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savior-of-humanity · 4 years

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OKAY here are my Thoughts(tm) about The Ancient Gods part II

ALSO: MASSIVE FUCKING SPOILER WARNING FOR THE ANCIENT GODS PART 1 + 2. BE WARNED THIS IS LONG AS FUCK. TL;DR AT BOTTOM.

In terms of the gameplay: I really liked how it played! The combat encounters weren’t downright vicious like in the first DLC, but they still go out of their way to mix things up (i.e a hallway filled with explosive barrels + blood punch pick-ups + Pinkies, or the double-Marauder encounter that you could ACCIDENTALLY FUCKING BUFF JESUS CHRIST) so it was still fun all around.

The new enemies added - the Cyber-Baron/Armored Baron, Riot Zombie/Chaingunner, Screecher Zombie, Stone Imp, and Cursed Prowler - are...okay. I like the idea of new enemy variants based off pre-existing ones but they felt either really fucking frustrating to fight (particularly the Cursed Prowler and Chaingunner) or were very “simple”, I guess. The Stone Imps, in particular, are a variant of Imp that are very resistant to damage unless you use the full-auto mod for the shotgun, in which they drop even more shotgun ammo if they’re killed by that. Other than that they do a Sonic-style spin-dash and slam into you, which can actually knock you off a ledge. Screecher Zombies are basically just mobile hazards that if you accidentally hit, will act like temporary Buff Totems. Cursed Prowler is fucking awful: basically, if it hits you with a projectile, you’ll be cursed with a debuff that keeps you from double-jumping and dashing that also drains your health over time, and you HAVE to kill it with a blood punch in order to remove the curse. Chaingunners are basically just the Shield Zombie Soldiers, but they shoot faster and have an indestructable shield. And finally, the Cyber-Baron: It’s basically a Baron of Hell, but with indestructable armor that can only be destroyed by shooting it’s mace when it flashes green, or by shooting it with plasma. After the armor is gone you have to kill it as fast as you can before the armor is regenerated, repeat until it dies.

Summoner Ghosts and Blood Maykrs also make a return, which is cool.

The Hammer is cool to say the least. I was hoping to see some glory kills with it but considering that it’s primary use is to either clear out groups of small enemies or to stun larger ones like Barons, it makes sense that they’d omit glory kills from it. On top of that, Marauders now have a mechanic (for the entire game, not just the DLC) where when you shoot them as they flash green, they’ll become stunned (though the sound effects are rather corny and cartoonish, even for the game). Using the Hammer on a stunned Marauder will GREATLY extend that stun, which allows you to just fucking shit on them.

I also really liked the grapple-Hookshot points that you had to use to progress in a level. I’m still not really used to how you’re supposed to move in the opposite direction of the point to swing yourself, but the idea is intuitive, fun, and makes me wish it was in the base game and the previous DLC.

My biggest grievances with this DLC, however, is how it handled some of it’s characters, the story, and the new lore that was implemented in the codexes.

So first off: I want to say that while I still appreciate the DLC, that’s honestly only with the gameplay. The story, much less the lore, is fucking stupid to say the least.

To TL;DR the story: It is, quite honestly, bare-bones as fuck. We continue from where we directly left off from the Ancient Gods Part 1: Davoth/The Dark Lord is being summoned into existence and into his physical form, which for some reason looks exactly like Doomguy except with sick tats, glowing red eyes, and a weird implant in his chest. Doomguy, naturally, tries to spawncamp him and shoots him with his super-shotgun, but nothing happens as “no blood can be spilled in this holy place”. Davoth leaves, telling Doomguy that he’ll be waiting for him in the city of Immora, the capitol city at the very center of Hell.

Doomguy goes to Argent D’Nur. He murder-death-kills shit, as per usual. He goes into this big castle where a hologram of Valen is waiting for him. He tells him that he atones for his sins and gives him the Hammer since Doomguy lifted the curse from his son’s soul. He goes to the Torch of Kings and lights it, marking his journey to the giant crystalline spear that impales Argent D’Nur known as the World Spear. Cue cutscene of a bunch of different Argenta people/Night Sentinel seeing the light of the Torch of Kings from all over Argent D’Nur. Internguy tells him that it’s a day’s walk still from the World Spear, and conveniently a very fucking awesome looking Argenta dragon shows up and gives him a ride to the World Spear.

