Review: Doom Eternal’s The Ancient Gods expansions should have been their own game

Doom Eternal was not only one of the best games that 2020 had to offer, it stands as one of the strongest and most enthralling single-player shooters of all time. Eternal somehow managed to push the Doom (2016) formula beyond all expectations, creating an even more intense, aggressive and head banging experience than most of us thought possible. In addition to the Doom Eternal base game, Id Software and Bethesda announced a two-part campaign called The Ancient Gods that would serve as downloadable content for Doom Eternal. Now that both parts of The Ancient Gods have been released, I thought it would be appropriate to analyze what the incredibly talented team at Id did with The Ancient Gods.

Before I begin my critique of The Ancient Gods, I want to say that I am a massive fan of both Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal. It is obvious that the masterminds at Id Software have delivered some of the best single-player first-person shooter campaigns that we have ever and may ever experience. I understand how difficult the game development process is and it’s vital to understand that both parts of The Ancient Gods were developed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With all that said however, I feel that The Ancient Gods represents a missed opportunity for the Doom franchise as a whole.

Before we dive into my critique of The Ancient Gods, let’s start with what The Ancient Gods got right. The Ancient Gods expansions are more content for a game with an incredible core gameplay experience that hasn’t dulled one bit. Simply playing Doom Eternal, gleefully ripping and tearing your demonic enemies to pieces is an experience that all gamers should experience. You really can’t go wrong with more content for Doom Eternal because its just so damn fun to play. The Ancient Gods granted us new levels, more story, new enemies, music and challenges, all of which are only a good thing in the grand scheme.

While it may sound weird to some, the shining achievement of The Ancient Gods in my eyes is actually the music. It goes without saying that when Id Software and legendary composer Mick Gordon had a somewhat public falling out, I was terrified. Mick Gordon’s soundtracks for Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal represent two of my all-time favorite gaming soundtracks. Not only do Mick’s aggressive, metal tones rock on their own, they are an essential part of the modern Doom experience. While many games feature great soundtracks, Doom is one of the only franchises where the music seems to compel the action happening on screen, fueling the rage and carnage. With Id declaring that it would not be working with Mick on The Ancient Gods, myself and many others were heartbroken and left wondering if Doom would ever be the same. Luckily for us, Id found new composers that proved that they could not only step in but make defining Doom music of their own that lives up to the extremely high bar set by Mick Gordon. Even if The Ancient Gods expansions were a complete failure (which they aren’t), the music found within them marks a victory for Id, who did the impossible and actually replaced the legendary Mick Gordon without skipping a beat. At the very least, The Ancient Gods has given me new music to listen to at the gym.

With the Doom music nerdgasm out of the way, I want to draw attention to the pacing and story of The Ancient Gods, which are where my main issues lie. While The Ancient Gods significantly expanded upon the Doom Slayer mythos and overall lore of this new Doom universe that we have been exploring, I can’t help but feel that the story of The Ancient Gods deserved its own full-length game. At the end of Doom Eternal, the Doom Slayer has struck down the Hell Priests, Khan Makyr and the Icon of Sin, cleansing Earth of its demonic corruption but bringing a demonic invasion upon the Makyr world of Urdak. In The Ancient Gods Part One, which packed an insanely high level of difficulty, the player defeats Samuel Hayden who reveals himself as The Seraphim and ushers The Dark Lord himself into the world, in an effort to confront him head on in battle.

The story of The Ancient Gods Part One wasn’t bad by any means. It may have felt a bit rushed but all in all, it set up the next important chapter of Doom’s story and introduced us to The Dark Lord in epic fashion, who most would assume to be Doom’s ultimate antagonist, given that he is leader of Hell and the cause of everything that we’ve been experience throughout the Doom franchise. While The Ancient Gods Part One did feel a bit off in its pacing, it was held together by the sheer perfection of Doom Eternal’s gameplay, incredible new music, difficulty that let any player who finished it feel accomplished and an incredible cliffhanger ending. When I first played The Ancient Gods Part One, I felt that the Doom Slayer’s journey was quickly hopping from one place to another, losing a bit of the pointed, hell bent mission feeling of Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal’s main campaign, but I can forgive that.

