DOOM Eternal to Feature New, id-Developed Multiplayer Mode

id Software and Bethesda showed off DOOM Eternal gameplay during the QuakeCon 2018 keynote yesterday, and it looks amazing. The presentation focused on a lengthy single-player sequence, and toward the end, it revealed that players will be able to enter each other’s campaigns as demons with the optional Invasions feature. It wasn’t clear if a more traditional multiplayer mode would be included, however.

Thanks to an interview that Polygon later conducted with Game Director Marty Stratton, we now have confirmation that an adversarial multiplayer mode is in development. While he didn’t give up any gameplay-specific details, Stratton had this to say about the new multiplayer mode:

We are working on a PvP component. It is new. It’s not an extension of what we did last time. So it’s new. It is something we’re developing internally, which we didn’t do last time. I think players are gonna really enjoy it.

DOOM Eternal’s predecessor, DOOM, received tremendous praise when it was released in 2016, but nearly all of it came from the game’s fantastic campaign mode. Austin, TX studio Certain Affinity handled multiplayer development on the title, but it failed to gain traction in a massively competitive market.

I tried DOOM‘s multiplayer when the game came out and felt that it suffered an identity crisis. It seemed like it wanted to replicate the moment-to-moment gameplay of an arena shooter, but also have Call of Duty-esque loadouts and killstreaks. If id can bring the multiplayer mode up to the campaign mode’s standard, then we’ll all be in for a big treat.