Doomguy gets to a lake that separates him from the World Spear. The Father says “He is worthy” and then a bridge rises out of the water. Doomguy crosses past some big ass Sentinel ghosts/guardians and into the World Spear. Turns out the inside of the World Spear is like some giant, fucked up ship made out of crystal, with weird figures lining the wall and all that: Internguy even says “This isn’t a crystal at all, this is a ship!” This does not get expanded upon whatsoever in neither dialogue or codexes. Doomguy grabs Convenient Power Crystal and leaves.

Doomguy arrives on Earth through a portal, which is looking substantially better than since its invasion. Internguy tells him that a Convenient Ancient Portal close by is the only way to Immora. Doomguy kills shit, arrives at portal, activates it with Convenient Power Crystal, and leaves.

Doomguy arrives in front of a giant wall surrounding Immora. Davoth walks out, wearing a big ass power suit that looks like something straight out of Warhammer 40k. He’s surrounded by guards in cool red armor with cool spears that look very humanoid. He says some shit and a bunch of Hell-ships and demons and titans start showing up. But then surprise! A bunch of portals open up on Doomguy’s side like it’s fucking Infinity War/Endgame all over again and a fuckload of Sentinels start coming out, with mechs and dragons and spaceships. Valen is there. Doomguy and Valen stare at each other for like 5 seconds before Valen says “Let Hell tremble before our might!” or some shit like that. Doomguy fights, gets past the wall, fights some more inside the city. Again, the usual.

I also want to briefly point out that Immora is basically just a Maykr city but red, and that it’s apparently “Hell’s own technology.” Also, the red dudes in armor are actual enemies but the guns they have (the hell-razor from 2016) do piss-poor damage and they die if you so much as breathe on them.

Doomguy finally catches up to Davoth. Davoth monologues about how he’s going to get his revenge and that it’s inevitable, bla bla bla. Fight begins. It’s basically Marauder 2.0 but if he hits you and/or you shoot him at the wrong time he heals a fuckload of health. And also 5 different health bars. After you knock down 2 or 3 of his bars he stops the fight to monologue for some fucking reason? And then shits out a plot twist that surprise, he’s actually the real God, and that the Father betrayed/usurped his power, and that he will “unmake everything by his hand.” Fight resumes. Doomguy eventually beats him. Davoth asks him if he has anything to say before he strikes down his creator. Doomguy takes off his helmet, stabs Davoth in the heart, and says no in his stupid sexy voice. Davoth dies, his life-sphere emerges and then explodes. Doomguy suddenly becomes weak and falls over. The Father says “He created everything in his image, even you.” Doomguy passes out and wakes up to see 3 Seraphim seal him in a sarcophagus like the one from 2016. Fade to black, with the quote “May the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.” End game, roll credits.

If you hadn’t read any of the codexes while playing the DLC, the story probably makes little to no sense to you whatsoever. But honestly the codexes don’t expand upon things much and, if anything, just fucking make some aspects of the story even more stupid.

The World Spear is implied in the codex that it contains live Wraiths (“A live Wraith has not been seen in centuries, but rumors persist that some yet remain inside the World Spear itself.”), and while the figures in the World Spear could be Wraiths, absolutely nothing is said about them out of three Codexes related to the level, which honestly just makes me wonder the point of adding this stuff if you don’t even give a single sentence of why the interior of the World Spear is Like That.

The codex entries related to Earth are basically uninteresting as they’re pretty much just “humanity is rebuilding and views doomguy as a hero”. There is one about the Convenient Ancient Portal (Gate of Divum) but all it really says is that it was built and used by the Father to access Immora. Nothing about why it’s on Earth, or anything interesting like that.

However, the real bullshit comes in when we start to look at the codex entries related to Immora and Davoth.

So, Immora is the central - and oldest - city in Hell. It’s described as such: “Once a paradise at the dawn of creation, Immora now survives as a stronghold where the Dark Lord resides. Sustained now by the essence of Hell's victims, the people of Immora experience life eternal. Regular infusions of Hell energy have prevented them from transforming into the demons found outside the boundaries of the city. Ancient technology defends Immora from invaders, the high walls impenetrable to those who would bring harm to the last people of the first world.“

Yeah. So not only did Hell have high-tech technology all this time, but also the red guys in armor? Those are Immorans. Which is weird to me, because if Hell had this super advanced technology that’s also ancient, and thus around for a long time, why the hell are we only seeing it now?