Unfortunately, The Ancient Gods Part Two doubles down on that feeling of hopping all over the place and ends up feeling disjointed. Instead of a naturally progressing campaign telling the story of the Doom Slayer working to take down The Dark Lord, players are quickly thrust through a two to three hour campaign that begins on Urdak, returns to Earth and then goes Immora, an impressive new part of Hell with a story of its own that we unfortunately only get to experience for one, heart pounding level. None of the areas or missions in The Ancient Gods Part Two are bad, it just feels rushed. You’re in one place, then you’re in another, then you’re flying on a Doom-dragon and then you’re fighting The Dark Lord, very quickly. While the new Doom games excel at not wasting the player’s time and hitting players with exactly what we want, this leads to many of the events in both parts of The Ancient Gods feeling a bit sudden and sometimes unearned.

When you look at everything that happens in The Ancient Gods as well as the new enemies and features that are packed in, it seems clear that The Ancient Gods really could have been the next Doom game. The betrayal of Samuel Hayden/The Seraphim, his defeat, the summoning of The Dark Lord and his subsequent defeat by the Slayer should have been built up over the course of an entire game. While the seeds of distrust in Hayden were planted long ago, his flip and defeat happen almost instantaneously. And while we knew that we would eventually come to blows with The Dark Lord, he didn’t feel like a compelling enemy that plagued us. Sure, the demons have been running loose. savaging humanity and fighting Slayer for ages, but their leader, The Dark Lord himself didn’t feel very menacing. The Slayer has been waging war against the demons of Hell for literally eons and when The Dark Lord finally appears, he tells you to come find him in Immora. The Slayer then grabs a war hammer and kills him, very quickly. For all his apparent power, The Dark Lord never really does anything. It’s kind of sad to think that what we thought would be the ultimate villain of the entire Doom franchise comes to us for only a few short hours and simply waits for us to come kill him. He never attempts or achieves anything once summoned into the world of the living. In comparison, the Khan Makyr was a much more developed antagonist as we dealt with her meddling and came to grips with her mission throughout the story of Doom Eternal. The Dark Lord never really gets any of that, simply appearing and then being killed off just as quickly.

Despite the lack of build up, the moment where the Slayer’s forces and Hell’s forces come face to face with each other was incredible. The hype levels that flow through you as you see the Night Sentinels storming the Immora, a Titan fighting a a Sentinel mech, a dragon circling overhead, tanks, turrets and more all fighting an epic battle in hell, were at an all time high. Think of the final battle in Avengers: Endgame, but Doom style. With that said, I think this moment might have been even greater if we spent some time actually working toward this moment. While there is technically an explanation of the assembly of the Night Sentinel forces as the Slayer lit the World Spear in The Ancient Gods Part Two, it all happens very fast. It’s like an entire war happens almost instantaneously. Despite the almost jarring pace of it coming together, it’s just so damn cool that it doesn’t really matter in this case. Bearing witness to it alone and seeing it on-screen is enough of a reward.

Much of the same can be said for the new demons and enemies found within The Ancient Gods. Both parts of The Ancient Gods introduced new enemy types that the player and Slayer must learn to deal with. While I’ve heard complaints that most of these enemies are variants or reskins of existing demons with new abilities, I would counter that argument by pointing out that Id went all out with these new enemy types by making them all a new element of Doom Eternal’s battle arenas. From enemies that must be focused down first, to enemies that must be kept alive, giant tentacles, Stone Imps which give the auto-shotgun mod a purpose on the field of battle to the Cursed Prowler which disrupts the flow of combat unlike any other demon, it’s clear that Id is not running out of ideas to shake up the Doom combat formula. My only complaint is that all of these enemies, as clever as they are, don’t really have a time to shine as they are all quickly shoe-horned into downloadable expansions that last only a couple of hours. I think that these enemies would have had more of an impact in a full-fledged Doom campaign where they would be able to mix with more of the other demons, having time to breathe and fit in.

Then there is the actual final boss fight against The Dark Lord which, while epic was one of the least enjoyable boss fights that I have experienced in quite some time. It’s clear that the development team wanted your duel with The Dark Lord to be memorable and made from the stuff of legend. The design team wanted players to fight The Dark Lord and talk to their friends about it. I certainly did talk to my friends about my battle with The Dark Lord but for all of the wrong reasons. The fight against The Dark Lord drags on for an extremely long time, thanks to the fact that he heals himself every time that he hits you and has an extremely limited window of vulnerability. There were times during my 45-minute battle with The Dark Lord where he would be immune to damage for minutes at a time while I danced around waiting for my opportunity to actually do something and make progress only to see it erased when he attacks and heals himself a minute later. Boss fights have never really been the highlights of Doom games and I give the team credit for trying to make the fight against The Dark Lord into something epic but unfortunately, it just ends up being tedious and doesn’t pack the satisfaction of flawlessly executing a challenging battle, like most of Doom’s encounters do.

