I’ve started DOOM Eternal twice now. Once on the standard difficulty setting, then on the lowest. I do not find it a bad game, nor do I think I’m necessarily “bad at it”. Considering that I have roughly twenty extra lives stocked up in my easier run-through, I’m pretty sure I could, with enough patience, tackle this game on its standard difficulty.

There’s a lot of stuff here that I like, or at least enjoy on paper.The platforming and navigation elements of its levels are far more engaging than those in DOOM (2016) (henceforth referred to simply as DOOM). Unlike its predecessor, Eternal relies less on a labyrinthine structure to encourage player exploration and more on leaping and mid-air dashing sequences to test reflexes and environmental awareness. I find such activities far more satisfying and refreshing than simply sticking my nose into every nook and cranny, wondering where the heck I’m expected to find the button that opens the secret door several combat arenas back.

Speaking of combat, id Software has also expanded upon the health regenerating nature of glory kills, additionally distributing ammo and armor supplies through the judicious application of violence. While all of these resources can be found scattered around each combat arena, the most efficient way to keep the Slayer topped off is to light foes on fire, chainsaw them in half, and rip and tear their huge guts until the colorful resources burst from Hell’s spawn like candy from a piñata.

These ideas are all great. They ensured that I did not wholly dislike my time with DOOM Eternal.

So why do I groan at the prospect of playing more as I might express exasperation at the thought of working overtime? Or mowing the lawn in 90° fahrenheit heat?

I believe there are two core reasons for this feeling towards the game: a lack of continuity between levels and the inability to ever feel like I’m sufficiently competent at the gameplay.

That first issue is an unusual one, as I would not have expected any sense of narrative continuity to matter in a DOOM game. At the same time, if we were to compare, say, Super Mario 3D Land or Super Mario 3D World with the eight- or sixteen-bit predecessors Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World, I’d prefer the structure of the latter. The more recent games have a select number of visual themes to their worlds, arranging them based more on providing visual variety from level to level than any sense of identity to each individual “world”. The end result led the recent games to feeling like a pile of randomly assembled obstacle courses that gradually escalated in difficulty than some abstract video game interpretation of a world.

On the other hand, those older games often featured themed “worlds”, such as Desert Land in Super Mario Bros. 3 differentiating itself from Giant Land, Sky Land, Water Land, and so on. Super Mario World similarly had the subterranean Vanilla Dome, each of its levels identified by the glimmering gray rock of its platforms and darkened background. Each level was aesthetically different from the preceding Donut Plains, or the Twin Bridges and Forest of Illusion that followed.

It may seem like a strange preference, but it helped to provide a sense of progression within a game lacking a narrative structure. Each world’s identity becomes intertwined with one of Bowser’s seven Koopa Kids overseeing it, meaning any reflection upon the zone or its overlord will conjure thoughts of the other. Like the mind stitching together a sense of place and continuity based on the clever editing tricks of a film, it’s possible to piece together a sense of progress beyond the number of each stage. It’s not just world 3-2. It’s the water level of Vanilla Dome, the territory guarded by Lemmy Koopa.

Though the world looks cloud-themed, the individual levels and their aesthetics have nothing to do with the clouds. This can be seen by each level’s icon, identifying what type of obstacle course the player can expect.

Odd as it may seem to be discussing the Mario Bros. games alongside the Doom franchise, both series share an emphasis on game mechanics over story. The narrative exists to contextualize the gameplay and little more. That context is rendered meaningless, however, if the game world itself fails to reflect any sense of meaning between each stage. With Super Mario World, you’re about as abstract as I believe you can get away with in such a situation. Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World lose any sense of context and therefore progression by randomly dropping levels with simplified aesthetics side-by-side. One moment Mario will be wandering a green plain with hills, and in the next he’ll be hopping between red-and-blue platforms over a sea of stars, only to then be hopping across clouds. It could be world one, two, three, or four, but there’s nothing within the level to indicate which is which. There is no longer that mental connection between the game world’s boss or the zone’s aesthetic. Mario does not occupy a “world” anymore. He merely leaps from course to course so that the game can continue onward.

