Doom Eternal is a First-Person Dark Souls in Disguise

How id Software turned the iconic FPS into a cerebral action game

Josh Bycer
SUPERJUMP
Published in
8 min readAug 15, 2020

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Doom (2016) was one of the most successful relaunches of a major franchise alongside Assassin’s Creed 2 and Resident Evil 7. It brought the series, and FPS design, back to the basics with one of the purest examples of the genre in a long time.

The follow-up, Doom Eternal, isn’t just a bigger-budget sequel. In some important respects, it’s a complete inversion of Doom’s design. This is a game you’re going to either love or hate. For what it’s worth, I loved it.

Doom Eternal is, in a sense, a remake Doom 2. The demons have taken over Earth, and it’s up to the Slayer (AKA Doom Guy) to wage a one-man war against hell. The first thing you will notice is the story because the game hits you over the head with it.

“DOOMED” by Nathan Anderson.

In the previous game, the story simply served as a backdrop for the Doom Guy to rip and tear across Mars. Here, the developers have taken extreme lengths to build an entire narrative around the game. You are no longer just a Space Marine, but part of an ancient race of protectors with their own…

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Josh Bycer
SUPERJUMP

Josh Bycer is the owner of Game-Wisdom and specializes in examining the art and science of games. He has over seven years of experience discussing game design.