Also, surprise! Turns out the Book of Seraphs is a complete fucking lie according to the very first codex entry related to Davoth! (”Our research shows that Maykr history and lore holds truths that are not consistent with passages found in the Hell Priest texts, revealing the true origins of Hell and all surrounding dimensions. This revelation would explain why Hell is the single dimension that connects to all others, and why it is the oldest in existence - the first world.”)

The real truth is that Davoth is the real Creator/God, and that Jekkad was the very first realm, not Urdak. He still sought immortality for his people, so he created the Maykrs to figure it out for him. They did, but decided it would be too dangerous to give Davoth that information, so they basically said “fuck you” and sealed Jekkad/Davoth while re-writing their own records to hide the truth. Obviously, this pissed off Davoth. So much so that he basically became super angry and emo and became the Dark Lord from all the vengeance and hatred (which also turned Jekkad into Hell.)

Another surprise! Turns out that Davoth had a hand in the creation of the fucking Doom Slayer! Because he wanted to get revenge against the Maykrs, he started to manipulate a bunch of people while he was trapped as a life sphere I guess. He started with the Khan Maykr, convincing her that there was a “chosen one” who would threaten her rule and thus making her paranoid as fuck. He then guided her into creating the Divinity Machine using a fragment of himself that had been sealed in Urdak. Then he manipulated Samur, by convincing him that “the Khan Maykr will lead us all to ruin.” He was then controlled and compelled to release a stranger from his prison (Doomguy) and empower him using the Divinity Machine.

As you can probably guess, he got his revenge since Doomguy would go on to utterly fuck Urdak/the Khan Maykr (as well as Samur), and ever since he knew that his “Beast” would come for him.

Listen. I don’t really mind the idea of Doomguy being used or even manipulated by different godly powers. Or even Davoth being the real God or whatever. But this new lore and story just feels... really sloppy and poorly executed, especially since it directly conflicts with the fucking base game. If he manipulated the Khan Maykr and wanted revenge against her, then why did he scream “NOOOOOO!” when Doomguy killed her?

And, if anything: Why the fuck does Davoth even look like Doomguy in the first place? Is it some form of mockery? Or did id just decide to fucking retcon the Doom Slayer being the same person as the Doomguy from Doom 1/2 with the Father’s line of “He created everything in his image -- even you.”

And, on top of that, the DLC just left more open questions than answers: what the fuck happened to Samur, since he isn’t even so much as mentioned beyond the codexes? Who is the Wretch, the being who had supposedly forged Doomguy’s armor back in 2016? What is the fate of Earth/Hell/Urdak/Argent D’Nur after the Slayer’s victory? What the fuck happened to the Demonic Crucible, the one from 2016? What about the ARC Carrier and the Fortress of Doom?

Finally, Valen, Internguy and the Father should’ve been far more involved in the story beyond just being either convenient voices telling you convenient stuff or (in the case of Valen) being a convenient guy to give you convenient weapon that also conveniently shows up with a giant army that doesn’t actually do anything but look cool in the skybox.

TL;DR The new lore and story of the DLC is basically garbage, and since I highly doubt id will change it I’m going to completely disregard it, write my own, and also take up Davoth as a muse because it seriously pissed me off that much.

#doom spoilers #doom eternal spoilers #the ancient gods spoilers #the ancient gods part 2 #tag part 2 #ooc #wow. um. this got long #doomguy #doom guy #doomslayer #doom slayer #the dark lord #davoth #doom eternal

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liquidink21 · 3 years

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Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods, Part 3

I don’t think anybody liked the ending of the Doom Eternal story TAG2 gave us. It completely derailed all the lore being built previously, but I think there’s enough scraps to have it rebuilt with a couple more DLC, the first of which I shall hypothesise here. Link to my second post.

TAG3 opens like the last two with a “Previously on” text.

“Previous in The Ancient Gods, the Slayer traveled to Immora, ancient capital of Hell to face off with the Dark Lord, a shadowy mirror of himself. In ritual combat, the Slayer demonstrated his superiority in battle. Little did he know he was being deceived...”

