DOOM Eternal — The Ancient Gods Part 1 is a Shooter Expansion Done Right (Review)
Platform played: PC
Playtime: approx. 7 hours
Copy: Windows 10 Store digital purchase
Price/Availability: $19.99 USD (standalone), $29.99 (expansion pass). Available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC
Spoilers: none
The modern discussions surrounding downloadable content in video games is rightfully mixed. From the implementation of “horse armor” in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, gaming companies have consistently taken advantage of players for meaningless micropayments for content that just isn’t worth the price. Once upon a time — before the times of online patches and DLC— extra content for a video game meant something. Expansion content further fleshed out the games we loved even further; adding new content to a scale that developed games past the point of their release, and were usually sold in brick and mortar stores in a box. While many companies have moved past the expansion model of creating content for their games, a few popular AAA studios have still taken that philosophy to heart; the prime examples being CD Projekt Red (who are currently in an existential crisis over the botched launch of Cyberpunk 2077, completely ruining their once popular reputation), and id Software.
id Software understands that the audience they cater to does not care about dinky costumes sold on a store for a premium, but would rather enjoy the process of earning these rewards through mastery of the game (a once beloved practice that has slowly faded into obscurity). So when crafting paid content for the 2020 smash hit DOOM Eternal, everyone knew that any future content down the road was to be something special, and special it was.
The Ancient Gods Part 1 is the first expansion out of two currently planned add-ons to DOOM Eternal’s beloved campaign. The challenge is amplified, new areas are explorable, and new upgrades, demons, and more awaits players who those who mastered DOOM Eternal’s mechanics. What makes Ancient Gods so special is that it harkens back to the original fundamentals of expansion content: further developing the difficulty and mechanics from the base game.
Many expansions for beloved video games feel a bit “hand-holdy” these days, with players being able to access expansion content before they even finish the base game. While DOOM Eternal allows any purchaser of the content to just dive right into the madness of Ancient Gods, those who haven’t put in the time to master Eternal’s mechanics will be put in their place; even those who have seemingly gotten the base game’s combat nailed to a T are going to have a rough time, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Picking up where DOOM Eternal left off story-wise, The Ancient Gods sees DOOM Slayer’s conquest to slay every last demon imaginable continue, as he treks through several new areas to bring the threat to a close. Though the expansion has been out for a couple months, now, it’s best to experience the story for yourself without having anything spoiled to you. As expected, though, Ancient Gods’ story does have some developments through cutscenes just like the base game, yet a lot of information is additionally relayed to the player through lore documents that can be found throughout the levels of this expansion. Unfortunately, the story that’s directly delivered to the player outside of codex pages is largely delivered via exposition from a quirky intern character, which easily becomes The Ancient Gods’ major story crutch. Without the intern character relaying exposition during cutscenes and audio calls during missions, The Ancient Gods’ narrative would largely make little sense (and still kind of does despite the glorified exposition character).
Nevertheless, the story that Ancient Gods Part 1 delivers is more of what players would expect, so those who are really interested in further understanding the world id Software created can relish in its fantastical elements, and those who don’t care can just jump in to ripping and tearing.
When speaking about the overall aesthetics of The Ancient Gods Part 1, the same high-fidelity graphical detail is present from the base game, and still runs like a dream (at least on PC). The overall graphical prowess of the id Tech 7 Engine is further elaborated on with new looking environments and some interesting level gimmicks that further stretch the engine to showcase its fantastic abilities.
What some players might be aware of in terms of changes from DOOM Eternal to Ancient Gods is the lack of Mick Gordon handling the soundtrack. There’s no need to reiterate the entire controversy that happened earlier this year, but to make it short, Mick Gordon (the man who composed the soundtracks to DOOM (2016), Wolfenstein: The New Order/The New Colossus, Prey, and more) exited his partnership with id Software/Bethesda due to a controversy surrounding the physical release of DOOM Eternal’s soundtrack for the game’s collector’s edition. After Gordon’s departure, large shoes were to be filled for the soundtrack, since the tracks provided for each of the games Gordon worked on have been some of the best music ever composed for a video game. Thankfully, the combined efforts of David Levy (famed for his musical work on Rooster Teeth productions and more) and Andrew Hulshult (of DUSK and AMID EVIL fame) combined together to create a soundtrack that falls in line with the usual, expected format of the newest line of DOOM games, while also retaining an original style that still showcases the fantastic mixture of bass-heavy Death Metal instrumentals mixed with synth.
