Doom Eternal details its multiplayer Battlemode
The demons are just pals having some fun
Id Software have given some more details about Doom Eternal’s multiplayer experience, Battlemode, at its QuakeCon presentation. It’ll be based on an asymmetrical structure, putting one Slayer up against two demons. There’ll be five different classes of demons to choose from, so you can mix up how you play. Or, you know, play Doom like you would in the singleplayer campaign as the Slayer, except you’re goring your pals instead of AI monsters. Here's a vid showing it off and breaking it down.
DaisyRabbit is now the canon name of the Doom Guy if you ask me.
The demons playable at launch include the agile, jetpacked Revenant, who rains rockets down from above, and the slow, tanky Mancubus. There’ll be more added in free updates after launch, as well as additional maps after the initial six.
Slayers’ll need to contend with all kinds of demon abilities, including being able to summon more swarms to help out and leave environmental hazards. They’ll also need to manage health, armour, and ammunition via getting up close and personal with glory kills and the like. But the demons are evolving and adapting to this strange ability to absorb their life-force or turn them into ammo piñatas. In Battlemode they’ll have an ability that’ll block resource generation once charged and activated.
The Slayer has a lot of tricks up their sleeve, too, like portals on each map that’ll let them teleport from one side to the other, and their suite of gymnastical tricks for navigating around. Communication, then, is the demons’ greatest weapon. Trying to cooperate with a stranger in online play does often feel like dealing with hellspawn, so it may at least be thematically appropriate if not the easiest thing to pull off.
Obviously, demons win by killing the Slayer, and vice versa. But once the Slayer has finished off one demon, they’ll need to get a move on and nab the other one, because they respawn at half health after 20 seconds.
Between rounds, players can upgrade themselves, with stronger unlocks for winning. And yes, that means Slayers can get themselves the BFG.
Doom Eternal is scheduled to release on November 22.