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Early Access - Anatomy of a DOOM Eternal Fight (Patreon)

Published:
2020-04-07 13:36:08
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hello!

So, just making a quick detour between School of Stealth episodes to talk about DOOM Eternal. I wanted to break down one combat encounter in the game to see how they work, from enemy spawns to the tactical decisions a player must make. 

Hope you enjoy it. Still tinkering with the name and thumbnail before global release tomorrow. Also, any feedback, errors, corrections etc welcome

Mark

Files

Anatomy of a DOOM Eternal Fight | Game Maker's Toolkit

A DOOM Eternal combat encounter might only last five minutes, but they’re five, utterly intense minutes: filled with quick movement, smart decision making, and more. In this episode of GMTK, I’m going to break down just one fight in the game to see how it works, and how it makes players act. Support Game Maker's Toolkit on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/GameMakersToolkit Spoiler Warnings This video shows a combat encounter from the game's 11th level, Nekravol Part II, and so may spoil some weapons and enemies from the latter part of the game. No major story spoilers are included. Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance) DOOM Eternal (id Software, 2020) DOOM (id Software, 2016) BioShock Infinite (Irrational Games, 2013) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward, 2019) Far Cry 5 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2018) Gears 5 (The Coalition, 2019) Music used in this episode DOOM Eternal soundtrack - Mick Gordon Divider - Chris Zabriskie (https://chriszabriskie.bandcamp.com/album/divider)

Comments

Michael Pasquariello

Felt the same way re: differences between 2016 and Eternal. The "right way" to kill certain enemies and the more aggressive resource management tipped the scales towards making a lot of encounters too much for me. Between chainsaw, dash, fire, grenade, swapping grenades, guns, swapping mods, blood punch...I'm sure I'm missing a few. I still thoroughly enjoyed it, but found myself frustrated more often than I did with 2016. Great vid! At the end of your open, can you get that shotgun pump to linger after the cut to black? It would really help ease that transition!

Game Maker's Toolkit (GMTK)

Yeah, it's a lot to keep track of - turns into a management sim at times! I'll have a fiddle with the transition, cheers

Gunnar Clovis (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-18 21:00 Great job with this video, Mark, I think it came out very well. I definitely agree with your assessments. DOOM Eternal has sparked the resurgence of a lot of similar conversations I had in my fellow gamedev circles about DOOM 2016 when it came out, which really echo a talk I did last year (and just redid for my UNLV students the other month) about Pacing & Flow in game design, where as an example I touched on how DOOM 2016 is a GREAT game with a TON of fantastic design decisions and everyone I've spoken to that's played it agrees it's super fun... but not one of those people I've spoken to about DOOM 2016 has beaten it! Everyone likes it and agrees it's fun... but everyone gets bored of it and never beats it, only going about halfway. I mainly attribute this to overly flat pacing, and not enough horizontal changes in its gameplay (changes in kind). A really great game to study for both effective and ineffective design. One of my favorites to cite in my design research for my job at the university.
2020-04-07 16:52 Great job with this video, Mark, I think it came out very well. I definitely agree with your assessments. DOOM Eternal has sparked the resurgence of a lot of similar conversations I had in my fellow gamedev circles about DOOM 2016 when it came out, which really echo a talk I did last year (and just redid for my UNLV students the other month) about Pacing & Flow in game design, where as an example I touched on how DOOM 2016 is a GREAT game with a TON of fantastic design decisions and everyone I've spoken to that's played it agrees it's super fun... but not one of those people I've spoken to about DOOM 2016 has beaten it! Everyone likes it and agrees it's fun... but everyone gets bored of it and never beats it, only going about halfway. I mainly attribute this to overly flat pacing, and not enough horizontal changes in its gameplay (changes in kind). A really great game to study for both effective and ineffective design. One of my favorites to cite in my design research for my job at the university.

Great job with this video, Mark, I think it came out very well. I definitely agree with your assessments. DOOM Eternal has sparked the resurgence of a lot of similar conversations I had in my fellow gamedev circles about DOOM 2016 when it came out, which really echo a talk I did last year (and just redid for my UNLV students the other month) about Pacing & Flow in game design, where as an example I touched on how DOOM 2016 is a GREAT game with a TON of fantastic design decisions and everyone I've spoken to that's played it agrees it's super fun... but not one of those people I've spoken to about DOOM 2016 has beaten it! Everyone likes it and agrees it's fun... but everyone gets bored of it and never beats it, only going about halfway. I mainly attribute this to overly flat pacing, and not enough horizontal changes in its gameplay (changes in kind). A really great game to study for both effective and ineffective design. One of my favorites to cite in my design research for my job at the university.