Speaking of ripping and tearing, Ancient Gods’ combat retains the classic, refined formula both DOOM (2016) and Eternal established. Fast-paced, frantic combat encounters that require quick thinking and precision on behalf of the player is the name of the game once again. What really sets the gameplay of Ancient Gods Part 1 away from its contemporaries, though, is the amplification in difficulty. As previously stated, The Ancient Gods Part 1 continues where DOOM Eternal left off both story-wise, and gameplay-wise. The extraordinarily hard demon encounters that were present towards the end of the base game are what the player starts out with in Ancient Gods. By the first level, the player will take on the entire demon roster from the base game, with several demon combinations that will act as a serious test of skill, no matter the difficulty level.
id Software truly understood the complaints certain players had about enemy types in the base game of DOOM Eternal. At launch, many had complained about enemies such as the tentacle monsters as well as the Marauders, both of which acting as a severe difficulty spike when they appeared due to their combat abilities and the time-sensitive nature of dispatching them before things got out of hand. id goes against the usual expected nature of these kinds of complaints by not removing or lessening the encounters with these enemies, but adding more of them in to greatly amplify the difficulty to heights never before imagined. The cheeky nature of these combat encounters truly shows on the first level, with multiple encounters involving Marauders, with the final climax of the extraordinarily long mission ending with a duel against two Marauders at the same time; a nightmare for many players, but a manageable fight for those who know the strategy for combatting these enemies.
Later on, the combat encounters get even wilder than the first level, with a gigantic tentacle monster causing a serious batch of trouble to those not ready for the encounter towards the start of the second level, which is further amplified with the new demon additions to the roster.
While the new enemies for The Ancient Gods are minimal, they make a major impact to gameplay. The first (and arguably most annoying demon addition) is the turret. Looking like little Sauron eyes from The Lord of the Rings, these turrets require precise blasts by either the machine gun’s precision shot, or the ballista’s normal fire. At least two shots are needed to take these things down, and are a high-priority target despite their minimal health, due to their rapid fire and that they cower from incoming fire if the player’s crosshair is on them for too long without making a shot.
The second addition to The Ancient Gods’ demon roster is the “Spirit,” a passive demon that doesn’t posses any direct attacks against the player, but can spell doom for them due to their abilities (pun intended). The Spirit possesses other enemies on the battlefield, greatly enhancing their attack power, health, and speed, and additionally removes any specific weaknesses the player would usually exploit to deal with said monsters. For an example: the Arachnotron enemy is powerful, yes, but easy to deal with as soon as their top turret is destroyed, removing their most powerful and frequent attack from their arsenal. When possessed by a Spirit, the Arachnotron’s turret cannot be destroyed, and it fires even faster and harder than before. To effectively kill a Spirit, one must first kill the enemy it’s possessing, only then, the Spirit leaves its host, but is also available to possess another enemy within that window of time, meaning the player must quickly equip the Plasma Gun’s Microwave Beam and cook the Spirit until it explodes. Failing to kill the Spirit in time will mean it gains a new host, repeating the process all over again, and when the combat encounters can include a barrage of highly deadly demons such as Tyrants, Barons of Hell, and yes, even Marauders, Spirits are the highest-priority monster the DOOM series has seen, yet.
Lastly, for new monsters, The Ancient Gods brings in is the Blood Makyr, a refinement on the Makyr Drones seen in the base game. Just like the Drones, the Blood Makyr requires a precision headshot to dispatch quickly, usually with the Heavy Canon’s precision shot mod. The catch for the Blood Makyr is that it’s almost always shielded, just like the Marauder, meaning that a valid opening is needed to attack the beast. Only when attacking is the Makyr available to attack, and just like the Marauder, the same audible ping is sent when the opening is available to exploit. While the Blood Makyr’s aren’t too complicated of an enemy, they can easily become overwhelming during The Ancient Gods’ frantic combat encounters.
Besides a few new enemy types, The Ancient Gods Part 1 introduces a new, and extremely difficult boss battle to the fray, which acts as the perfect difficulty spike for the expansion. Everything the player has learned up until that point will be put to the test, requiring the usual high-skill gameplay one would expect from this expansion.
With the small assortment of new enemies, while additionally bolstering the entire demon catalog from the base game, The Ancient Gods Part 1 is certainly no slouch in difficulty. And just like DOOM Eternal, Ancient Gods presents a slew of difficulty modes including “Extra Life” mode, and the infamous Nightmare and Ultra Nightmare difficulties for those gluttons of punishment.
Even after explaining the new demons, going over some of the combat encounters players will see, and with the difficulty modes explained, you’re still probably not prepared for how long Ancient Gods’ missions are. While only adding three new levels to DOOM Eternal, those three missions are exhaustingly long, with frequent, crushing combat encounters coupled with extended, and far more challenging platforming sections that were introduced in DOOM (2016), and further iterated on in Eternal. With only three new missions on the docket, The Ancient Gods can still run the average player eight+ hours depending on the difficulty level, and if the player decides to complete the new Slayer Gates, secret encounters, and find all the codex pages. While arguably steep at a $20 price tag, alone, The Ancient Gods Part 1 is still worth the price of admission for the new content, and is worth it even more when buying the full expansion pass for $30, and even more when the expansion pass or the full deluxe edition of DOOM Eternal goes on sale, which was recently as low as $30 for said edition from the recently passed The Game Awards sale.
As expected, DOOM Eternal’s first expansion is highly recommended to those who’ve been craving more DOOM in their lives. If you’re up for the challenge, The Ancient Gods Part 1 will certainly not disappoint hardcore fans of the series, but its steep difficulty curve will most certainly turn off those who were already apprehensive about DOOM Eternal’s increased difficulty from 2016.
