Performance
For context, everything on my rig was about half between the minimum and recommended specs besides my processor which was just below minimum. Despite that, at medium settings, this game ran perfectly, it rarely crashed on me (only once when I alt-tabbed) and framerate was steady at 60 with only a few instances of dipping into the 45s or 30s when I was really surrounded with a lot of crap going on.
Graphics
Like every ID title, this game looks great, however the graphical jump from Eternal to here isn’t very obvious, but technical stagnation and no Carmack will make that happen. Having played the game, I have no idea why Ray Tracing is in this game because unlike Eternals Ray Tracing I never really saw it being used much, in fact I’d say Eternal uses it more prevalently than TDA does.
“Feel”/Exploration/Aesthetics
I don’t really know what to call this but one of the things that this game does is return to the “grounded” feel that 2016 had, for example the Slayer actually pulls off the key from corpses or pulls levers unlike Eternal which removed those outright. The art style feels more like 2016 and doesn't go off the rails as much as Eternal did. However TDA still has a sense of humor like 2016 did. The “feel”/Aesthetics is like a mix between 2016 and Eternal.
As for exploration? Well… Despite having a whopping 22 levels, this game is very lacking in collectibles. I'm sure for some of you that might sound like the greatest thing in the world, but I can’t help but feel something is missing.
Vehicle Sections
One of my fears going into this game was that they were going to lean too heavily into the sections that featured the Atlan and the Dragon. However, they exist solely to give the game variety so it isn’t just one giant Slayer level. This is a Doom game that is putting its focus a little more on the feel like 2016 did, just not as heavy as 2016. Think of these sections like the Little Sister level from BioShock 2, would you really hurt the game if you removed it? No, but it adds something to the whole regardless.
Weapons
Speaking of BioShock 2, this game reminds me of it a lot for some reason, obviously there's some prevalent similarities, like the tank-like movement or the 1-handed weapons, but there was one thing that I had a problem with both games that I later recognized.
The weapons in these games are TOO good, if that makes sense. The game does take a bit more of a 2016 approach to the weapon introduction, you don't get all the regular weapons until halfway through like 2016. But it doesn’t solve the issue of their power. This game goes out of its way to say “look, just use whatever you want, go nuts” and for some reason I just don’t want to? You aren’t forced to use any of them. So I don’t, and then I feel like the arsenal just goes unused and I think “well I wish I used such and such weapon.”
You remember weapon masteries from Eternal and 2016, those little challenges you had to do to give your weapons really powerful abilities? Those still exist, but because of the new currency system, you just unlock the mastery like it was a regular ability. Some weapons are better than others, in fact I’d say the second variant of every weapon you unlock is outright better than its first variant. Combat shotty versus SSG is maybe but everything else? No contest.
I find the way weapons are handled in this game so off. Weapon classes are just mods, and some of them should’ve been made separate weapons on the weapon wheel while some should've just been merged into each other as just regular weapon mods. For example the Ravager and Pulverizer should just be one weapon with one or the other being a mod instead of being swapped on the fly.
I think this game has the most mixed arsenal of the trilogy. Some are really great to use like the Impaler but some just feel lacking like the 2 launchers or the skull guns. Also I really don’t like that almost half of your weapons are fully automatic with very little differentiation besides one sucking less than the other.
I suppose it's my issue mostly, but I think the game should’ve put a little more focus on making use of your arsenal fully and switching around, just not as much as Eternal.
Melee
It's pretty good, you are by no means required to engage with the melee system at all so if you just want to shoot stuff then by all means shoot stuff to your heart's content.
Parrying is pretty satisfying but the game holds off on the shield runes so it feels a little lacking for the first half of the game or so.
Music
It’s aight. There are a couple standout tracks but nothing more than that really, 2016 still has the best soundtrack.
That said though, Mick's absence is not really felt, like I think you could show the Eternal soundtrack and the TDA soundtrack to a normie and I don’t know if they could say they were done by different people.
Difficulty
This is the easiest of the 3 games, by far. Extra lives return but they really should be called “get back into the action when random bullshit you didn’t even see offscreen kills you” yeah, that's the number one thing that kills you in this game, unfortunately.
That said, having played every other Nu-Doom, this is the only one that I can confidently say that I did not once die during my playthrough. I didn’t touch the sliders at all since I think it was a dumb idea from the start.