Steven Thornton

Yay! I knew you would do a DOOM Eternal video; the games design in it is too loud and overt to ignore. It's a fascinating case study in the extremes of "bop-it"/lock+key/toolbox style engagement and designers strongly incentivising (née forcing) a "correct" playstyle - no doubt it makes for an incredible ride, but it's also alienated its fair share of people too. Though I love how the weakness mechanics let every gun have its chance to be the strong gun (and imo are vital cerebral anchors for making quick choices amidst the chaos), I'm also really glad you pointed out the issue that the 1 solution gameplay is pushed REALLY hard by the tutorials, when actually every demon has multiple solutions - it buries the lead that actually you can find individual playstyles and there is a lot of discovery/experimentation available - which leads to people feeling unnecessarily trapped.

Jason Beard

I was overwhelmed on the first level and walked away halfway through the second level. This game is asking too much from me for this speed/pace. 2016 got to that point a level or two after the Cyberdemon. I enjoyed the first half of the game but the rest isn't worth the time. If you have to push yourself through it then you aren't having fun. Fortunately, I only had a few hours of play-time so Steam granted the refund of Eternal.

Michael Pasquariello

If you ever revisit it at a later date, I found bumping the difficulty down made the game overall more lenient; it gave me time to remember I had counters for everything. It helped offset it by giving the power trip a boost, but you still had to recall all the various things.

Tom Hauville

I definitely agree that some of the changes made from 2016 to Eternal aren't for the better, and make me yearn for the more simplistic (and, in my opinion, more balanced) stylings of Doom 2016. It's very weird though, because although the gameplay is superior in Eternal, it's also overwhelming and so punishing. In Eternal, I tend to find it hard to fall into that slipstream of pure play, where you don't have to think about what you're doing... I'm constantly having to think consciously about my next move, but you only have microseconds to make those decisions, so it feels like the core gameplay is constantly fighting itself. As a result, there are gameplay features that I have to keep reminding myself to use... I've almost never used the grappling hook on the double-barrel shotgun, I forget about grenades, and swapping weapon mods feels like a massive waste of valuable seconds. I want to love Doom Eternal so much, but I haven't done so much rage-quitting since giving up Call of Duty multiplayer!

The Creative Class

I would like to stick up for the Buff Totems/Archviles, and Marauders. 1. BUFF TOTEMS/ARCHVILES: The fact that they force you to chase them is not bad, it's a good thing! First off, they appear very sparingly. Second, running them down forces you out of combat autopilot, makes you engage an ordinary fight in a fun new way. If they were there every fight they would suck, but using them from time to time really mixes up the flow of combat and makes sure you've mastered the fundamentals instead of just sticking to a groove. 2. MARAUDERS--The Marauders rule. This is not a "get gud" argument, I really think they're not appreciated. The Marauder brings an amazing change-of-pace combat element to DE. They force you to clear the floor before dealing with them, which is fun, and then you have to face them down in a one-on-one duel, which is amazing and totally unlike any other enemy in the game. They're the only demon that forces YOU to react to THEM. You have to be on THEIR schedule, instead of them on yours. If they were there all the time, yes that would suck, but id smartly deployed them, and I loved every encounter with them.

João Santos

I might accept the argument on the Marauders, if they didn't throw so much crap at you. You can't stand too close and you can't stand too far, so their projectiles are hard to dodge, the vulnerable window is extremely tight, and you can bury the bloody wolves in the deepest pit of hell as far as I'm concerned.

The Creative Class

I don't quite agree. Long range is fine as long as you can dodge his blasts, which is doable. And medium/close is good too, so long as you're not in range of the shotgun, which is only when SUPER close. And again, like... this is the point. He is designed to dominate your attention and force you to him, that's his function, that's how he works. Once you stop resisting it and just start learning it, it really does become wonderfully fun and challenging.

João Santos

But you can't stand at long range in order to fight them, and at medium range the projectiles are much harder to dodge. Further, you kind of stumbled into the issue: You need to focus him BUT you also need to clear the arena first, which means fighting other enemies while being chased by an hyper-agressive enemy. He also spawns the bloody wolves which will force you to change your focus away from him (usually long enough to get an axe in the face). Also, I have learned it. I know how to defeat it, and frankly, once you do all the necessary busywork (and the fact that he's chasing you, does turn the otherwise engaging fights into busywork) to be able to properly go 1v1 with him, it's not an interesting fight. You circle strafe him and get a few shots in when you can.

