammo for it which made trying to charge it pointless. It never had that “break glass in case of emergency I should hold onto this until I absolutely have to fucking use it” value to it since there was always ammo lying around for it. The only time I ever felt like it was rare was during my fight with the Dark Lord and he spawned heavy demons, but not the dogs to recharge it for long periods. It was only here that I held onto it’s charge because I was in fear of him giving me the opening to stun him and then not be able to follow up and inflict large chunks of damage on him. In the end it’s not that the hammer is a bad idea, it just felt unnecessary.

Which brings me to my second complaint: the final battle with the Dark Lord. It’s incredibly long and repetitive and feels more like a mid game boss fight than an epic “this is for all the marbles” endgame battle. There are about five or six levels to this fight that are all incredibly repetitive. The actual sequence itself isn’t hard as he’s essentially just a Marauder with “extra steps” ie: the Sentinel Hammer. The problem is that at no point didi the battle get intense. There was never really an “oh shit” moment. Through six phases, not once was I ever scared of him. Icon of Sin? Huge and fucking scary. Final fight for Ancient Gods Part 1? Shit this is going to be tough. Dark Lord? meh, I’ll just wait out his green flash and this should be over soon. The only thing even remotely difficult about him was the last phase where he drops in heavy demons from time to time that you have to clear out. Use the hammer and you’ll be fine, just hope he doesn’t give you the opening before you can charge the hammer again. Even though this is second on the list, it’s probably my biggest gripe. It just doesn’t feel like DOOM.

My last complaint is the ending cinematic. It’s very short. It’s great that it gets straight to the point, I just feel like it leaves a lot out. It does harken back to Doom 2016 and a clue is given at the beginning of your fight with the Dark Lord if you’re paying attention. The thing of it is, from a story perspective ¹ it just felt rushed and thus unfulfilling. I understand the whole perpetual torment thing and that everything outside of Hell would be killed as they were all the Dark Lords creations and that this includes the Slayer. But just “telling” something with very little “show” doesn’t always work. Even though this ending does work, and I do like it because it is exactly what it should be, I would’ve appreciated something a bit.. bigger. Something that made fighting through Hell, almost literally in the case of Ancient Gods 1, rewarding. The thing is, it didn’t even have to be much. It really could’ve been just a few lines of dialogue explaining what was happening and why.

All in all I do think it’s a great end to a great story and a great bit of DLC. The combat never felt bad. There was only one potential bug that I experienced and I’m going to chalk that up to the pandemic as it was such a simple thing that probably would’ve been caught had they been in the office. The game looked beautiful and ran smooth. I know people are complaining about rehashing demons but this is par for the course with any DLC. Enemies get recycled, that’s just how it is. To be completely honest I wouldn’t have even cared if they recycled the Icon of Sin or something from Doom 2016 for the Dark Lord fight. The only downside really is the endgame. I probably would’ve have been disappointed less if either the Dark Lord fight or the ending had been bigger or just that bit more detailed. It’s just that to have the end fight be a Marauder with “extra steps” and then to have the ending itself be such a short scene, I just can’t help but wonder if this is the result of the team being up against the clock of the year 1 content pass with no way out.

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