Doom Eternal Looks Bloody Great, But Has It Lost the Plot?
A new DOOM: Eternal trailer shows off the iconic franchise in its disgustingly-brilliant gore-fest. | Source: YouTube/ID Software
- Doom Eternal has recently received a new trailer.
- One of the game’s programmers has said that this is their best game yet.
- Despite this, the new trailer does cause some concern relating to the amount of story on display.
Doom Eternal just dropped a new trailer and it looks great. The combat seems to be even smoother than the 2016 game. It features a lot more verticality than the previous outing too. There are a few worrying things going on in the new trailer though. Namely, just how much talking is going on.
Not that you shouldn’t expect some talking in a standard game trailer. But this isn’t a standard game. Doom 2016 managed to revive classic FPS gameplay in the modern era. The problem is that Doom Eternal looks worrying close to reviving the cutscene-heavy antics of mid-2000s shooters.
Doom Eternal Should Be About Violence
If you take a look at the trailers for Doom 2016 you’ll probably notice something. Only the launch trailer has any dialogue at all. Even then, it clocks in at a measly 16 words. It then gets into the important part. Gratuitous violence. Just like the good old days.
Compare that to this Doom Eternal trailer. It passes 16 words in the first 30 seconds. It also takes over a full minute before we actually get to see the Doomslayer shoot something. Even then it cuts back to more talking and story moments towards the end again. Worrying, to say the least.
That’s not to say that this means the game is going to be bad. As I said before, the gameplay looks better than ever. A programmer on the game even said it was their best game yet . If anyone would know he would. I’m just skeptical about how much of this game is going to have me waiting for people to stop talking so I can rip their clavicle in two.
Talking Is Not What the Series Is Supposed to Be About
The original Doom 2016 was a great game. It was pretty damn successful too , commercially and critically. The reason it worked so well, was that it immediately captured the spirit of Doom. The scene at the start where the protagonist angrily destroys a computer, ignoring exposition from another character, is just perfect.
Doom Eternal is supposed to do the same thing. Give us a protagonist more interesting in destruction than whether or not he’s doing the right thing. Then load us up with guns and point us at a horde of demons. While it seems like the game is doing this a bit, the focus seems much more on the story now.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing in most cases. It’s just that Doom Eternal is supposed to keep the spirit of the original game alive. Something which has been in short supply lately. No consequences, gory fun. Hopefully, the game will come out and the Doomslayer will still be ignoring NPC’s to go and shoot stuff. I won’t be holding my breath for it though.
