Doom Eternal hits retail, and one of its longtime feature, the popular Deathmatch mode, will be excluded from this latest sequel. In a recent interview with Shacknews, executive producer and senior vice president Pete Hines addressed Doom Eternal's new Battle Mode and why Deathmatch is being abandoned. 

"The biggest problem we thought we had with Doom 2016--and folks can agree or disagree--was that [multiplayer] wasn't done at id, and felt really disconnected from the base game that everybody loved. That was a big thing that Marty and Hugo talked about: 'Whether you're playing by yourself or with others, we want it to feel like you're all playing the same game.'"

Doom 2016's Deathmatch mode was co-developed by Certain Affinity, but received mixed reviews from fans and pundits, citing its stark differences form how the single player functions. Joab Gilroy of IGN referred to the multiplayer as "a tale of two different shooters" and "...Multiplayer borrows heavily from modern shooters, forgetting its roots and in turn becoming unmemorable." 

Hines has faith that the new Battle Mode will offer Doom fans something more refreshing for the audience to enjoy that fits the personality of the game. "Whether you're playing by yourself or with others, we want it to feel like you're all playing the same game." That's as opposed to, "I'm a bada** demon slayer in single-player, but when I go over to multiplayer, there are no demons, and it's just deathmatch." I don't know what that has to do with [Doom] other than that, well, a couple of decades ago we had that, so we should just have that again'."

The Battle Mode is reported to be the same template Doom is based on and will be developed internally, as opposed to outsourcing the mode to another studio. It'll be a 2v1 PvP mode where two player controlled demons will battle with one player controlled Slayer. The five demons available at launch are the Marauder, Mancubus, Pain Elemental, Revenant, and Arch Vile. More will become available in free updates after the game's launch. 

Doom Eternal will be released March 20th for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and Stadia, with a Nintendo Switch version later in 2020 (date subject to change in the wake of recent events)

SOURCE: Shacknews