Bethesda didn't want Doom Eternal to include deathmatch "just for the sake of doing it"

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Bethesda didn’t want Doom Eternal to include deathmatch “just for the sake of doing it"They’re up to something more interesting

They’re up to something more interesting

WhenDoom Eternalcomes out on Friday, it won’t include a deathmatch mode. The series that invented multiplayer deathmatch has done away with straight up murder competitions, because, according to Bethesda vice president Pete Hines, “that mode is eons old”. “I don’t know what that has to do with [Doom] other than that, well, a couple of decades ago we had that, so we should just have that again,” he says.

Fair enough. Why pander to the past when you can rip and tear through player-controlled demons?

It’s promising that Hines is on the same page:

The goal this time round is to carry over the same feeling from the singleplayer. Id themselves have developed Battle Mode, where two players control powerful demons while summoning lesser ones to harass a third player who controls the Slayer.

“For the Doom Slayer, it’s the same experience you know [from the campaign] with the added complexity of playing against humans who are controlling the arena and adding to the challenges you have,” Hines says. “There’s still an AI element, obviously, but what a player can come up with and throw at you can be far more interesting.”

I haven’t been able to try the multiplayer yet, but the campaign is fantastic, and you can read about why in myDoom Eternal Review. Here, have a quick peek:

“The highs in Doom Eternal come thick and fast and towering, in the midst of battles that demand total attention. New-new Doom nails that marriage of twitching and planning, the calculated deployment of rampant aggression. It makes you feel godly.”

Doom Eternal comes out this Friday, on March 20th.