We just got our first look a pair of screenshots for Doom Eternal’s first major campaign DLC, and now we’ve learned what ID Software has planned for the first major update. We don’t know when the update will launch, but it’s coming this month with Empowered Demons, changes to Battlemode, and some quality-of-life tweaks.
First, let’s start with updates to multiplayer Battlemode. ID Software is launching new anit-cheat features, changes to the walkthrough tutorials, network status indicators, a Death Report that can be accessed mid-game (kind of like the report in Call of Duty Multiplayer), and the Echelon Leveling feature that you probably recall from Doom 2016. The latter is only relevant to max-level players, but don’t worry – you’ll get there someday. Either way, the Doom Eternal multiplayer experience should be somewhat less chaotic, or so we hope.
Moving on, you absolutely need to know about Empowered Demons. These evil bastards jump from world to world. Once they kill one player in campaign mode, they’ll work their way into another player’s world, this time empowered with beefed-up stats. The best part is that while they are a little harder to kill, they aren’t impossible to deal with, and when you do kill one, you’ll get “tons of health and ammo” along with some bonus XP.
Finally, Doom Eternal’s Update 1 will “address a few balance concerns and annoyances players have brought to our attention.” This is mainly in regard to Eternal’s single-player campaign. Demon tutorials have been expanded to help you better understand what you’re dealing with and swimming has been tweaked to allow vertical dashing underwater. Toxic damage while swimming has also been tweaked, hopefully for the better.
As for now, we don’t know when the update will offciailly roll out, but it’s happening this month and ID Software says “it’s coming soon.” As such, I don’t think