We see the end scene from TAG2, but different. Its not on Ingmore’s Sanctum, but the red techno chamber from the first phase of the Davoth battle. Davoth is saying “do you have anything to say” line, but instead of passive he’s climbing out of the red Praetor suit while casting some sort of demonic spell with he hands. Doomguy ends up doing the stabby “No” one liner to an empty suit. Davoth confides to monstrous facsimiles of Maykrs “We cannot kill him. He’s too strong. But I can work my sorcery on him. We shall imprison him as we did last time.” Davoth adds something to the spell and the Slayer does the whole fainting thing. One of the demonic-fake-Maykrs, physically more impressive/monstrous than the others, in Vega/The Father’s voice does the “by his hands all things were made” line. We see Davoth cast one last spell, an image of demons in other dimensions dissolving, which he projects into the Slayers’ mind while whispering assurances that it’s all over. The scene shifts briefly to the Slayer’s perspective: a group of Seraphim encasing him in a coffin on Ingmore’s Sanctum like in TAG2′s ending, but halfway it cuts to the reality that its a set of demons imprisoning him in Immora. “We have him,” says Davoth, as he and the prime demon-maykr take their leave.

It goes black for a moment, to convey passage of time. You’re seeing from the Slayer’s perspective inside the coffin, when Commander Valen smashes the lid open and tells you you’ve been deceived and that it’s not over yet. The arena you were in is in ruins and exposed to the open sky, and there are Sentinels standing over the corpses of the demonic not-Seraphim.

Level One: Immoran Undercity

The action of the level picks up immediately. Valen informs you that the Dark Lord is fleeing to the lowest levels of Immora, and you immediately give chase. The TAG2 Immora level took place in the towering skyscrapers above a deep green mist-filled pit. Well in this level you’re down in those pits. The achitecture is a sharp blend of Immora’s red-Urdak and the more Nekravol-style hell we know and love. It’s filled with that green mist and is a poor-visibility level.

The lore pickups in this level waste no time setting the record straight. All that nonsense about Davoth being the true god was cult propaganda (there’s a line in TAG2 that could interpret all this that way) and that Davoth deliberately spread this because he’s that delusion and self-centred. Vega/The Father’s “confession” was actually the demonic not-maykr speaking with his voice. The Intern should probably call it propaganda straight up and mock the idea of taking it seriously.

The Night Sentinels have nearly destroyed Immora (though they’ve incurred heavy losses and are withdrawing to Argent D’Nur) and have raided its computer system for knowledge which appear as lore pickups. Immora may be the most ancient part of Hell, but the ability to access it via the Gate of Divum was long anticipated by the demons as a strategic weakness and the capital and residence of the Archdemons was moved elsewhere. The people of Immora are the leaders of Hell cults (although Hell usually just devours the souls of its cultists, if they betrayed everyone then they’d have difficulty developing cults. Olivia would have ended up here had she not allowed the Slayer to be freed.) The Urdak architecture is because the technology was reverse engineered from Nekravol.

The Slayer pursues Davoth through this canal with plenty of purple goo and damaging floors. It’s sort of like Argent Tower where you see glimpses of Olivia ahead of you, except this time its Davoth and his lieutenant. Davoth is wearing a far less dramatic suit of armour. You fight some of these demonic not-maykrs (lets call them Scions) and I’ll describe their fighting style later. The Demonic Troopers from TAG2 (which are dismissed as cultists, not “true demons”) get their last laugh as huge swarms across the edges of arenas to actually make them threatening, and we should actually get to fight some Demonic Wintherins. Maybe those ghost Seraphim show up to point the way or something. Those ghostly boys need to show up more for continuity. The level ends with Davoth entering a secret chamber with a teleporter, which self-destructs after he teleports. The Doom Slayer fights a pack of Scions and gets teleported out.

...

There is a cutscene aboard the ARC Carrier. The Intern has convinced much of the ARC personnel back, and even invited Commander Valen and some of the Sentinels aboard. They discuss the situation, while the Slayer sits back and looks a bit guilty about the situation (because Christ he needs some more characterisation than “angry”). If he hasn’t resurrected Davoth none of this would be happening, though Valen shields him from any accusations. Everybody from the Intern to the Father himself (seeing as he’s been hiding as an AI for some time) was taken completely by surprise by Immora not being Davoth’s true seat of power, so they have no real idea where he could have gone. Furthermore, the Argenta are utterly exhausted from the attack on Immora, and with the protection of Urdak gone the demons are beginning of full scale assault on Argent D’Nur anyway. The ARC offers assistance but notes that with the Dark Lord free its only a matter of time before the invasion of Earth resumes.

