What we now had been taking part in

15th March

Hello and welcome back to our beloved column where we share a bit about some of the games we’ve been enjoying. This week, Bertie discovers he has a particular fondness for Hell-themed games, diving into Doom Eternal while still wandering around in Diablo, and Tom Avowed refreshes his experience with the game by adjusting the difficulty slightly.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with previous editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

Doom Eternal, PC

I can’t believe Doom Eternal is five years old already. I overlooked it when it initially released for some reason, so now I’m catching up. And wow, what a game it is.

Doom 2016 seemed incredible by comparison. It consisted of mostly bland grey corridors and hangar-like areas until you reached the more gothic, intricately designed Hell architecture later on. But in Eternal, it’s pure Hell from the outset. Earth—or a planet resembling Earth (I’m not paying that close attention)—has been overrun, so you teleport from your stylish Doom fortress (!!) to deal with the situation. Hell is already present in large quantities. The aftermath of a devastating battle looms all around you. Spiky, Hellish architecture grazes the skies, painted in blood-red and fiery orange hues of anguish. It’s stunning.

And the doors! There’s a moment early on in Eternal where you need to open a massive Hell portal to access a certain area—the sort of door made for a 30-foot creature of some unholy kind (i.e., the ideal fantasy door) to stride through. But instead of just opening one gigantic door, Doom Eternal decides to unveil three in perfect synchronization, one after another, thump-thump-thump, until a tower with an orange beam of light zapping down is framed in the opening beyond. This moment encapsulates everything Doom Eternal does: it knows your expectations and exceeds them. It’s as subtle as a pantomime.

Excess, however, can prove to be a delicate balance. Let’s see where this leads from here.

-Bertie

Avowed, Xbox Series X

So I’ve stuck with Avowed. I hit a rough patch when I encountered some bears only to be completely torn apart. After a few attempts, I was about to give up and move on, but I decided to lower the difficulty and give it another shot. And sure enough, the game is now absurdly easy, my character able to one-shot bears with an axe that could be given to a small child (let’s call him Timmy) learning how to be a lumberjack from his burly father (Steve). Steve wants Timmy to follow in his footsteps, but he knows his son is just a four-year-old incapable of wielding a giant axe. This little axe probably couldn’t harm a fly, he thinks, but Timmy will be thrilled. That’s me. I’m Timmy. Enjoying my child-sized axe that somehow takes down huge bears.

Childhood lumberjack dreams aside, I am loving the world of Avowed. Yes, it may look somewhat rough on Xbox (I imagine it looks great on a decent PC), but the colors, the structures, and the vistas are all incredibly beautiful. Perhaps a bit oddly, but after recently watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy with my son, it crossed my mind how fitting a game with such elaborate world-building and splendor would be in the realm of Middle-earth. Of course, that’s not going to happen, but it would be something to behold.

-Tom O

Diablo 4, PlayStation 5

Clearly, I have a penchant for Hell-themed games. I’m back in Diablo 4 once more—it’s my go-to relaxing game at the moment—and I’m amazed at how things evolve in the game upon reaching level 60, which seems contradictory to say since level 60 is the maximum level you can achieve (I regard Paragon levels as something separate). I’m more accustomed to a level cap representing a plateau in a game, where everyone levels out and falls into a routine of small gains rather than significant ones, but that wasn’t the case here. Here, my relative power skyrocketed once I hit level 60.

There are several reasons for this. On