I think PC gaming has peaked with DOOM Eternal

[moonbogg]

I'm almost done playing DOOM Eternal on an OLED panel and I am of the belief that this gaming experience constitutes the practical end-game for what can be achieved playing games on a computer with mouse, keyboard, and flat screen. PC gaming has peaked here IMO. I believe this is actually it. The god-like FPS gaming experience has been produced and improving it significantly from here seems quite unlikely in terms of graphics and gameplay mechanics. I'm calling it. I saw PC gaming evolve from the beginning, and DOOM Eternal, when occupying the technological intersection of ray tracing, high refresh rate, high resolutions, OLED HDR, combined with the amazing miracle that the game itself is, constitutes the top of the mountain. You can stand on your tippy toes from here, but you aren't going much higher than this.

 

[mikeymikec]

Doom Eternal didn't manage to keep me engaged despite two attempts to get into it. IMO it attempted to take the "play Quake 1 berserker style" format and make it the mandatory play format in DE. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing Q1 berserker style, but I don't play the entire game that way and the game allows me to play it in multiple ways. DE doesn't. It's also rather like Hollywood movies going from ultra-quiet dialogue to speaker-flexing explosion resulting in one having to constantly reach for the remote control: you walk quietly through a few corridors then there's mayhem, rinse and repeat. For me it's just not an enjoyable play style.

I wondered whether me not enjoying it was due to me getting older, but I recently bought a version of Q1 with all the expansions I hadn't played before, and I enjoyed completed the game plus one or two of the expansions, so I don't think it's a "getting old" issue.

I don't think "the height of gaming" has much to do with evolving tech. For me there have been two advancements in gaming that have been game-changers: 1) save game slots, 2) 3D hardware acceleration. Sure, both made possible by evolving tech, but both happened a *long* time ago.

 

[Fkstick McDuff]

Too much platforming. Fighting off a horde of hell only to die a minute later because I missed a monkey bar was rage inducing. Especially when the last checkpoint was well behind the battle that took all of your wits to emerge from. I had high hopes for Eternal after playing the 2016 Doom reboot (which I loved), but have given up on it at this point.

I'll eventually go back and give it another go, but the obby sections left me with a pretty dim view.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Eternal was too much of on-off-on-off. you'd run around exploring and then it was very obvious when an arena was about to occur. 2016 had much smoother transitions between exploration areas, random monsters, and arenas.

 

[BoomerD]

The last PC game that I was excited for was Half-Life 2. There have been a few other games that I bought when they came out, but HL2 was the last one I waited and waited for. Once I played the limited demo...and was able to use the gravity gun to throw a barrel of gasoline...I was hooked.
I ONLY play FPS single player shooters. If a game doesn't at least offer a single-player campaign, I have no interest in it. The Battlefield series had some good games as did Call of Duty. I enjoyed the original Quake and Quake 2. Quake 3 was basically just multiplayer, so skipped that one. Quake 4 was OK, but not great. Never really liked Doom...I played them through Doom 3, IIRC, then abandoned the franchise. I have Doom 64 in one of my libraries...haven't bothered to install it.

 

[EXCellR8]

2016's title is definitely better than Eternal which, to be fair, I didn't finish. Too much emphasis on always being on the go and annoying "this is obviously an arena" gameplay. There were parts I liked, but with a game like Doom I'd much rather prefer mostly linear, dark, cramped corridors, and the occasional big area with a boss. Eternal just felt like an absolute chore to play with so much going on, and I wish I liked it more. Maybe I'll try to wrap it up when I'm very, very bored.

Also PC gaming peaked way back between 2003 and 2007, ending with Bioshock. Everything that came after is pure trash

 

[Ranulf]

There was an interview a few years back with the Doom Eternal dev who admits that if you liked 2016's style and the more traditional style of Doom type games you might not like Eternal. Just watching the previews years ago I knew it was taking the worst parts of 2016 and amplifying them. Some day I'll try it just for fun...maybe.