Valen wants to retrieve the Father’s Life Sphere, which the Intern tries to say was destroyed but VegaFather contradicts him. Samur was ambitious and was making a ploy to usurp the father (and we finally acknowledge that in 2016 Samuel put the Slayer in a position to kill Vega/The Father). Doomguy gets up and sets coordinates into the portal, but not for Ingmore’s Sanctum. He doesn’t state want he wants to do, though Valen states that he and a few of his braver Sentinels are going to take the Trial of Maligog without the Slayer. The Sentinels depart through their own portal, while the Slayer takes the ARC Carrier’s portal.

Level Two: Sanctum Wastelands

The Doom Slayer arrives in the blackened deserts of the Sanctum Wastelands. The level consists of many canyons and ruins and tombs carved into its sides, with architecture reminiscent of 2016′s Hell Levels. Perhaps some rivers of electrified quicksand or oases around pools of blood for maximum hellish weirdness. There are also giant skeletons and some Hellgrowth that has been mummified by the dryness. The sky should be extremely orange and the entire level extremely lightening-y.

The Slayer’s mission objective says “find the Wretch”; the same demon mentioned in 2016 that created the Praetor suit. Maybe the Wretch gets an actual name. I’m not sure. I have very little to say about how this level should play, beyond Whiplashes being dominant (the Sanctum Wastes were mentioned in their codex entry after all) and maybe bring back the Hell Guards from 2016 as a super-heavy (they can be called Bone Striders like they are in the Collector’s Edition Lorebook). Maybe it’d be worthwhile to make this a less linear level along the lines of The Blood Swamps, where you have a choice between which path you take first?

The Lore pickups here can go in a few ways. Describe who the Wretch is, why they betrayed Hell, and their history with the Slayer. I think maybe since demons are created by the soulless husks of Hell’s victims, this one somehow managed to keep a feint memory of their old life? Or maybe they were a cultist, part of the Ra'Itha Va'Tuum, forcibly merged with a demon like Olivia but managed to overwhelm the demon’s personality? Another Lore pickup could continue to describe Davoth’s revision of history to glorify himself. Perhaps there’s a demonic tomb that’s been desecrated to reflect that?

The Wretch’s Hideout is in a small tomb, where they have set up a small forge inhabited by a few zombies under their control. I’m not sure what the Wretch should look like. Maybe like the Gladiator, a nod to the original Barons; maybe an Arch-Vile to imply intelligence. Probably best to have a unique character model. Perhaps a Vagary from Doom 3 but less anatomically overt. The Slayer is silent as always and the Wretch does all the talking. They know what has been happening and of the failed attack on Immora. They assume (correctly) the Slayer wants to know the true capital of Hell and explains: the Dark Lord and his Eternal Archdemons make their capital in the city of Dis. Dis is a mobile fortress that can teleport across Hell according to its lord’s whims. It usually remains in extremely remote regions for safety, but its immense destructive capabilities means that under dire circumstances it will appear to personally deal with a threat to hell. The Wretch points out that the Slayer’s aeons of war, the Unholy Crusade, and the attack on Immora all failed to draw Dis’ attention. It would take a full scale and successful invasion by a second Godrealm to bring Dis into battle. The Intern points out that even if they restore the Father, Urdak won’t be able to accomplish this for years yet. The Wretch ends that with the Slayer’s visit, they’ll have to change hideout again. If the Slayer wants them, they will set up a new hideout in Nekravol’s ruins (or something like that, the line isn’t that important).

Upon gaining this information, the Slayer receives a distress call from Valen: the Dark Lord has appeared at Ingmore’s Sanctum! Much like in Exultia, the level is split between two locations divided by portal (though not equally sized). The Intern (or maybe the Wretch) opens an emergency portal to the Sanctum. The Slayer ends up on the Sanctum’s mountain, but not at the top. Below them, the Blood Swamps are set ablaze and Maligog slain by Hellish warships (some of the kind seen in Immora, but also some more non-Urdak looking varieties). There is an arena to fight with demons before heading to the very top (via our beloved platforming), back to the Tomb of Souls.

There should be a Lore pickup that describes life spheres in more detail, along with what Samur was trying to pull on the Slayer. Perhaps the sphere he presented was his own; since the Father seems in a small way operable without one, perhaps Samur could operate his body and undergo transmogrification as an AI, or something like that.

