The numbers coming from SuperData, the research division of Nielsen dedicated to video games, in a report which analyzes the game market in March 2020, reveal that spending on digital games reached $10.0B, which is the highest monthly amount ever and $1B over last year result.
The fact depicts a scenario where people are turning to games to entertain themselves during hard times of the COVID-19 crisis. And they choose online multiplier games as a socializing alternative to keep in touch with friends and know new people.
Due to the lockdown in many countries, premium console revenue increased by 64% from February to March and premium PC revenue by 56%. Mobile games were not negatively affected either, with a 15% year-over-year revenue increase, reaching a $5.7B amount, an increase driven by Pokemon GO, thanks to new features that make the game easier to play without having to leave home.
In the games for console, the Nintendo Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold more digital units in a single month ($5M) than any other console game in history, probably the social features and relaxing setting together with the possibility to purchase the game digitally have contributed to attracting players as never before during the pandemic.
In the games for PC, Doom Eternal sold 3 million digital units, which is more than three times what Doom sold during its launch in May 2016.
Doom Eternal: The game
Doom Eternal is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fifth main game in the Doom series and a direct sequel to 2016’s Doom. It was released on March 20, 2020, for Windows, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One, and expected a release for the Nintendo Switch version at a later date. The game received generally positive reviews, with praise for its campaign, graphics, level design, soundtrack, and combat mechanics.
The Gameplay
Players once again take on the role of the Doom Slayer, an ancient warrior who battles the demonic forces of Hell, from a first-person perspective. The game continues its predecessor’s emphasis on “push-forward” combat, encouraging the player to aggressively engage enemies in order to acquire health, ammo, and armor. The player has access to various firearms, such as the Combat Shotgun, Super Shotgun, Heavy Cannon, Rocket Launcher, Plasma Rifle, BFG 9000, and Ballista. Melee weapons such as a chainsaw, the “Crucible Blade” energy sword, and a retractable arm-blade called the “Doomblade” can also be used. The arm blade provides the opportunity for a larger variety of quick and violent “glory kill” executions, which drop extra health. The Super Shotgun is now equipped with the “Meat Hook”, a ranged accessory that grabs onto enemies and slingshots the player towards them, functioning as a grappling hook, useful both in combat scenarios and environmental navigation. The Doom Slayer’s armor now includes a shoulder-mounted Equipment Launcher with the ability to lob grenades and ice bombs. Additionally, the Flame Belch is a flame thrower, which causes the enemies to set on fire with it to drop armor pickups. Finally, killing enemies with the chainsaw will drop ammunition. New movement mechanics such as wall-climbing, dash moves, and horizontal bars to swing from have also been introduced.
Like its predecessor, Doom Eternal involves the player to develop simple tactics. As the game gets harder, the player needs to use the advantages of fight arenas and their bonuses smarter. They also need to decide which enemy has to be killed first and how to move on the battlefield.
Creative director Hugo Martin has stated there would be twice as many demon types as in the 2016 reboot. There are new types of enemies, such as the Marauder and Doom Hunter, while others, such as the Pain Elemental, Arachnotron, and Archvile, have been reintroduced from previous Doom entries. A new system called “Destructible Demons” is featured, in which enemies’ bodies become progressively destroyed and deteriorated in combat as they suffer damage. Through this system, certain parts of a demon’s anatomy can be destroyed to eliminate their ability to use their stronger attacks. There is also a new life system. During gameplay, players can collect 1-up items (which look like green helmets) scattered around the environment. When the Doom Slayer perishes in combat, he will respawn where he died if he has spare lives, instead of restarting at the nearest checkpoint.
The game features several asymmetric multiplayer modes, including “Battlemode”. This game type is a 2v1 PvP multi-round match where two player-controlled demons take on one fully loaded Slayer. There are five playable demons at launch, with more to be included in free updates post-launch. The five initially available demons are the Marauder, Mancubus, Pain Elemental, Revenant, and Arch-Vile. In addition to regular attacks, each demon has a “summoning wheel”, which contains a selection of four additional abilities. An additional mode, called “Invasion”, is also in the works, and is expected to be released as a free post-launch update. In this mode, players will be able to join others’ single-player campaigns, fighting against them as demons. This mode can be turned off by players who wish to play the game solo.
Also new to the game is the hub area, called “Fortress of Doom”, which players can visit between missions, containing a number of rooms with upgrades and gear locked behind doors. Players can also unlock a bonus weapon, the Unmaykr, after clearing six challenging Slayer Gates.
