Dust yourself off and try again
In the reveal trailer for Doom Eternal, a few of you may have noticed that there are “extra lives” available as a pick-up. While my first thought was that this was indicative of an arcade mode similar to 2016’s Doom, it turns out that isn’t the case. The extra lives you can nab in Eternal work more like a safety net for dying instead of shoving you back to a previous checkpoint.
In an interview with VG247, Doom Eternal‘s executive producer Marty Stratton explains, “It’s just like our checkpoint system…So if you’re almost to another checkpoint or you’re in a boss fight or something, your extra life, if you die, kicks in and the screen goes grey and you are invulnerable for a little bit. You can keep fighting, reposition yourself, and you’re right back in the action where you left off without losing any progress.”
The biggest reason for their inclusion seems to be the new invasion system. Since players can hop in and ruin your day while you’re ripping and tearing through the campaign, it would quickly become a nuisance to die to an invader, reload a checkpoint and have the same thing happen again.
Creative director Hugo Martin added, “They do work in invasions. It still counts as a death, but yeah, you don’t get penalized by going back, you can continue where you left off.” Hearing that actually makes me a little more interested in the invasion system, since I was dreading getting stomped by some tough as nails opponents.
Here’s how extra lives work in Doom Eternal [VG247]