At the top of Ingmore’s Sanctum, the Betrayer lies wounded and his Sentinels missing while Davoth surveys his scions (including the leader-Scion) collecting the purple life spheres, the life spheres of those primevals that had allied with Hell. He’s looking a bit more demonic; his eyes have begun bleeding, his teeth are sharpening, and his wounds from his battle with the Slayer sprouting small tendrils. He notices the Slayer, and makes a brief speech about still serving his traitorous creation. Valen tells him to shut up with his lies. Davoth tries to kill him, but the Slayer deflects the blow. A brief battle ensures. Its a one on one battle with the Dark Lord, but without his Praetor Suit it goes more like the Jakob fight from Dusk. A few Scions join in to make it hard. Perhaps due to the wonders of the Dark Lord’s illusions this fight takes place on Mars or something? Anyway, it ends with Slayer victory, but it turns out to just have been a diversion for the Scions to escape with the Life Spheres. Davoth himself utilised an illusion to escape. The Slayer brutally cuts the illusion down.

Despite failing to stop Davoth, the pair come to finish what Valen came here for. The Father’s life sphere is not amongst the smaller pedestals, but is the blue orb floating above the tomb. They bring it down with some sort of Sentinel device, used by Valen for climbing. Most of its apparent size is due to its glow, but its still slow large they have to roll it to move it. The Father informs them that they now know that Davoth will be coming to the Luminarium to resurrect his old allies, and may face him there.

Level Three: Hell Fleet

Hypothetically, this plot is taking the same route as TAG1, so we’ll have to spice things up won’t we? The Hellish fleet we saw a glimpse of at Ingmore’s Sanctum is in Urdak in full force. I’ll describe it in more detail. Those red-Urdak ships we saw in Immora are there, since they were genuinely good assets, but there are larger ships that are a mix between hellgrowth and jagged black metal, more in line with hell’s usual aesthetic. There are also demonic fortresses held up by chains (similar to Eviternity’s first heaven level), along with more esoteric demonic totems (picture this thing from Doom 4 1.0, which I really love). There are portals with tentacles emerging, just like in Super Gore Nest.

The player can plainly see, but the Father explains further, that the Dark Lord has accelerated the conquest of Urdak from mere occupation to fully dragging the holy realm into Hell. The last pockets of Makyr resistance exterminated, and only those artifacts useful to Davoth spared. As the level begins, Valen states he will find adequate means of transporting the Father’s life sphere while the Slayer clears a path, to justify his absence and maintain a single-player campaign.

I have a few ideas for how this level should run. Firstly, there should be some funky platforming between Hellships. Secondly, the first quarter (third?) of this level should a big Eviternity reference where the chains supporting a large demonic invasion barge are destroyed by the Slayer, alongside the fortress itself. The next segment takes place inside a few of the larger Hellships, destroyed as the Slayer tears through them. There needs to be a fun segment where you fight an enormous Caco-cloud.

The next segment takes the Slayer to the Luminarium. To prevent the level being a rerun of The Holt, the building is torn open to provide a different layout. The Slayer meets Davoth and the Grand Scion again, and has a second battle in the same place he fought Samur, though through illusions it appears to take place somewhere else. Just before this, Valen contacts the Slayer and mentions he has arrived and is making his journey. The Slayer has a similar battle with the Dark Lord to the one in the previous level, but with some upgraded move-sets. Once again the Slayer defeats Davoth, who has to use sorcery to escape, but the Slayer is getting privy to the illusions and nearly catches him. The Life Spheres of the Dark Lord’s allied primevals are spilled. The Slayer crushes them as Valen arrives in a Night Sentinel vessel.

Valen and the Night Sentinels roll the Father’s life sphere into the Luminarium for the Seraphim to resurrect. The Sentinels and the Slayer bow as they do so (because the Slayer has respect for his buddy Vega). The sphere does not take a physical form, but merely sends a huge shockwave of blue energy across the entirety of Urdak, as the Father explains that his true form is the infrastructure of Urdak. As he says this, the cutscene shows the ruined buildings of Urdak, and especially the eyes of Maykr statues, begin to glow. He explains that due to the widespread damage he is still quite weak, but with full control of his faculties and therefore Urdak’s defenses he will be able to restore dominion over Urdak, but not for quite some time, and Davoth is only growing stronger. He still requires assistance from the Slayer in the meantime.

