Doom Eternal Gameplay Reveal Is Visceral And Violent

One thing that fans of Bethesda get to look forward to every single year is QuakeCon. The annual event is id Software's equivalent of BlizzCon, only instead of goblins and orcs, there's usually a lot of ripping and tearing. In this case, the ripping and tearing was done by the Doom Slayer thanks to the new footage that was unveiled at QuakeCon this year. Bethesda followed through with the promise that the first gameplay footage of Doom: Eternal would be on display at QuakeCon, and the footage certainly did not disappoint as it was all kinds of visceral and violent, showcasing the next level of carnage for the long-running FPS series.

The 25 minute Doom: Eternal reveal was interspersed with some stop and go talking from the lead developers on the project at id Software. The entire segment was posted on Bethesda's official YouTube channel.

It starts with the Doom Guy, known as the Slayer, putting on his helmet and gearing up. He goes through a level based around the Hell On Earth campaign from Doom 2. The Slayer proceeds to literally rip and tear his way through hordes of demons. He proceeds to acquire keys, access bigger and better weapons, and kill a number of demons. The clip then switches over to the Slayer making his way through the Phobos moon base, where a giant BFG 10,000 is firing off salvos at incoming demon hordes. The clip is pretty hilarious, as we see the humans seeing him fully decked out in his armor for the first time and strolling through the base -- they fear him about as much as the demons do. Doom Guy forces one of the operators over to the keypad, opens the door, walks up to a security guard, snatches a plasma rifle, and then proceeds to shoot, slice, and snipe his way to the end of the level where the Arch-Vile is revealed and the Doom Guy whips out an ancient plasma blade with inscriptions on it.

The entire 25 minute video for Doom: Eternal garnered massive reactions from the QuakeCon audience, and rightfully so. The action is fast, the gore is intense, and the art team's depiction of hell on Earth is definitively visceral. It really does look like a new generation's iteration of what id originally designed for Doom 2 several decades ago.

The team also unveiled a number of new weapons and enemies for the Doom Guy to face off against, including a new Marauder class who has some sort of history with the Slayer, and a robotic hybrid called a Doom Hunter. We don't get to see the new enemies in action, but we do get to see some returning foes make an appearance from the old FPS series, including the Cacodemon and the Pain Elemental.

It was smart of id Software not to give away too much, but we do get to see one of the new weapons in action briefly, which can charge up shots and explode on impact. It's not too dissimilar from the explosive crossbow in RAGE. The crowd didn't seem all too thrilled with the crossbow-like weapon, but they definitely loved the plasma cannon, which looks identical to the old one from the 1990s. The Slayer in Doom: Eternal also gets a new shoulder cannon like the one from Predator, and a wrist-blade.

As far as first-person shooters are concerned, this is a true and through throwback to the classics. There are health pickups and armor boosts instead of the recharging life featured in games like Call of Duty or Uncharted. And instead of having fully linear maps, the team decided to build out maps similar to the old FPS games from the 1990s where they were more layered and sandbox-like, so players will have to explore, scour, and backtrack in order to progress. And, thanks to the id Tech 7, Doom: Eternal is running at a full 60 fps with even higher amounts of geometrical rendering than what was possible with the id Tech 6.

You can look for Doom: Eternal to launch on home consoles and PC next year.