The epic finale to the DOOM Eternal story arrives with The Ancient Gods Part Two. This was the follow-up to my favorite game of 2020: a culmination of all of the gameplay and story so far, concluding with an epic battle against the Dark Lord himself. This one’s for all the marbles.

So, how is it?

Note: This post contains spoilers for the main campaign and both DLCs for DOOM Eternal.

One of the many stunning landscapes in The Ancient Gods Part Two

The Good

For the most part, The Ancient Gods Part Two is a total blast to play. The level and encounter design is top-notch (much better than in Part One), and the new Sentinel Hammer is a cool new tool added to the Doom Slayer’s arsenal. Each level feels challenging, but not terribly punishing. There’s a fair variety of cosmetics to unlock. And though there are some re-skinned enemies, they still shake up the combat loop in ways that are engaging and fun. (The Stone Imp, for example, can roll up like Sonic the Hedgehog and bounce you in a direction you didn’t intend to go. Gotta keep an eye on them!)

And then there’s…

The Dark Lord

Part One of the Ancient Gods story arc hyped up the Dark Lord as the ultimate foe. The leader of hell’s armies. The ultimate evil. Part Two further emphasized what’s at stake: if the Dark Lord is defeated in ritual combat, all demons outside of hell will be destroyed – and the Doom Slayer is the only one who can stop him. Naturally, then, with so much riding on this, and with such a powerful enemy to fight, one would expect an epic and challenging fight of almost biblical proportions.

The Dark Lord himself in The Ancient Gods Part Two

Except it wasn’t.

The Icon of Sin fight from the base campaign was the ultimate test of a player’s skill. There were swarms of enemies constantly spawning while players attempted to put pressure on the boss. Maneuverability and mastery of the entire arsenal of weapons were necessary to succeed.

The Ancient Gods Part One upped the difficulty by including more hazards and enemy types. Players had to keep moving and keep applying pressure to the boss and the mobs, or they would die.

The fight against the Dark Lord had none of that. The battle against the ultimate evil boiled down to:

  • Dodge every attack, or he’ll heal.
  • Wait for an opening to stun him.
  • When stunned, hit him as much as possible.
  • Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam.

That’s it. His attacks, for the most part, were pretty easily avoidable. Virtually no mobs were spawned throughout the many phases of the fight — and when they did spawn, they were hardly a threat, as the Sentinel Hammer insta-killed them. So, the entirety of the boss battle consisted of dancing around and waiting for an opening. It wasn’t engaging, or particularly challenging. It was fairly disappointing considering everything else leading up to that point.

Minor Gripes

Thankfully, the final boss was my only major complaint for this expansion. However, there were two other small points that felt “off”:

  • Bonk. No, seriously. The newly-added Sentinel Hammer, when used, stuns all enemies within a certain radius and provides bonuses to essential encounter resources. When a demon is stunned, the hammer makes a cartoon-y “bonk” sound, and little cartoon birds and stars float in a circle around their head. It’s a very bizarre design choice; I know DOOM isn’t meant to be taken too seriously, but that may have been a step in the wrong direction. (Thankfully, it does appear that PC players can download a mod to remove it.)
  • Story. This is a minor point because DOOM isn’t really played for the story. Regardless, the story for Part Two effectively retcons major points in the base game and Part One’s story; most major events in the timeline now have “It was the Dark Lord all along!” smeared all over them. This doesn’t make for a particularly interesting, or sensible, twist.

Conclusion

All in all, I highly recommend the DLC, and the entire game. But there’s virtually no replay value for the final boss (unless you’re pushing for an Ultra Nightmare run).

Thank you for reading. If you’d like to read any of my other opinions about certain media, you can check out the Review tag. Feel free to leave a comment; I’d love to discuss the topics of my posts with you.