DOOM Eternal will let you center weapons just like the originals

Bethesda has shared new gameplay footage for their upcoming old-school shooter DOOM Eternal. Unlike previously, this isn’t a highly-edited trailer but more of a developer walkthrough which highlights a peculiar new mode for the game. Namely, being able to display weapons in the center of the screen, like the 90s original Doom shooters. Watch it in action here!

DOOM Eternal is slowly nearing its release date of next March. It’s still several months off but that doesn’t mean that the developers will keep radio silence. Quite the contrary actually. In a newly released gameplay video, the developers have shared a new feature for Eternal that will undoubtedly excite many FPS veterans. Players will be able to choose how or rather where the weapons will be positioned on-screen.

Many gamers will likely not know or remember that in the early days of first-person shooters, weapons were traditionally centered on the screen. It makes kind of sense as a middle ground between aiming through sights and shouldering guns. Before the new Millennium, the industry-standard shifted to today’s way of displaying weapons to the sides. This both lead to a better view of what’s happening in front of the player and also had the added nicety of displaying your digital arsenal in a much more pleasing way.

But developer id Software is very well aware of what made the reboot of Doom in 2016 so successful. It’s the mix of old-school fast-paced action with all the advantages of the modern era. By offering a cult option of the old days, DOOM Eternal wants to prove that it won’t change its design ideals and embrace them even further.

DOOM Eternal is slated to release March 20, 2020, for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A Nintendo Switch version will come out at an undisclosed date sometime later.