DOOM and its predecessor Doom 3 did not have the greatest of narratives themselves. However, I knew when I was in a scientific facility on Mars invaded by demonic Hellspawn and when I had crossed over into Hell itself. The world itself filled in the narrative, and while I may not have considered or understood the practical, in-universe purpose of a specific chamber, I knew it was connected to the prior level. There was a sense of place, of progression, and I knew where it all fit in.

DOOM Eternal has an over-abundance of narrative, but its different worlds feel just as disconnected as the obstacle courses of Super Mario 3D World. This is in part due to the random explosion of unnecessary lore, where the Doom Slayer comes from some order of space knights from another planet or some such. The world of origin for these warriors serves as the second level, occupying a floating castle where phantom wolves howl in the direction of your next objective. It’s certainly neat and memorable, but what does it have to do with the literal Hell on Earth this game was supposed to be?

Though the core issue of Super Mario 3D World’s pile of assembled levels with little context or connection is similar to that of DOOM Eternal’s, the root cause is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Super Mario 3D World has no story, just a goal, and the levels reflect this rather than create an illusion through thematically related levels. DOOM Eternal, on the other hand, tries to trot the Doom Slayer across the globe and beyond with an abundance of narrative that was haphazardly added between games. It’s like jumping from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi and wondering how Han Solo got stuck in carbonite to begin with.

I suppose the expectation is that the lore will satisfy story nerds while those embracing the Doom Slayer’s apathetic attitude towards context won’t spare a thought as to why they’re in a completely new environment. After all, each map can now possess an even greater sense of visual variety when you literally teleport from one type of landscape to another halfway through a level. For me, it just shatters the illusion that I’m doing anything more than traipsing along from one stage to the next, guided by the hand of the developers from fight to fight.

Wait, wasn’t I just in a demon-infested city? Where am I now? Why am I here? What does this have to do with the Hell gate on Mars?

Which is the core root of the other problem. I’m not sure I am having fun. I’m not not having fun, which theoretically means I should be enjoying myself. However, every session of DOOM Eternal left me feeling mentally exhausted. The thought of loading the game up again was like having to get up in the morning to go to work. It was an engaging task filled with problems to solve, but never did I feel that empowered satisfaction that I obtained from other games and their escapist possibilities.

That’s right, I found DOOM Eternal more mentally exhausting than Bloodborne, a game that I’ve at this point invested more than 80 hours into.

On one hand I believe this is due to DOOM Eternal clearly being a game designed for PC before consoles. It’s not often that you run into such a game these days, at least not in the AAA gaming space. Yet here we are, a frantic shooter that anticipates those mouse sensitivity settings to be cranked so high that a simple flick of the wrist will result in a triple axle spin. Even the platforming sections are weakened by my choice of the controller as Doom Slayer’s trajectory can sway at the slightest breeze. I’d love to customize the controls so that the jump and dash abilities aren’t tied to a face-button, but to do so would relegate one of the all-important combat abilities like grenades or the flame belcher to the right thumb. It is far more important to maintain camera control during the hectic combat sections than it is the less frequent and less trying platforming, so the controls remain unchanged. I am forced to accept that the Doom Slayer shall occasionally plummet into the abyss all because he somehow found himself two centimeters to the left of the dash refill. Such deaths are all the more baffling when I begin the leap staring directly at the hovering yellow pick-up.

I’m tempted to blame the sheer number of abilities cluttering my controller on the keyboard itself, a device often viewed by PC gamers as superior simply due to the sheer number of buttons at their disposal. Concerns of ergonomics or comfort aside, the assumption that more abilities is always better is one that plagues the mouse-and-keyboard. This would suggest that I had trouble keeping up with the different abilities the Doom Slayer had at his disposal. This was not the case. I used the flame belcher zealously, tossed ice grenades to slow groups of foes down, followed up with a standard grenade to shatter any of the weaklings, and swung the chainsaw at weaker mooks to ensure a constant stock of necessary ammunition.

