Doom Eternal

It's the raw cerebral intensity of Quake married with Doom's enemy roster and its violent, cathartic attitude. Enjoying this game requires a certain frame of mind, a certain willingness to push yourself and to think in the heat of the moment. But it's extremely rewarding if you meet it on its own terms. Nearly every weapon feels like it has a significant role, a stark contrast to Doom 2016's promotion of 2 weapon playstyles. Ammo counts have been massively reduced, pushing the player towards intelligent use of their loadout. Overall, the way I would describe this difference is that Doom 2016 treats its weapons as a set of toys, in which any can be used at any time without too much consequence. Doom Eternal treats them as tools, and you have to use them well to achieve success.

The Doom Slayer is more mobile in every possible way and the combat is even more fast paced. Enemies are smarter, more aggressive and more varied across the board. New abilities like the blood punch, flame belch and ice grenade have been added, and provide even more tactical depth.

The end result of all of this is a hyper-intense gameplay loop of constant movement, weapon swapping, and decision making. It makes you feel like a demon-slaying god when you finally overcome. It's extremely engaging to the point that I keep coming back even after like 4 playthroughs.

All in all, from a gameplay standpoint it's one of the best SP FPS games ever, and a clear improvement over Doom 2016 in all of the ways that matter most. There's really not much else like this in the modern market. In an age in which arena shooters and movement based shooters are dying and the market is overwhelmingly shifting towards slower, less intense genres like tactical shooters and Battle Royales, it's nice to know that a game like this can still be made and find success. I'll get sappy for a second and say this: Thank you, id Software. You're the only AAA developer that still cares about the things I value in a shooter.