Doom Eternal's DLC The Ancient Gods has received a gloriously brutal trailer, prompting director Hugo Martin and executive producer Marty Stratton to talk about some specifics and a few "unbelievable" experiences.
Speaking to PCGamesN, Stratton said that The Ancient Gods is practically a sequel to Doom Eternal. With that said, Slayer has everything right from the start, as the dev maxed him out, runes to mods, or in other words - he's just the way you left him when you finished the game.
"The experience starts out on this UAC research facility out in the middle of the sea. Just fantastic, unbelievable types of experiences where you’re kind of dangling 300 feet above crashing waves in the middle of the storm. It takes you to a really cool blood swamp in Hell, kind of a totally new location, and then the remnants of where you left Urdak after Doom Eternal, destroyed and dishevelled, you get to go back to that", he said.
The fact that you start with everything won't make things any less challenging, though, even if there are no new mechanics introduced in The Ancient Gods. The two said that players will have to make new choices about the tools they use and how they fight in general.
Bethesda
Martin said that the new locations let the team do some "really interesting" things with level design, even taking players to Equestrian Hold - a forest up in heaven.
"We’ll definitely be doing some interesting things with navigating your way through the forest, which is beautiful and somewhat eerie and unsettling at the same time. And then there’s the swamp which Marty mentioned, and it will incorporate some of the new ideas that are built for that location and also, for those that are interested, some really cool story stuff as well", Martin added.
A lot of what's in Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods is a reaction to the base game and how players played it. Some weapons simply trumped others in the long run, which is why id Software decided to creatively go about the task of making them not only viable, but preferable in some scenarios.
We must admit that Martin's take on difficulty was wonderfully refreshing as he talked about handling Marauders. For starters, there's "a lot" of them in The Ancient Gods and he insists that they were aiming for the edge of fun, fairness and frustration.
"There’s nothing that I do, both in games or my personal life, that at some point isn’t frustrating. But it’s overcoming those obstacles where the engagement is, and then achieving mastery is that much more satisfying as a result. Nothing that’s easily gained is satisfying, once you have it, you know? Doom Eternal is a power fantasy that you have to earn. And then it’s that much sweeter for it", he said.
Please, can somebody turn this into a difficulty petition so I can sign it in triplicate?
You can find the full interview here .
Doom Eternal, id Software and Bethesda's monument to brutality
- Image: 1 / 5