All the while losing all my armor and a chunk of my health.

While I may believe there is such a thing as too many options, it is not that aspect of mouse-and-keyboard that proves a problem. It is the precision that multiple enemies demand from the player. Arm cannons, turrets, and missile launchers all bounce around as you desperately aim down your sights, slowing movement and reducing your field of view just so you can handicap a single foe. Hordes of demons continue to descend upon your position in the meantime, ready to rip and tear into your own average-sized guts for daring to capitalize on the game’s mechanics.

It’s easy, just shoot at the Mancubus’ arm turrets while dodging the fireballs of those imps while an unseen Cacodemon closes in to bite your face off before the Hell Knight behind you stomps you into paste.

Personal preference aside, I do not believe using a mouse would alleviate my issues that much. Even if I could more swiftly line up these precision shots on enemy weak points, it would not stop the constant onslaught of foes from all directions. Attempts to avoid such precision-based vulnerabilities and focus on group tactics saw little-to-no improvement, the flying rockets, missiles, and other projectiles too much too track. No matter which manner I decided to play, by emphasizing area-of-effect damage or tackling the limbs of isolated targets first, I always found myself struggling to remain alive.

I can see this being the intended design. Even on easier difficulties the player is encouraged to consider how to resupply armor and health. It is in the spirit of the prior game, after all, where your best bet for health restoration was to spill the guts of your enemies upon the floor. By constantly putting the pressure on the player to remain alive, you increase the amount of time that their adrenaline is pumping.

Yet there is nothing exciting about feeling like you’re simply bad at a game, especially when its lowest difficulty continues to give you trouble in places. No doubt my completionist attitude towards the game’s hidden chambers and encounters does me little favors. I never bothered to find all the hidden secrets in DOOM due to its emphasis on poking about a maze, but the emphasis on platforming and navigation in DOOM Eternal makes the hunt for collectibles and secrets far more appetizing. The issue is that many of these optional combat encounters are clearly intended to be tackled later. They are an excuse to go back and replay a map, getting an additional hour or two of play time out of your game.

Only I don’t want to replay these levels. I don’t want to return to any of them. Once I’ve reached that end goal I want to say good-bye forever. I only want to see the credits on this game roll once so that I can stop feeling so darn exhausted after each play session. I never feel as if something has been accomplished. I never feel as if forward progress has been made, especially when the next level is just going to be some random collection of art assets unrelated to the prior.

Which is where the real separation between DOOM Eternal and Super Mario 3D Land exists. After you complete the first eight worlds of Super Mario 3D Land, the credits may roll, but a whole other series of eight worlds appear. This is where the “real” game begins, amping up the difficulty in each platforming challenge and demanding ever more nimble thumb gymnastics until the final encounter with Bowser. I may have banged my head against the wall of many levels, but each completion felt satisfying. I felt as if I had learned and mastered the mechanics demanded of me in that moment.

I have no idea whether I’m playing DOOM Eternal correctly. I follow all of its hints regarding which foes are vulnerable to what weapons, I use each of the Slayer’s abilities liberally so that I’m always absorbing health, ammunition, or armor from the combusting bodies of demons, and aim for weak points when I have the opportunity. Yet I always feel as if I’m doing something wrong, as if I don’t “get” the game.

So after taking roughly ten hours to complete the first five levels, I scan a list on Google to discover there’s still eight more to go. Do I really want to keep playing this game for another fifteen hours? Especially when I keep hearing complaints about this Marauder fellow, bound to soak up ammunition and extra lives like a sponge?

Perhaps if there were a more clear connective tissue between each level. Something that contributed to a sense of progression beyond checking different maps off the list. Instead, every level is just a collection of combat arenas with a different type of texture decorating its gray box environment. It is a treadmill of gameplay, and at least with a real treadmill I know I’m benefiting from cardiovascular exercise.

As such, DOOM Eternal will be abandoned. Perhaps one day I’ll go back and discover something new about it, something that will “click” for me. For the time being, however, there are plenty of other games I could be playing instead.