You wanna know the real kicker to all this? I was playing Ultra-Violence. On a first playthrough.
Story
The first 2 acts of the story are mid, but the cutscenes are not that bad and people who are whining about “woke” or some other such crap are just a bunch of people complaining and complaining and nothing more. Ahzrak is probably the best villain of the trilogy just by nature of the fact that he had more than like 2 minutes of screen time. One of my issues with this game is one that came from Eternal and wasn’t fixed unfortunately. That issue being that stuff just kind of happens or is brought up with like no weight whatsoever? The Betrayers son is in this game and that didn’t even click to me because they don’t even name him until the end of the game.
That being said: the last 8 levels of this game are amazing and the third act of the story is likewise.
The Cosmic Realm is awesome, the best way to describe it is it's like the same feeling that you got when you first went to the Kadingir Sanctum in 2016 or Urdak except made even larger this time because it's something completely different.
The good thing is that the Cosmic Realm levels feel different from the other levels, for example you have very little or next to no contact with anyone outside the realm during these levels much like in 2016, and they went out of their way to add these reality bending sections that screw with your perception of physics and what not. I wouldn’t say it's Quakian really, more like Giger-esque, or maybe not. The point is, it's not really Quake, like a lot of people seem to think.
So anyways, spoilers but Doomguy dies in this game. He blows himself up quite literally. Weird right? How can the Slayer die in game but still be canonical?
And as I’m thinking this, the game hits me with this:
The biggest disappointment starting the game was the lack of a Novik monologue and the slayers emblem. So here I am already awestruck at this sight, and then they drop this second bombshell:
A whole level of zombie slayer action with a new HUD face to boot. This is what I wanted out of the story, and while it sucks it took them until the last second to do it, it still delivered in spades.
And then they resurrect Doomguy by using Hell's trick against them???
Call me a soyboy, nerd, whatever, but this is absolute Kino and there is no convincing me otherwise. The following levels are equally awesome and have THIS amazing mission objective to guide you.
All in all, the story in this game starts out mixed but only gets better as the game progresses.
Overall Thoughts
I paid $70 for this game and I got 38 hours out of it on the first playthrough. Replay value is much lower here since it's incredibly easy to 100% on first playthrough. Money well spent? Yeah, I think so.
This game is, despite its flaws, pretty freakin’ good, and definitely worth a play. I don’t break my “never buy a game for more than $45” rule very often but I always make an exception for ID and I’m glad that I wasn’t let down. As for you dear reader(s), I would wait till it comes on sale since I know most of you guys seem to value your money a lot more than I do.
Is it better than Eternal or 2016? Nah, I don’t think so. Out of the Nu-Doom games I’d say it's the bottom of the 3, but it's still good.
Final score: 7/10
2016: 8/10
Eternal: 7.5/10
The Future/Predictions
All that said, I’ve got some crackpot theories about this game's development that I’d like to write down and see if they’ll be revealed to be true.
Firstly, I think this game was less something that was requested of ID by Zenimax and more so something of a passion project that they have been working on for some time (maybe from around Eternal’s launch) that ID was allowed to continue work on thanks to their success from 2016 and Eternal.
I don’t think this game is the “followup” we think it is. I think despite this game's longer length, it was designed to be a spin-off entry between games.
Notice I said between. If I’m not mistaken Hugo has said on stream that they were already working on the next Doom game (keyword: game, not DLC) so it would seem that this is Nu-Doom 2.5 instead of Nu-Doom 3. Sorry if that makes you a little sick, I know it kind of does for me. 4 games is really pushing it, but if it's a sequel I'll let it slide (mostly).
There were a lot of factors that just tipped me off to this:
- It's a prequel
- No multiplayer
- Different gameplay approach
- Different story approach
- There wasn’t as much advertising for TDA, although that could just be a side effect of E3 dying
- As I said earlier this seems to be ID’s passion project rather than a true sequel/follow-up
- I think higher-ups were a little apprehensive about this game and requested the difficulty slider features rather than ID being the ones who were behind it.
I’m hoping this isn’t just my subconscious desire and coping for a sequel to Eternal, but I digress.
TDA is going to get 2 DLCs(?), and while I’m a little weary of them given what happened with TAG, hopefully they will have learned where to put their focus this time. Personally, I had a blast and I’m excited to see what’s next.
