The 2016 Doom reboot impressed a lot of players with an action-packed story campaign full of gore, thrills, and of course, demons. However, the reboot's deathmatch-based competitive multiplayer experience didn't exactly live up to the hype.
Now onto the upcoming Doom Eternal: developer id Software is somewhat taking a different route, combining things with a new asymmetrical Battlemode competitive experience. The devs also confirmed that Battle mode is a result of the multiplayer fiasco in 2016.
In an interview with PC Gamer at the recent E3, Doom Eternal executive producer Marty Stratton talked about the reboot's multiplayer. He said that Doom's multiplayer felt too disjointed and didn't quite capture the true essence of the entire campaign.
"Thematically and just from its fundamental design story, it was a little bit of Halo, a little bit Doom, a little bit of Quake, but it was none of what people loved from the campaign," Stratton said. "Internally, you know, we had put so much into that campaign and that slayer versus demons experience, that's what people came away loving. And then they turned to multiplayer, and it wasn't there."
Doom's multiplayer allowed players to play as demons, but it wasn't an essential part of the experience. For the most part, players just fragged each other while playing as stock slayers. It did have elements that made it different, but it still did not keep the game from feeling bland. For Doom Eternal's Battle mode, the developers are making sure that the 2016 failure won't happen again.
In Doom Eternal's Battle mode, one decked out slayer player will go up against a team of two demon players. This creates a more strategic sort of experience where having the most firepower doesn't necessarily guarantee victory. The demon players need to utilize proper teamwork and coordination to overwhelm the slayer player. As for the slayer player, they just need to focus on dividing and conquering.
Doom Eternal creative director Hugo Martin revealed in the same interview how Battlemode feels overall. He swears that the upcoming game now has a proper multiplayer feel:
"[Doom multiplayer] had no real pacing. It was just very one-note from beginning to end. So we just wanted a game that had really good pacing, which it does. And there was no drama; like there was no escalation of the stakes."
Doom Eternal launches November 22. Until then, we're yet to find out how its Battlemode experience works.