It feels strange to say that The Ancient Gods may be some of the best downloadable expansions that I have played for any game in quite some time while also failing to live up to the extremely high bar set by Doom Eternal. That doesn’t quite do The Ancient Gods justice. It would be more accurate to say that both parts of The Ancient Gods contain a wealth of more incredible ideas and game design from the Doom Eternal team and so much so, that these ideas really deserved to be cooked into the next full-fledged Doom game. While there would obviously need to be more work done and more content created to complete an entirely new Doom game, I would have been more than willing to wait, considering how incredible of a game Doom Eternal is. There is no way that I’m not buying the next Doom game, based on Doom Eternal as a stand alone product, and I’m willing to bet that nearly everyone that played it shares that sentiment. As good as The Ancient Gods is, I can’t help but feel that it would have been more effective and satisfying to play a brand new 8–12 hour game about The Slayer’s mission to take down The Dark Lord once and for all. The betrayal of Samuel Hayden could have been included, The Dark Lord could have had more time to actually commit some devious acts and be built up as a worthy antagonist and the team at Id would have had more time to cook up more incredible ideas.

Speaking of the next Doom game, many fans including myself are now wondering where the future of Doom lies. With the conclusion of The Ancient Gods, the Doom Slayer is placed back in his sarcophagus of sorts, that he awoke from in Doom (2016) and The Dark Lord is defeated. So now what? It seems that the team of Id Software may be looking to flip the traditional story and Christian mythology on its head. During The Ancient Gods, it is revealed that The Dark Lord was the “original” God or “creator” of life, was betrayed and fell from power. Once The Dark Lord fell, “Father,” the Makyr God and our former AI companion Vega rose in his place. While we don’t know where the next Doom game will go, it is possible that The Dark Lord only served as a small step on our journey because the “God” or “Father” that we knew may be Doom’s ultimate and next antagonist, instead of “the devil” which we just struck down. Samuel Hayden is also still alive and will likely return in the future, allied with Father as he always has been. It does still feel odd that The Dark Lord may have been a jobber for all of this time, though.

While it seems crazy to think that the team at Id might take a hiatus from Doom, I can’t help but wonder if that’s why The Ancient Gods seems to have wound up this arc of the story in a somewhat rushed fashion. Maybe Id wants to do something different after spending the last decade or so rebooting Doom and getting it to this point? The recent acquisition of Bethesda by Microsoft will only give the team more freedom since money isn’t as big an issue as it was for Bethesda as a solo company. Maybe Id wants to return to Quake to glory or step into Wolfenstein now that Machine Games is focused on Indiana Jones? Maybe the next Doom game will be a prequel or sorts that showcases the Doom Slayer fighting alongside the Night Sentinels in the past now that we have such established history and mythos? Or maybe this is just the story Doom story that Id wanted to write and they’re already working on the next chapter? Doom Eternal’s Director Hugo Martin has gone on record stating that there are still plenty of potential stories for the Doom Slayer, despite this being the “end” of the “saga.” Only the folks at Id Software know what awaits us but I will be excited for whatever this team does next, given their track record.

When all is said and done, if you’re a Doom fan, you most definitely should play both parts of The Ancient Gods. The challenge of part one, its ending, epic moments of part two and all of the new Doom music throughout make it a required experience. Despite this level of greatness and accomplishment, Doom Eternal sets the bar so high that I think the content of The Ancient Gods would have been better being saved and expanded upon in the next full-fledged Doom game. It’s so hard to sit here and criticize the incredible accomplishments of The Ancient Gods or anything Doom related because despite some shortcomings, it’s still some of the best shooter and action gaming available. It just also feels like a lot of really great stuff was glossed over in The Ancient Gods as a whole. In conclusion, I somehow need to thank Id Software for all of their brilliant work on Doom Eternal and The Ancient Gods, recommend that you play The Ancient Gods while also going on record to question the pacing, build up, story decisions and payoff of these great but quirky expansions.