Doom Eternal’s “old school” designs
Doom Eternal looks good so far and its art direction is one of the reasons why i think the game looks better than the previous Doom title released in 2016.
But why did they change how it looked?
It could be that it’s a new brand game, so they wanted to make it feel more different, which is why the HUD changed too.
Perhaps it’s because of the destructible demons feature and how it works.
Could be that Doom as a series changed its art direction multiple times and they took an opportunity to make things pay tribute to the classic Doom titles and make it the closest to an official “HD” Doom game.
Maybe it’s just fanservice.
Maybe it’s because the last one and Doom 3 sort of gave Doom a bit of an identity crysis.
Or maybe it’s because some of Doom’s older designs and ideas are just greater, be it in terms of context or even how they affect the game design.
Which means id software could have learned an important lesson.
Colors and Hell
In a previous post, i mentioned why i thought Doom’s Hell was always cool, which involves how it was this weird abstract mix of flesh, tech, rock and weird elements to give you the impression of a truly unusual place.
Not only that, but i also mentioned how colors and texture/prop variety can lead to levels becoming more recognizable despite limitations and a “tool set” for level creation, as in, why making classic Doom maps is cool.
Doom (2016)’s hell felt a bit lacking and less colorfull in comparison, which is why i find it interesting that an element of Hell’s invasion on Earth is flesh corruption.
It’s one of those things that makes Hell look more dangerous and allow for more twisted locations and levels.
Levels also seem to be more colorfull now, along with enemies and pick up items.
Cacodemons bleed blue again and have different colors, along with a pupil.
Colors are good because they can make things like rooms and items more distinct if used right, along with good shading and overall design of a lot of things.
Imps
Imps now have red eyes and more spikes.
I thought they were brown but i think they’re still orange.
Either way, it’s a cool change and basing these designs over iconic and recognizable looks helps them to make them more recognizable during fights, since Doom 4 had this issue of “too much detail, too little color”.
He should have had spikes from the start.
Zombieman
Possessed soldiers in Doom 4 where ugly man whose skin seems to have melted and merged with their armor and plasma gun.
They have that kind of design that is hard to remember, because of how it technically looks.
It’s not a bad concept but the fact that the zombiemen come off as dudes with red eyes and green hair makes them stand out better than the previous incarnation of former humans.
This design is pretty much a simple idea that’s easier to understand.
Mancubus
This one is interesting, because of how deviating the previous version was.
In Doom 4, Manc had this lore about a monster whose armor and cannons originate from him and he weaponizes his own farts, along with covered nipples and a weird eyeball that made him look goofy rather than threatning.
Eternal brings back the “ugly angry orc with 6 nipples” design and changes him a bit to fit modern Doom’s aesthetic.
The original Mancubus gives the impression of an orge creature that represents the sins of sloth and gluttony, at least that’s how some of us saw him.
You can still see some elements from the 2016 Mancubus in this one but overall, it’s neat he’s back.
Pick up items
Remember what i said about colors and recognizable designs?
Due to some pick ups being just random shapes with solid colors and how the game handled colors and its designs in general, some people had trouble getting used to Doom 4’s pick up language.
Health for example had a theme similar to plasma ammo which was “blue tubes” or something, while rockets didn’t look like a box of rockets from a certain point of view.
In Eternal, pick ups for health are now medkits (With altered red crosses, of course but they beat BFG edition’s pill) and blue bottles while rocket ammo is represented as rockets standing up.
Really, you’d want players to recognize pick ups.
Some items like the armor shards are still what they are but the weird viking helmets weren’t that interesting and nobody had trouble recognizing the shards.
Plasma rifle
2016’s plasma rifle comes off as someone thinking “a plasma gun is just a machine gun that shoots plasma balls” which means Eternal’s version makes it more distinct due to basing it off the classic look.
On top of that, having a big “square” “barrel” makes it fit for something that shoots big plasma projectiles.
With that design, it fit as the BFG9000’s younger brother, since the two originally shared ammo.
It also makes enemies explode after death, that’s cool.
The sounds, however, aren’t as good as i expected.
Melee animation is now an actual punch and not a generic gun butt move from a modern shooter
Why wasn’t it like this before?
And then there’s the Praetor suit
This armor is technically based off the original Doomguy armor (The helmet being an example, which reminds me of Quake 3’s Doomguy), but it was too detailed and distinct from it, some people even compared it to something out of Halo (And i don’t blame them).
Now, with exposed arms and the covered abs part looking orange, it feels more “Doom”.
You also get some new additions like the shoulder cannon and the “Doomblade”, which are okay.
He also looks taller and may have had some changed proportions, which is something i’m okay with because looking back, there was something about some pose he had in a codex entry that made him look “off”.
What else can we expect?
Doomguy’s face being used in the HUD again?
More of classic Hell elements like the moving walls of stretched faces and evil eyes?
An old chool Cyberdemon?
Power ups having demonic faces and trapped human souls inside them again?