The Creative Class

Yeah, you absolutely have to clear the room, and I did wonder if id would ever put him in an encounter where he didn't belong, but they never did. They were clearly very careful about his usage, he doesn't just show up anywhere. It's fun to have to wipe the other demons out while knowing "if I stop or relax for a second, he's got me." It's like a high-speed version of RE's Nemesis. It's stressful, sure, and if you don't like that stress, then I can see not enjoying it. But I did enjoy it. And again, you aren't asked to kill a Doom Hunter with a Marauder on you. They're very aware of when they use him. Re the 1v1 being boring, he has an incredibly dynamic range of movements, probably the most of any character in the game, so the idea that you just wait and shoot feels wrong to me. Not to mention the dog, which forces your eyes off of him. And there are so many strategic wrinkles to discover; I won't list them here for fear of going on too long, but they are there. Flame belch is very important in this fight, and not for obvious reasons. What I mean about "learning" him is not just beating him, it's getting in the spirit of it. He is meant to require patience, he's a duel, a rhythm breaker. "Doom 2016" existed in a single gear all the time, and "Eternal" is trying to get you to shift up and down into different gears. Even when people beat them, I feel like they refuse to adapt to him or learn from him so they make the fight harder and more annoying than it needs to be. It's like insisting on pedaling a bike race in one gear the whole time. Or refusing to shoot weak points because you just don't want to. Even if you get past it, you never heard the game out.

Calliope Rannis

I always like the videos that do a very detailed breakdown of a certain aspect of a game, and this video was no exception to that rule! In fact, it makes me want to look up Doom Eternal levels to see how all the other combat encounters are structured phase-wise too, because it's not exactly easy to appreciate the specifics of those design elements when you are actually playing it because the whole system is meant to be a flowing one. I feel like I need a game guide like back in the old days where it tells you exactly what enemies are in what area in what quantities so I can just break down all that interesting design into digestable chunks like you did. :D

Edward Newton

Where did you get all the assets for the video? The character one shots and the empty level flyovers? They look great.

Game Maker's Toolkit (GMTK)

Cheers! I'm actually going to post a behind-the-scenes article on this video later today which will explain all :D

Jason Beard

I did have the difficulty down. It wasn't enough. The game just isn't made for me and that's fine, though disappointing. Eternal requires me to spend many weeks worth of play-time to train myself back to where I stopped with Quake 3. Which I don't have. Even right now with COVID-19. My work is essential so I'm still working 40+ hours.

Kirk Rodgers

I could have also done without the (much too) deep upgrade systems in eternal. I rarely understood what real effect the upgrades had and there were so. Many. Systems.

ThunderRazor

I totally agree with you and Mark here. There was much less thinking for me in Doom Eternal. 80% of my weapons were out of ammo and I was just running around like a wild monkey waiting for my chainsaw to refill so I could pop a zombie. Then a cyber mancubus would show up and I would keep running around until my ice grenade refilled so I could safely blood punch his armor off. Over half the encounter was just me running away until things were off cooldown or to take down the minions so you could fight a marauder. In 2016 you aren't as mobile and aren't as limited so it felt much more up to the player to react and figure a way to survive through engaging the enemies. Eternal was more of just run away until you can do the thing you are supposed to do which the game explicitly tries to tell you to do. I turned off the pop up tips about half way through which made things better.

Jessica So

Hey, are you going to continue design icons? I thoroughly enjoyed that series.

Daniel Zaleznik

The work is sometimes so slick it can be missed on a casual view. I think it took Mark's chat with the Spelunky Showlike guys for me to realize how much effort goes into the visuals on some of these videos. Pretty incredible work here.

Shea Driscoll

Gears 5 is a really bad example for a game in which positioning doesn't matter. It has cover, sure, but the question then becomes which piece of cover you should use, and when you should move, and you're forced to consider that every few seconds in a firefight. Play the game on a harder difficulty and positioning becomes your biggest priority, because you won't last even a few seconds if you've left yourself exposed through poor positioning.

Matt Glanville

Really enjoyed this kind of deep-dive video with its very tight focus. I'd love to see more of this kind of thing :)