The Plot
Eight months after the events on Mars, Earth has been overrun by demonic forces, wiping out 60% of the planet’s population, under the now-corrupted Union Aerospace Corporation. What remains of humanity has either fled Earth or banded together as part of the Armored Response Coalition, a resistance movement formed to stop the invasion but have gone into hiding after suffering heavy losses. The Doom Slayer, having previously been betrayed and teleported away by Dr. Samuel Hayden, returns with a satellite fortress controlled by the AI VEGA to quell the demonic invasion by killing the Hell Priests: Deags Nilox, Ranak, and Grav. The priests serve an angelic being known as the Khan Maykr who seeks to sacrifice mankind. The Slayer teleports to a destroyed city and kills Deag Nilox, but the Khan Maykr transports the two remaining priests to unknown locations, forcing the Slayer to continue searching.
After retrieving a celestial locator from the Sentinel world of Exultia, the Slayer travels to Hell to retrieve a power source from a fallen Sentinel known as the Betrayer. He warns the Slayer that humanity’s time has come before giving him the power source and a special dagger. VEGA directs the Slayer to a citadel in the Arctic where Deag Ranak has taken refuge, and the Slayer kills him after defeating his guardian Doom Hunters.
In response, the Khan Maykr moves Deag Grav to a hidden location and accelerates the invasion of Earth. Forced to change tactics, the Slayer destroys the Super Gore Nest in central Europe, where the invasion began. With no leads on finding the last Hell Priest, VEGA suggests finding Dr. Samuel Hayden, who knows the location of Deag Grav. The Slayer makes his way to an ARC compound where he retrieves Hayden’s robot chassis and the demonic crucible before facing a Marauder, a demonic Sentinel sent to stop the Slayer.
Upon uploading Hayden’s mind into the fortress, he reveals Deag Grav is hiding on Sentinel Prime, with the only portal to Sentinel Prime located in the ancient city of Hebeth in Mars’ core. The Slayer travels to a facility on Phobos where he uses the BFG 10000 to shoot a hole in Mars, which he uses to reach Hebeth. After reaching Sentinel Prime, flashbacks reveal the Slayer to be Doomguy. Found badly wounded by Sentinels, Doomguy was brought before the Deags and was forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena. Impressed by Doomguy’s ruthlessness in battle, the Deags inducted him into the Sentinels, while the Khan Maykr inquires into Doomguy’s knowledge of the Demons. In the present, the Slayer finds Deag Grav in the arena and defeats a massive demon known as the Gladiator. The Slayer proceeds to kill Deag Grav but is excommunicated from the Sentinals for killing him on sacred ground and returns to the fortress.
Upon his return, the fortress is shut down remotely by the Khan Maykr to prevent any further interference in her plans. She reveals her intentions to resurrect the world-eating super-predator, the Icon of Sin, to consume mankind before having the Slayer attacked by demons. Surviving the ambush, the Slayer uses the demonic Crucible’s latent Argent energy to reactivate the fortress and travels to Argent d’Nur to retrieve his own Crucible from his time in the Sentinels.
Further flashbacks reveal that during the ill-fated battle of Argent d’Nur, a rogue Maykr known as the Seraph had imbued Doomguy with superhuman abilities, transforming him into the Doom Slayer. After retrieving the hilt of the Slayer Crucible, it is revealed that the Khan Maykr formed an alliance with Hell to produce Argent energy, which is created through the mass sacrifice of human souls. In return for providing worlds for Hell to invade, the Maykrs receive a share of the Argent energy produced by Hell which allows their own dimension, Urdak, to survive.
Hayden directs the Slayer through Hell’s massive citadel, Nekravol, until he finds a portal leading to Urdak. He then finds the Khan Maykr and halts the awakening ceremony by using the Betrayer’s dagger to destroy the Icon’s heart. Free from Maykr’s control, the Icon of Sin awakens from its dormant state and teleports to Earth. With the dimensional barrier destroyed, the demons break their pact with the Maykrs and proceed to invade Urdak. The Khan Maykr confronts the Slayer, saying that Urdak must destroy Earth to survive. They battle and the Slayer kills the Khan Maykr before taking a portal back to Earth to confront the Icon of Sin, although VEGA is left behind to ensure the portal stays open. After an intense battle across the cityscape, the Slayer kills the Icon of Sin by stabbing it in the head with the Crucible, putting an end to Hell’s invasion of Earth.
Development and release
Publisher Bethesda Softworks announced the game at E3 2018, with the first gameplay footage being unveiled at QuakeCon 2018. The game was set to be released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One. In 2019, it was announced that Doom Eternal would come to Google’s Stadia streaming platform. The game was developed by id Software with the Nintendo Switch version being developed by Panic Button. Doom directors Hugo Martin and Marty Stratton both returned, with Martin as game director and Stratton as executive producer.
