Heavensward used to be my favorite expansion, but Shadowbringers easily tops it. I had never been more invested in the story, and the world of Norvrandt and the willingness to embrace darker themes cast under a searing, unending light us was a stellar direction to take. The soundtrack has some of the best music Soken has ever produced, and the environments are highly varied and interesting compared to the relatively drag environs of Ala Mhigo.

Also, I can't believe Urianger has one of my favorite moments in the entire game with Y'shtola.
As well, I can't

Doom Eternal, for all intents and purposes, is very much a Doom game. Featuring a killer soundtrack, tight controls, exceptional performance, and mountains of gore and visceral carnage, it's hard to not derive some amount of enjoyment from the game if you weren't already a fan of Doom (2016). That said, Doom Eternal is more than just a level pack, but rather a proper revision of the combat and gameplay of its predecessor. Manual dashing and air-dashing, increased mobility options, and Quake-esque Arena design reinvigorate the Doom formula, and are welcome changes given their inclusion into the game's main combat formula. However, I have some rather minor gripes which compel me to view Doom (2016) as the superior game.

Doom (2016), I feel, has a better grasp of handling the overall tone of the plot along with the campy nature of the series, whereas much of that camp isn't embraced nearly as much in Eternal, much to my disappointment. In 2016, when Doom Guy finds a toy, he doesn't just casually brandish the toy before stowing it away, he twists its appendages around and gives it a loving little fistbump, displaying how, despite the potentially world-ending events occurring around Doom Guy, he genuinely enjoys doing what he does and relishes every moment, as seen in prior Doom titles where Doom Guy finds peace in the slaughter. Doom Guy is, overall, much more serious in Eternal, and that's appropriate given the context of the story, but the subtle comedy associated with his character is more centered around his legendary status or intimidating nature rather than his own personality traits, which I missed.

In regards to the gameplay, Doom Eternal is a far more challenging title than 2016, even despite the fact that I played on controller and not mouse and keyboard like I did with 2016, requiring the player to micro-manage every tool at their disposal to maintain health, armor, ammo, then dodge, shoot, jump, and more in a frenetic, violent dance. The necessary actions per minute to stay on top of your game is much higher than 2016, and can leave the player feeling exhausted by the end given how deeply one must focus in combat. Funnily enough, I find Doom 2016 to be a rather relaxing game to play (which might sound preposterous given its content), but Eternal will have your hands sweating as you try to stay alive, much less prevail against the hordes of enemies facing you.

Speaking of enemies, Doom Eternal features an abundance of foes that desire nothing more then to see all your lives be lost and for you to perish. Many enemies from prior Doom titles re-emerge, such as the infamous Archvile, a frustrating, yet satisfying, enemy to kill as always, and new enemies like the Marauder. My gripe with Doom Eternal lies here in its enemy design. While bosses are generally better than in 2016, general enemy design in Eternal can feel suffocating given the various stipulations required to kill each and every one of them. The Pain Elemental and Cacodemon are weak to the Ballista, the Arachnotron and Revenant is weak to the Shotgun's grenade launcher mod or the Assault Rifle's sniper mod, etc. While these weaknesses force the player to constantly be switching weapons on the fly and are encouraged to use their entire arsenal, enemies also feel railroaded in that there are specific ways the player should approach their opponent with very little wiggle room if they want to succeed. 2016, rather, was more open-ended with its combat design, and allowed for many approaches to defeating individual enemies. I preferred 2016's approach to this aspect of combat design, and disliked feeling railroaded in this fashion throughout Eternal, but I encouraged Eternal's guiding hand in forcing the player to use their entire tools etc. A happy marriage of the these two methodologies would be a welcome change.

On the topic of railroading, yes, I am one of those people who despise the Marauders. Obviously, I can deal with them, as I completed the game, but that doesn't mean I don't take issue with their methodology. More than any other enemy in the game, the Marauder forces you to focus your entire attention on them, for they absolutely melt you if you don't and harass you constantly until you do. Marauders require you to stand at a specific distance to trigger their AI to create an opening to let them be attacked and staggered briefly, and only heavy weapons like the Shotguns and Ballista are effective enough in dealing with the Marauder. Stand anywhere outside of their very specific range, and the Marauder will either shoot you with their Shotgun or lob energy projectiles and tracking animals to attack you. The problem with the Marauder is that they are so specific as to what you must do to defeat them that everytime they appear on the field, they suck the fun out the entire encounter. You can't engage the Marauder when preoccupied by other demons since you can't initiate the AI 's attack to create an opening, you can't escape the Marauder's hail of projectiles when you are out of the desired range since you need to stand completely still to trigger it, and, again, only the Shotguns or Ballista can even efficiently kill him. The Marauder frustrates me to no end since you always have to leave it to the very last moment of the encounter so you can then play the "Marauder game" where you hope the AI finally understands you're at midrange and you should attack me in the desired way. There is a strategy to kill the Marauder in one go using the Full-auto shotgun and supplemental grenades, but I still dislike the design of the Marauder.

Finally, though the tool tips on the different enemies are neat ideas, they only further exemplify the limited approach one must take when engaging certain enemies, otherwise you are being inefficient and might kill yourself as a result.

Doom Eternal is still a very much enjoyable game with some neat lore bits for those interested, but it's still inferior to Doom 2016 in my eyes which felt like capturing Argent energy in a bottle. The combat in Eternal is much faster and the environments are more varied, with fantastic art design, but I feel 2016 is an overall more preferable package. If iD were to maintain the toolset of Eternal and polish other aspects of the game, then an eventual Doom sequel (or hell, even a new Quake game) would most certainly be one of the greatest FPS games ever made.