【A Male Friend Who Spins it Around】

Doom Eternalis back with fresh news out of QuakeCon 2018 coming after a completely unfulfilling tease at E3.

The A Male Friend Who Spins it Aroundupcoming game is a sequel to id Software's 2016 series revival. Doomis a reboot of the original first-person shooter, both of them following an anonymous space marine's bloody assault on the forces of Hell as they invade Mars.

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You know, that old chestnut.

The upcoming sequel revisits the events of Doom 2, with Doom Eternalfacing players off against demons as they bring their hellish party to Earth. Game director Marty Stratton and creative director Hugo Martin both took the stage at QuakeCon 2018 on Friday to share a proper first look at the in-development sequel.

Sprinkled in alongside the generous amount of gameplay footage is a boatload of information about how id managed to improve upon a game that saw players shooting up the demons of Hell while thrashing to heavy metal chords.

The "Doom Guy" is a more capable Doom Guy now

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The unnamed star of Doom and Doom Eternalsports new, beefier armor that's been enhanced in a few ways. Doom Guy can now dash around in quick bursts, allowing players to cover greater distances in the air. This is especially true when the dash combines with Doom Eternal's thrust boots, a holdover from the previous game that allows for double jumps.

Doom Guy also now sports a wrist-mounted extending blade -- which in turn levels up the sequel's execution animations -- as well as some kind of shoulder-mounted multi-tool. It's not yet clear how the latter works, though it pops out several times during the QuakeCon footage, at one point even spewing a jet of flame.

In addition to the suit upgrades, Doom Guy is also more mobile now in general. He can mantle up onto ledges, grab and swing off of poles, and even climb along certain walls.

Super Shotgun gets even more super

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Doom's signature shotgun gets a big upgrade in Doom Eternal, thanks to the new "Meat Hook." This forked blade sits at the end of the Super Shotgun's barrel and works sort of like a meat-based grappling hook.

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Instead of latching on to environment features (or perhaps in addition -- it's not clear), the Meat Hook attaches to "living" demons, pulling Doom Guy in close for even more spectacular kills. You can further use the momentum created from grappling in to soar past the target and get some shots in on their backside.

New weapons join old, updated weapons

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The Super Shotgun is by far the coolest Doom Eternal weapon reveal so far, but it's not alone. Also new is the Ballista, a high-tech crossbow-looking apparatus that fires explosive bolts. It's pretty simple: Just aim and fire. The bolts appear to follow a straight trajectory to their target, and they do serious damage.

There's also a new Heavy Cannon, which works like the Chain Gun when fired from the hip and more like a sniper rifle when you scope in. A small concession for those who prefer careful, practiced aiming to Doom's typical run-and-gun format.

The QuakeCon footage also served up looks at an assortment of older, more familiar Doomweapons, such as the rocket launcher and grenade launcher. And hey, it turns out that watching demons explode in gooey bits is still satisfying.

Demons fall apart

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In sharing their first look at Doom Eternal, Stratton and Martin actually used the phrase "destructible demons" while hanging on to a straight face. Those two are heroes, dammit.

There's at least a neat idea behind this flashy bullet point. The more you shoot up demons with your various guns, the more they fall apart. This obviously isn't as noticeable on the smaller demons, but big ones lose entire chunks of their body as they sustain an increasing amount of damage.

This doesn't really seem to change up the gameplay; it just looks cool as hell.

Doom Souls

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The biggest surprise of id's Doom Eternalreveal: Other players can invade your game, Dark Souls-style.

It's an entirely optional feature, but players that opt in may have to deal with actual human threats, and sometimes even more than one as online players are allowed to form their own Slayer-hunting squad of demons. Of course, that also means you yourself can leap into other people's games if you so choose.

There's not a lot of detail on how this feature works or what the advantage is, but contending with other human players in the midst of Doom's typical demon battle arenas sure sounds like a good time. Becoming a demon and ruining some poor Doom Guy's day sounds even better.

If you want to watch the whole thing, game footage and all, here's a 25-minute clip publisher Bethesda Softworks shared on YouTube.

We don't yet know when Doom Eternalis coming out, but when it does arrive -- likely in early/mid-2019, it'll be coming to PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, andSwitch. The 2016Doomgot a Switch release in 2017, but it looks like Nintendo fans won't have to wait for a port of this sequel.

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Topics Gaming