The game is the first to be developed with the id Tech 7 engine. According to Stratton, the team aimed at making a “Doom universe”, featuring larger and more varied locales, including “Hell on Earth”, for players to explore. Unlike its predecessor, id Software developed the game’s multiplayer component in-house, as opposed to being outsourced to the previous game’s multiplayer developer Certain Affinity, with the goal of making the experience more “social” and “connected” with the single-player campaign. The team decided to remove the SnapMap mode and reassign its resource to develop post-launch campaign downloadable content. While originally scheduled for a release on November 22, 2019, Doom Eternal’s release was later pushed back to March 20, 2020, with a Nintendo Switch port coming at a later date.
Aesthetically, the game aims at having a closer resemblance to the original Doom games, with the enemies’ designs having been modified from those in the 2016 game to match the designs of the original games. Additionally, the developers included the option to have a centered weapon view, which was traditional in the first two Doom games and was added as a post-release update to Doom 2016.
The game is dedicated to id programmer Stephen Ash, who died during development in 2019.
Music
Mick Gordon returned as the lead composer for the game. In January 2019, he put out a call for “metal screamers” to participate in a recording session to contribute to the game soundtrack. In a video posted in March 2020, it was revealed that the “heavy metal choir” would include Tony Campos of Static-X, Sven de Caluwé of Aborted, James Dorton of Black Crown Initiate, and the late Nature Ganganbaigal of Tengger Cavalry, among many other metal vocalists. Oktavist Eric Holloway was also employed to provide vocals to parts of the soundtrack.
The soundtrack was released for digital download on April 19th for buyers of the collector’s edition. It will release at a later date on streaming platforms and digital. In the hours following its release, fans noticed differences between the official soundtrack and the music featured in and/or ripped from the game. Gordon later confirmed on Twitter in response to a fan analysis that he only mixed a “small handful of tracks”, including “Meathook” and “Command and Conquer”, among others. Chad Mossholder mixed most of the soundtrack. Allegedly, Gordon also stated that he doubted he would work with id again.
Release
In the United States, GameStop began selling copies of Doom Eternal on March 19, 2020, a day prior to the March 20 street date, in an effort to reduce crowds due to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, as Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons was also set for a March 20, 2020, release. The stark contrast between Doom Eternal and the family simulation game New Horizons prompted fans of both series to celebrate the coincidence by creating light-hearted crossover art, featuring Doomguy and Isabelle as “best friends”.
Reception
| Reception |
|---|
| Aggregate score Aggregator: Metacritic PC: 88/100 PS4: 87/100 XONE: 88/100 Review scores Destructoid 8.5/10 EGM   Game Informer 9.25/10 GameSpot 8/10 GamesRadar+  IGN 9/10 Jeuxvideo.com 18/20 PC Games 9/10 PCGamesN 9/10 VG247 VideoGamer.com 8/10 |
Doom Eternal received “generally favorable” reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Critics praised the campaign, graphics, level design, combat, soundtrack, and improvements over its predecessor, while some disliked the game’s increased focus on storytelling and lore.
Accolades
Doom Eternal was nominated for “Most Wanted Game” at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards. At Game Critics Awards 2019, the game won the awards for Best PC Game and Best Action Game.
Sales
The game had 100,000 concurrent users on Steam on launch day, more than double that of 2016’s Doom. The game doubled the launch weekend revenue of 2016’s Doom. The game debuted at number 2 in the UK charts behind Animal Crossing: New Horizons, although Doom Eternal’s physical sales were 33% less than its predecessor, a likely side-effect of the social distancing procedures implemented in the wake of the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic.
In North America, the game was the 6th best-selling game of March 2020. SuperData estimated that, as of March 2020, the game had sold 3 million digital copies beating Doom 2016’s 957,000 units of launch month sales.
Playing DOOM Eternal on macOS for Free
Doom Eternal is definitely one of the best projects made in 2020, and now you can play it on any macOS computer for free. This is possible without Windows emulators or virtual machines. Doom Eternal Mac OS X is available in .dmg format, the easiest way to install the game for all Macbook/iMac owners.
Doom Eternal Mac OS X
– Minimum System Requirements –
CPU: Intel Core i5 @ 3.3 GHz, or AMD Ryzen 3
CPU Speed: 3.3 GHz
RAM: 6 GB
OS: OS X 10.9
Video Card: VIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti / AMD Radeon R9 280
HDD Space: 52 GB