He explains that Davoth is likely going to try concentrate his forces to capture a few key assets to recuperate their inevitable loss in Urdak. The great portal network (lets call it the Astronomicon as a 40k reference) that Urdak used to travel between universes, whose possession by the demons was such a threat to creation, is the most likely target. A portal is immediately opened up to help the Slayer get closer.

In the background of the last quarter of the level, segments of Urdak are beginning to shoot down at the Hellish warships, though the warships also destroy more Urdak infrastructure. The Astronomicon needs unique architecture to keep it distinct from the other Urdak levels. Perhaps it should resemble the Tree of Life from Emerson Tung’s concept art? The Slayer swings through some Hellgrowth-ridden Urdak to get there, to find it surrounded by giant tentacles and a large portal prepared to swallow it.

The Slayer enters to confront Davoth and their Grand Scion. There’s a brief speech where Davoth complains that the Slayer is beginning to annoy them. He prepares for a third battle, but the Grand Scion intervenes and says that the Dark Lord must complete their quest in Urdak; they will hold the Slayer off. The boss fight occurs, probably heavily focused on illusions given what Davoth has been doing and that the lesser Scions create false images of themselves to fight (more on that later). To make this feel a bit more climactic, the Grand Scion should probably have a greater presence in this story than I’ve already stated. I have nothing more to say about the fight, and that’s a weakness of my writing.

After defeating the Grand Scion in battle, a cutscene plays where in their dying move the Grand Scion pounces on the Slayer. They are impaled on the doomblade, but they successfully knock the Slayer out of the Astronomicon in time for Davoth to completely suck the structure into Hell. Valen appears to help the Slayer to their feet. The Father states that with the Astronomicon in Hell’s power they will have unprecedented access to new worlds. The Doom Slayer’s knowledge of Dis is now the only hope of stopping Davoth. Urdak is years away from being in a state to challenge Hell enough to summon Dis, the Father continues, but there is another force that could manage it. A portal opens up, the slayer leaves, and “TO BE CONTINUED” shows.

New Monsters:

Scion: Heavy demons, resembling bundles of tentacles, organs, and a Spiderdemon type face in the rough shape of a Maykr. They’re partially cybernetic in a very demonic way: circuitry bolted directly into the flesh with rough plates of sheet metal badly covering it. Lore should state that they’re native to a godrealm willing allied and merged with Hell, and the Grand Scion was an evil primeval who escaped being reduced to a Life Sphere. They fight sort of like the Blood Maykrs without the headshot gimmick. Their gimmick is that they summon illusions of themselves which are tankier and waste your ammo. They have a minor weakness to the micromissiles in which the illusions do not trigger the homing capabilities. First introduced in Immoran Undercity.

Immoran Commando: Fodder or heavy demons. The chaingunners finally brought to Doom Eternal, as described in this video. Although instead of a human zombie, they’re surviving cultists from Immora honour-bound to either kill the Slayer or die trying, bound in a somewhat cooler version of the Demonic Trooper’s red power armour. First introduced in Immoran Undercity.

Demonic Wintherin: We finally fight these funkily designed background characters. I’m feeling they’re sort of like a mix between the Icon of Sin and the fighter jet in Wolfenstein: Youngblood. In an open air arena, they show up off to the side of one and begin showering the arena with their attacks, like the Icon of Sin did. They may disappear and reappear continuously until you kill them. First introduced in Immoran Undercity.

Briar: Fodder demons, resembling octopi that scuttle across the arena and latch onto mobility aids (monkey bars, climbable walls, and jump pads) and damage the player if touched. When killed they leave a puddle of acid like that of the Cyber Mancubus attack. If frozen they can be killed without unleashing acid. First introduced in Sanctum Wasteland.

Bone Strider: Super-heavy demons, literally the Hell Guard lifted from Doom 2016, less HP and adapted for Doomy Ternal’s arena combat. First introduced in Sanctum Wasteland.

Watcher: Heavy demons, resemble and animate sort of like the torso phase of the Doom Hunter but they look like a bundle of branches from those red Urdak trees. Lore-wise they are literally demonically possessed trees from Urdak. An improvement on the Briar enemy. When present in the arena all mobility aids will be encrusted with thorny plant growth until they’re killed, limiting Slayer mobility down to the meathook and climbing small ledges. Unlike the Briar, their death does not leak acid anywhere. They should also have sort of actual attack while they’re doing this. First introduced in Hell Fleet.

#doom #doom eternal #the ancient gods #davoth

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