Is the Doom Eternal DLC worth it? Let’s unravel the answer. Eternal has two DLC – The Ancient Gods Part One and The Ancient Gods Part Two. They continue the story of the game in a jam-packed epilogue with enough content for a full-blown sequel.
Eternal has been out for around a year now, but it just got a next-gen upgrade that implements ray-tracing and DLSS support meaning that you can enjoy a lighting overhaul with a performance boost to boot. Eternal’s already worth replaying based on the merits of the base game, but it doesn’t have to end once you’ve wrapped up the main campaign.
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I’ll break down what you get in each DLC for the price tag while also offering my own view on whether or not they’re any good. Right now, Eternal has a slew of price slashes thanks to the Steam Summer Sale, so you’d best get thinking fast. At the time of writing, the base game is 67% off at just £16.49.
Doom Eternal DLC: Is The Ancient Gods Part One Worth It?
If you haven’t beaten the main Doom Eternal campaign, it’d be best to look away. I’m going to be delving into spoiler territory given that The Ancient Gods tells us what befalls the Doomslayer following the events of the main game.
At the conclusion of Eternal’s story, you slay Khan Maykr, leaving a void of power that the denizens of hell, heaven, and Earth alike are scrambling to fill. Before things can get all Game of Thrones in this biblical apocalypse, the Doomslayer ventures to find the Father’s Life Sphere so that he may return them to physical form. What unfolds isn’t quite that simple, but I won’t spoil the fun.
For £15.99 – or £11.99 in the current sale – The Ancient Gods Part One contains the following:
- Five new enemies
- Two new bosses
- Three new locations
- A new campaign
- Five hours of new content
When you boot up the DLC, you also have every weapon from the base game maxed out and all of the suit perks unlocked. Essentially, you’re given a 100 percent save regardless of where you left off at the end of Eternal. However, given the way the game ends – what with you skewering the Icon of Sin – you no longer have your crimson red energy sword. Instead, you’re back to throwing right-hooks with the occasional chainsaw to the chest. Groovy.
In essence, it’s more Doom – and given that Eternal is one of the better entries in the series, that alone makes it worthwhile. However, the new locales are more diverse in scope than the base game’s levels. This was a huge reason I fell off 2016 to the point of never beating it – it was visually repetitive. That problem is completely remedied in Eternal, although the solution is on display more than ever in The Ancient Gods. It opens up in a dieselpunk-esque oil rig of towering structures in a deep, isolated ocean. It looks like a metal album’s rendition of Star Wars’ Kamino. Then, you’re taken to a luscious blood-red forest with the narrative coming to a close in the stormy, purple, and wretched landscape known as The Holt.
The story isn’t exactly the selling point of these games – Doom 3 learned that the hard way – but if you want to find out just what follows Eternal’s blood-soaked finale, then you don’t have to wait for whatever the new Doom 3 will be called. It’s all laid out in The Ancient Gods expansions and it’s a decent fantasy epic. It’s not exactly the best-written work of art, but it’s a serviceable explanation as to why the Doomslayer hasn’t put down the double-barrelled super shotgun and chainsaw to retire happily ever after.
Doom Eternal DLC: Is The Ancient Gods Part Two Worth It?
The first Doom Eternal DLC ends with a cliffhanger, begging you to jump straight into the next one. You absolutely should. While Part One was more Doom – a selling point in itself – The Ancient Gods Part Two takes Eternal to a whole new place. The story riffs off so many other large-scale fantasies, even replicating Avengers: Endgame’s portal scene, but the new weapon is what truly makes this expansion a must-play.
For the same price tag of £15.99, you get the following:
- Six new enemies
- One new boss
- Four new levels
- The Sentinel Hammer weapon
- A new campaign
- Four hours of new content
It’d be weird to play either The Ancient Gods Part One or Two without the other. They flow together like a sort of interim sequel, akin to Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty or Spider-Man: Miles Morales. As such, Part Two feels like the second half of another game. You get a new weapon – the aforementioned Sentinel Hammer – which is the DLC’s answer to the now-unavailable sword you plunged into a big ugly demon during the base game. Rather than slicing and dicing, you’re leaping and smashing. The synergy between the freeze bomb and flamethrower transforms fights into a meticulous ballet that ends with the stage being crushed in a rage-fueled demolition display. It’s spectacular in the best of ways. Each level feels carefully designed around this new synergy. Old enemies have new weaknesses to the hammer – the shielded hound master can now be stunned with a ground-pound, for example – while new enemies need you to learn the mallet’s groove just to stand a chance.
Much like with Part One, the various new levels are wonderfully diverse, keeping things fresh every step of the way before culminating in one helluva boss fight. I won’t spoil who’s behind the mask in the featured image (it’s best if you find that out firsthand) but duking it out with this final foe is a treat. At first, it was a touch tedious – learning their various grueling and punishing patterns can take some time, and it requires you to really come to terms with the new melee weapon. All the while, they heal and summon ghastly apparitions like the shielded sods in the base game, although these foes go down much easier and replenish your hammer uses.
There are nearly ten phases to push through but checkpoints are dotted throughout, so it’s not the most arduous game around town. Eternal’s final boss was a bit underwhelming – a fairly easy and quick-to-deal with demon. This time around, you’re going toe-to-toe with someone equal in strength and rip-and-tearability to the Doomslayer. With all that, is The Ancient Gods Part Two worth it? Absolutely.
Doom Eternal: Are The Cosmetics Worth It?
On top of the two The Ancient Gods DLC, there are a few cosmetic packs available in Doom Eternal. For £3.99 a pop, you can get The Rip and Tear Pack, Mullet Slayer, and Master Collection Cosmetic Pack. There are also two other cosmetic add-ons – the Series One and Series Two packs – priced at £7.39 each.
The weapon skins are, quite frankly, a bit ugly. There’s a glaringly ugly plasma rifle skin, for example, while you’ll very rarely ever see armour changes outside of cutscenes and maybe when you clock a demon every so often. It’s not exactly worth it. Doom ain’t the game for skins. But, if you have some cash to burn and you dig the in-game cosmetics – of which there are plenty as is, for free – and want something new, then sure, they’re worth a look at the very least. Otherwise, you’re better off sticking to The Ancient Gods.
Doom Eternal is another case of DLC overshadowing the main game preceding it. Like Skyrim and Dark Souls, the expansions take what made the base game such a bombastic joyride and amplify it tenfold with an even more captivating story to boot. You’ll be hooked like a floating meatball with a super shotgun’s grapple wedged into its eyeball. For the combined price of £30, it’s a bargain you shouldn’t miss out on.
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