It’s been a good launch for DOOM Eternal, that’s no secret. The game is breaking sale records on top of being the best selling game on Steam for its release week, surpassing 100,000 concurrent players on the platform. It also brought some new stuff to the table such as bigger maps, new weapons, gadgets, and gameplay additions. I’d say it’s even more fun than its predecessor and way more challenging. So with all that said, here are some tips on how to stay alive gathered from my 25 hours of playtime in DOOM Eternal.
#1 Rip, scorch and cut to victory
DOOM Eternal features plenty of open areas with dozens of various demons charging at you (which makes it a fair fight) and in all that frenzy it easy to get disoriented, take too many hits and die. If you’re not paying attention and focus on one enemy at a time, lack of ammo might be a serious problem. As well as health and armor. Key to avoiding this is combining glory kills for health, flame belch for armor shards (that demons drop upon kill) and chainsawing them gets you plenty of ammo. Usage of chainsaw is way more lenient this time, it recharges itself pretty fast and sometimes it’s your only way to get precious ammo.
#2 Punch walls, get free stuff
This time, there’s even more emphasis on chasing collectibles. Especially when half of those collectibles are Sentinel crystals (upgrades for health, ammo, and armor), weapon points, weapon mods, mastery tokens, and praetor suit upgrades. If you get stuck on a difficult section, it’s not a bad idea to replay some of the previous levels for some of those upgrades. I recommend you to get some map perks for the praetor suit as soon as possible so you can see if there are any collectibles on the map nearby.
#3 Be always on the move
Seriously, they can’t hit what they can’t see. With some low-level demon exceptions, almost every baddie has an attack th\at can get you from afar. Be it some fiery balls or rockets, one thing is for sure: you can’t hide (but you can run). Most of the open areas will have a monkey bar or two strategically placed so you can swing away before more demons surround you. Also, use dash ability as much as possible and blue portals so you can zip from one end of the map to another. If they are stationary and attack you from one spot, nobody says you have to do the same.
#4 Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade
I cannot emphasize this enough. Some weapons are a godsend when upgraded to the max. The best example of this would be the super shotgun. Once you spend all the weapon points on it and do the final challenge, the ultimate perk enables you to force enemies to drop armor shards whenever you hook onto them. This has been a lifesaver to me more than once and it’s a great thing to exploit when my flame belch is recharging. After all, who can say no to free armor shards?
#5 Be a good housekeeper
Pretty early in the game, you get access to the Fortress of Doom. It’s your main hub for selecting levels, replaying old ones but there’s more to discover if you decide to snoop around. You’ll find plenty of locked doors asking to spend sentinel batteries on them. Using two will unlock one door and you will be rewarded with either Doom Slayer skins (not so useful) and praetor suit points (way more useful). You can easily keep track of all the other cosmetic collectibles such as music albums and toys while they decorate the walls of your fortress the more you find them.
And lastly, there is also a handy training area in the basement of the fortress where you can get better at ripping demons apart. That place really has everything!