Of all the modern video game franchises to receive a story-expanding downloadable content (DLC) campaign, few carried the weight of expectation that Doom Eternal’s The Ancient Gods did. The base game was a masterpiece of modern shooter design, a blisteringly fast, technically profound, and unapologetically brutal symphony of combat that redefined the power fantasy. It also ended on a cliffhanger of cosmic proportions. The task for id Software was Herculean: create a follow-up that not only matched but surpassed the base game’s intensity, providing a narrative and gameplay conclusion worthy of the Doom Slayer. The reception to the two-part DLC, The Ancient Gods, was a fascinating study in a community grappling with a developer’s bold, and often punishing, creative vision. Ultimately, its score is a complex one, a blend of immense critical acclaim for its mechanical ambitions and a more divided, passionate response from its dedicated player base.
Part One of The Ancient Gods was released in October 2020 and was immediately recognized as an uncompromising elevation of Doom Eternal’s formula. Critics and hardcore players largely praised it. The universal consensus was that id Software had looked at the base game’s celebrated combat loop—the infamous "push-forward combat"—and asked, "How can we make this harder, faster, and more mentally demanding?" The answer was a new tier of enemy combinations and arenas that were less like battlefields and more like sadistic puzzles. The introduction of the Spirit, an ethereal entity that possesses other demons, making them faster, deadlier, and immune to damage until freed with the Plasma Rifle’s microwave beam, was a prime example. It was a mechanic that forced players to constantly re-prioritize targets under extreme pressure, a design decision hailed by many as genius for deepening the strategic layer.
The level design was also a standout, taking the Slayer to stunning new locales beyond the ruined Earth and Argent facilities. The stormy seas of UAC Atlantica and the ethereal, crystalline world of the Blood Swamps were visually breathtaking and offered sprawling, multi-tiered combat arenas that were both beautiful and deadly. Critics scored Part One exceptionally highly, often placing it in the 9/10 range, commending its confidence, its refusal to hold players’ hands, and its successful escalation of every element that made the base game great. The narrative, while still delivered through codex entries and environmental storytelling, began weaving a more complex tapestry, directly involving the mysterious Maykrs and setting the stage for a cosmic reckoning.
However, this was also where the first cracks in community reception began to show. For a significant portion of the player base, The Ancient Gods - Part One crossed a line from challenging into frustrating. The constant pressure of two Marauders, swarms of Carcasses shielding otherwise vulnerable demons, and the relentless aerial assaults from empowered gargoyles felt, to some, less like a fair test of skill and more like exhausting tedium. The "double Marauder" fight became a particular point of contention, a meme representing the DLC’s brutal difficulty spike. While many embraced this "trial by fire," others felt it catered exclusively to the elite, alienating more casual fans who had enjoyed the (still challenging) base game.
When The Ancient Gods - Part Two arrived in March 2021, it served as a direct response to this feedback, for better and worse. id Software made a conscious decision to re-tune the experience. The notorious Spirits were less frequent, enemy encounters, while still demanding, were often more manageable, and the studio introduced new tools to empower the player. The Sentinel Hammer was a game-changer—an area-of-effect stun and damage ability that recharged by using glory kills. It was a fantastic addition that gave players a new rhythmic tool to control the chaos, effectively becoming the central pillar of Part Two’s combat loop.
This shift was reflected in the critical reception. Reviews for Part Two remained stellar, often praising the refined balance and the empowering feel of the new hammer. The level design continued to impress, particularly the opening mission in the ravaged world of Immora, home of the demons, which offered a stark, fiery contrast to earlier environments. The final boss fight against the Dark Lord, a twisted mirror of the Doom Slayer himself, was a contentious point. Some appreciated its methodical, dance-like mechanics as a fitting thematic conclusion, while others found it a repetitive and underwhelming capstone to such a frenetic series.
Narratively, The Ancient Gods concluded the Slayer’s saga in a way that was both definitive and deeply ambiguous. By rejecting the false divinity of the Father and severing the parasitic relationship between Urdak and Hell, the Doom Slayer achieved his ultimate goal: freeing creation from the cycle of damnation. However, he also rendered himself mortal and seemingly purposeless, left to an uncertain future. This ending was met with mixed reactions. Some found it a poignant and fitting end for a lone warrior who only ever wanted peace, a final sacrifice. Others felt it was an anticlimactic and somber conclusion for a character synonymous with unrelenting rage and victory.
Therefore, scoring The Ancient Gods as a whole is not a simple task. On a critical aggregate, it scores phenomenally high, a 9/10 or even 9.5/10, lauded for its artistic vision, masterful combat evolution, and stunning presentation. It is a daring, artistically confident piece of work that refused to play it safe. Yet, its community score is more nuanced, perhaps landing in a 7.5/10 to 8.5/10 range when averaging the passionate love from its core audience with the frustration of those left behind by its extreme difficulty.
In the final analysis, The Ancient Gods will be remembered not for universal appeal, but for its uncompromising vision. It is the director’s cut of Doom Eternal—a harder, deeper, and more complex version of an already deep game. Its reception proves that even within a dedicated fanbase, there are limits to how far a design philosophy can be pushed before it fractures the audience. Yet, for those who ascended its steep peak, it represents the absolute pinnacle of the first-person shooter genre, a challenging, brutal, and ultimately triumphant finale to the saga of the Doom Slayer.
