The Long Game
A progress report on the games we just can’t quit
Progress reports on the games we just can’t quit, featuring the divine yet divisive Doom Eternal
Developer Id Software, Panic Button Games Publisher Bethesda Softworks Format PC, PS4, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One Release 2020
When we reviewed Doom Eternal last March we had a sense that it would be, like a chainsaw through the skull of a cacodemon, divisive. But we didn’t anticipate the scale or thunder of the cataclysm in Doom’s community: the complaints about the traversal puzzles that now break up battles; about the Marauder, a sort of reverse-Doomguy who harasses players like a wasp at a picnic; and most of all, about Id Software’s growing appetite for storytelling.
The Ancient Gods: Part One, a substantial expansion to Eternal’s campaign, does nothing to bring the faithless back into the fold. It recommits to all three of those controversial elements, not least the lore, which tackles its titular subject matter head-on.
2016’s Doom dealt with the damage mankind could do in its hunger for power – not political stature, but batteries to fuel its cars, lamps and computers. Eternal visited the heavens and found that even the angels were obsessed with resource acquisition, whatever the cost to themselves or the species they trampled underfoot.
The Ancient Gods is a break from form, then, in that it concerns acts of creation where no material is broken down: a god willing whole worlds into being.
If that sounds like a big topic, you’re not mistaken.
Doom has now embraced theism with both fists, putting you on speaking terms with The Father. He features heavily in the codex entries scattered throughout levels, and has his own page on the game’s wiki – arguably making Doom a major religion with its own scripture. In the less-than-holy spirit of the series, however, Doom Eternal quickly takes against the allfather. If the Slayer is an enemy of anything other than demons, it’s hubris – and despite its Christian overtones, the themes of Greek tragedy ring loudly in The Ancient Gods.
What kind of loving god would make Hell? The answer, Id Software suggests, is a clumsy one. In an early attempt at paradise, The Father gifted Hell’s denizens with endless ambition and no restraint, and sat back to see what they’d achieve. Unfortunately, he’d invented psychopaths: jealous of The Father and obsessed with overcoming their own mortality, Hell’s people stopped at nothing, with predictably grim results. It’s reassuring to know that when Edge slouches in front of the telly to watch Bake Off, we’re staving off the kind of drive that could only lead to evil and damnation.
Players are largely free to engage with Doom’s
scripture, or not; the codex is hidden in the menus and cutscenes can be safely skipped. But they all benefit from Id’s new inspiration. After all, there’s only so many times the Slayer can go to Mars, and the heavens lend themselves to gorgeous level design.