Released on March 20th, DOOM Eternal gives fans of the storied franchise a new opportunity to satiate their bloodlust. The game delivers in full, with a bombastic campaign taking the Doom Slayer to several corners of the Earth and beyond. The journey is not over once one reaches the credits, however, as there are still plenty of things to do, adding replay value to the fine product.
While one playthrough takes between ten and thirteen hours, checking off the items on this list extends that time exponentially. Demon slaying never felt so good, so players will no doubt want to stick around after finishing the campaign for the first time. We’ve added a few more entries onto this list to prolong the value of the reinvigorated DOOM franchise!
14 Duke It Out Online
When you’ve been sated by DOOM Eternal’s campaign mode, it’s time to take your skills into the online realm to battle other players. This doesn’t occur by way of traditional deathmatch, but rather, the inclusion of Battle Mode and Invasion.
Those soured by the lack of a deathmatch element can always find other games to sate those particular urges, but if you’re looking for a different kind of multiplayer experience, DOOM Eternal is a great place to start.
13 Try Out The New Content
id has dropped the first major update which now features Empowered Demons – this big, buffed up bad guys are responsible for having slain a fellow Slayer during their own campaign, and are now dead set on doing the same to you with significantly increased stats. Needless to say, there’s a certain satisfaction in downing a demon that has killed one of your fellow players.
Echelon Leveling is another major part of the package and is mostly designed to give you bragging rights as you progress your level, earning unique insignias in the process. Every time you achieve an Echelon bump, your level resets to zero, allowing you to build back up again. Many other fixes and balance checks were added, as well as the controversial Denuvo anti-cheat software for PC users, which has seen been removed in the 1.1 update, following a massive community backlash.
12 Play DOOM 2016
Yes, you should go back and play DOOM 2016, if for no other reason than to note the differences between both games. They may seem similar, but both games have their own particular style; sharing only a few elements between each other.
Besides, playing DOOM 2016 straight to the finish means you can immediately leap back into DOOM Eternal and continue the story, unabated. It’s a great excuse for a prolonged DOOM-fest.
11 Play Brutal DOOM
It’s no secret that the uber-popular Brutal DOOM mod for the classic game helped inspire the 2016 reboot. DOOM Eternal continues that tradition, just like the next game in the franchise undoubtedly will.
Brutal DOOM amps up the original DOOM and DOOM II with a spectacular series of game upgrades that feature much faster gameplay, upgraded weapons, new enemy attacks and sprites, and Gore Kills. It’s hard - perhaps nearly impossible to go back to vanilla DOOM!
10 Higher Difficulties
Anybody with some experience in first-person shooters would do best to start their first run through the campaign on at least the “Ultra-Violence” difficulty. This strikes a perfect balance, forcing the player to utilize all the tools in their arsenal to survive, but isn’t unbearably unforgiving.
After beating the game, however, ramping up the difficulty provides a whole new layer of challenge, and the player may even discover strategies they never considered while on the easier modes. It is not only harder; it feels like a whole new gameplay experience.
9 Getting All The Secrets
Once the credits roll, the Doom Slayer is allowed to venture to the various completed levels and explore his Fortress of Doom. This is so the player can pick up all the secrets they missed along the way.
Previous games in the franchise were not as kind in regards to secrets, but DOOM Eternal does not lock any secrets behind a progress wall, so players need not worry about missing something forever, and can look for them at one’s leisure.
8 Battle Mode
DOOM Eternal eschews the traditional multiplayer suite, perhaps in response to the negative reception it received for 2016’s DOOM, in exchange for Battle Mode.
In this two versus one versus mode, one Doom Slayer enters the arena with a full arsenal while two player-controlled demons try to take him down. The mode certainly is not for everyone, but at least there is a way to experience DOOM Eternal with friends. While the multiplayer changes are understandable, many fans undoubtedly miss SnapMap.
7 Mastery Levels
Like any Tripl-A game in the modern era, id Software plans to update DOOM Eternal with single-player content. One way they will extend the game’s life is through master levels. These challenges put players through a campaign level, only ramping the difficulty and enemy count.
At launch, only a couple of levels are available, but the developer has promised to update the playlist at a future date. The levels are huge enough already, so playing through them again with different parameters adds a lot of value.
6 Invasion Mode
This mode is not available at launch, but is expected to show up in a future update. Invasion Mode will allow a player to enter someone else’s campaign as a demon and try to halt their progress.
It should prove a fun and interesting way to interact with other players, though it has to be seen how powerful the demon will be. For players who don’t want their levels invaded, they can turn Invasion Mode off in a menu.
5 Easter Egg Hunting
Unlike other DOOM games, Eternal makes its secrets clear to the players on the map. That doesn’t mean deeper secrets are not hiding, however. In fact, some of them are waiting in plain sight. Plenty of Easter eggs are scattered throughout the levels and in the Fortress of Doom.
The Doom Slayer has a room which acts almost as a personal office, and inside, one can find numerous allusions to the prior games and even other id Software properties. A particularly funny one is Daisy, the Doom Marine’s rabbit who falls victim to the demons in the first game. A rabbit can also be seen in each level.
4 Empyrean Keys
Six Empyrean Keys can be found through completing Slayer Challenges. The Slayer Gates hidden in certain levels transport the player to an arena where they duke it out with a horde of demons.
Upon defeating all of them, they are gifted with an Empyrean Key. If the Doom Slayer collects all six, they unlock the Unmakyr, a powerful weapon with unlimited ammo. Of course, by that time most of the secrets have been unlocked, so the weapon is more for fun than any practical purpose.
3 DOOM 64
DOOM Eternal has some lore implying connections to the older titles in the franchise, particularly DOOM 64. How advantageous, then, that the old Nintendo 64 title comes as a pre-order bonus to the new game.
Anybody who paid for it prior to release gets it for free, and the game delivers the classic DOOM action one comes to expect from the franchise. Playing a previous Nintendo-exclusive game on a PS4 or Xbox One definitely feels funny, especially when “64” is in the title.
2 Playing With Cheats
Older gamers often reminisce about the days of cheat codes. They’d either buy a special book or wait for their favorite monthly magazine to come in the mail, and see if they came with any cheat codes for games they owned. Modern games usually lack these, but DOOM Eternal makes them a feature.
One can find cheats hidden throughout the levels, and can activate them in order to run through a cleared stage and have some fun. Some of them are gameplay modifiers while others are aesthetic, such as blood replaced by confetti or an invisible audience cheering on the player.
1 DOOM And DOOM II
There was a time when DOOM and its sequel were the cutting edge. Now, both games can secretly fit within another. The Doom Slayer’s desk has a computer with which one can interact. Both files are locked, however. The first icon is unlocked by collecting all the floppy discs, which lets the player play the first tile.
The second one is sealed behind a password, so one must simply type “FLYNNTAGGART” and the second DOOM game becomes available to play. Maybe if one knew they would be available in DOOM Eternal, they would not have bought the re-releases several months ago.