Barons bleeding green?
I’m just saying, one thing is Doom 4 expanding on Doom’s “lore” and its universe, but classic Doom still has interesting and iconic enough elements that shouldn’t be left behind.
And even the new things look good.
- Some weapons have interesting designs like the rocket launcher, which fits the Sentinel thing they’re going for and looks cool with that skull.
- It’s still cool how they made the Baron and HK look distinct just by basing one over its classic Doom counterpart and the other over its Doom 3 design but change them a bit.
- Archvile’s design looks great, but shame about no mouth tubes.
- The new Arachnotron takes some notes from its mother in the previous game but still looks more distinct from her, with his cannon above him, blue blood and the ability to climb on ceilings and walls.
- The winged demon looks cool.
- The Pain Elemental has a great redesign and i like its uncanny mouth.
- The tentacles are a neat addition to Hell’s attempt on ruining earth.
- Earth looks cool and more interesting than the one from Doom 2.
- Phobos also looks cool.
- Marauder could work as Doomguy’s rival.
- Doomhunter is ridiculous in a fun way and i love the Doom 64 chainsaw easter egg (Please, don’t take that away).
- The human NPC’s look interesting (As long as they don’t drive the game away from gameplay too much) and they’re not just the same bald guy.
- The arm blade can allow for more creative glory kills and it’s cool how it’s next to Doomguy’s left hand.
- The shoulder cannon allows the player to use inventory items without interrupting the main firing weapons, so it feels less like a modern shooter “press button to granade” action and more like, i don’t know, how inventory worked in something like Heretic?
- The fire baron looks cool since subspecies as a concept in Doom is neat.
- “Gore keys” being a new type of keys is great, so you get more besides skull keys and key cards.
- The dash system sort of makes up for the player’s movement, if you think you’re not fast enough.
- The rune system seems to have changed, so you no longer have to do some random minigame just to get an ability and i wonder if it replaces the menu upgrade system and the triple rune thing too.
- In fact, i remember Doom 4 upgrades as a whole being a weird system in general, i wonder if that’ll change with those upgrade spheres.
- Meat hook looks great.
- Those Sentinel Prime rooms look nice, but i hope the story moments and graphical detail don’t affect the gameplay that much.
- The life system can somewhat make it up for loading sequences after you die.
- That sword (Which is not the Crucible) looks interesting, but i wonder if we’ll still have a BFG in our arsenal.
- BFG10K is an amazing Quake 2/3 tribute (Not just the weapon with the name, but even that part in Quake 2 with the Big Gun).
- Like, a lot of things look good so far.
What does worry me seems to be the chance of you ending up being too powerfull or if your enemies aren’t strong enough.
Overall
For all the reasons why they’d bring back these older ideas, it works as a sign of Doom doing its job at leaning closer to its identity, making it feel like going to an opposite direction from the likes of God of War ’18 and the new Tomb Raider trilogy.
As if the series isn’t afraid of being “video gamey” or doing too much fanservice.
While Doom 4 turned out better than most expected it to be, you can tell that some of its art style and design choices are influenced by recent trends from the FPS genre and the gaming market, which also covers the multiplayer and the game’s cover box art.
Eternal makes Doom feel more confident for its identity and nature in this time period, which is why it looks better than the previous Doom game.
There’s also a case of when later iterations of a franchise not only bring new elements to a series, but also drop existing elements too.
Because one thing is weapon mods, new abilities to the demons, a character like Hayden etc, another is the lack of color and some cool design ideas, to the point it doesn’t feel like “Doom” (Which is kinda ironic considering the cancelled “Call of Doom”).
Doom Eternal feels like they realized they went a bit too far with the art and all, so they’re trying to make things feel more “Doom” this time.
But even then, there’s still some modern elements added to the series expected to stick around and it’s not exactly the same as old school Doom.
Some of the art designs can still look overdetailed because of whatever their plan with the new engines for the games is and some can argue that the sound design is a bit “eh”.
And the music, while not bad, won’t change its direction but will still have few references to the classic soundtrack.
I know some people prefer the Doom 4 looks over the ones in Eternal or even the older games, but hey, who knows if in a new game they could return if Eternal is just their opportunity to make something look like Doom in HD.
I feel like one of the reasons why someone would think Doom 4 has a more interesting art direction than classic Doom is because of the bigger focus of more lore and background story material, despite Hell in itself being simpler in this incarnation of Doom or what i mentioned above.
I mean, it’s not just the cover box art (The one where Doomguy is just standing with his SSG) that looked generic, even the new DOOM title letters had no colors or details, which could have worked as a representation of UAC and Hell.
So that technically means Doom could have had some possible lore “potential” and therefore, modern Doom could take advantage of those old school elements.
But anyway, this post was just me still feeling excited for an upcoming game after a while from its gameplay reveal and justifying the new looks i guess.
I hope Eternal ends up a fun game and there’s nothing wrong with the release like bugs or being put in a certain digital platform.
