Was Doom 2016 Better Than Doom Eternal?

Chimpzy

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This is one of those questions where I feel both answers are correct. I think Doom Eternal is overall the more satisfying experience and the better game from a mechanical standpoint, but for me, in a completely different sense, Doom 2016 is "better":

Timing. It was the right game at the right time.

2016 was around the tail-end of the hegemony of the modern military shooter, whose influence dominated the first person shooter for the better part of a decade. While never inherently opposed to them, I was getting really tired of that particular schtick, and it felt like many people agreed. In comes Doom, a franchise which many had written off by then, surprising everyone with A) being unexpectedly good and B) being in many ways the anti-Call of Duty. It says "Fuck cover, fuck health regen, fuck two weapon loadouts, fuck some dude blabbing in your ear giving orders, here's a gun, there's some demons. Get the fuck in there and don't stop until your arms are the skewers in a demon head shishkebab." Yes, near the end and especially on a second playthrough some underlying problems start rearing their heads, but that first time around 2016 was so refreshing and visceral.

That lightning in a bottle factor is something Doom Eternal doesn't have. It can't, by virtue of being a sequel and the moment having passed.
 
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Kuplung

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Yahtzee was first implying the importance of impressions. The first impression to be precise.
Then I would like to extrapolate this:

What would Yahtzee say, if Doom Eternal would be released first, then Doom 2016 second? How would that change his argument?
 

Kuplung

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This is one of those questions where I feel both answers are correct. I think Doom Eternal is overall the more satisfying experience and the better game from a mechanical standpoint, but for me, in a completely different sense, Doom 2016 is "better":

Timing. It was the right game at the right time.

2016 was around the tail-end of the hegemony of the modern military shooter, whose influence dominated the first-person shooter for the better part of a decade. While never inherently opposed to them, I was getting tired of that particular schtick, and it felt like many people agreed. In comes Doom, a franchise which many had written off by then, surprising everyone with A) being unexpectedly good and B) being in many ways the anti-Call of Duty. It says "Fuck cover, fuck health regen, fuck two weapon loadouts, fuck some dude blabbing in your ear giving orders, here's a gun, there's some demons. Get the fuck in there and don't stop until your arms are the skewers in a demon head shishkebab." Yes, near the end and especially on a second playthrough some underlying problems start rearing their heads, but that first time around 2016 was so refreshing and visceral.

That lightning in a bottle factor is something Doom Eternal doesn't have. It can't, by virtue of being a sequel and the moment having passed.
There is and can be a possibility to improve a flash in a bottle situation, but the way to do it is definitely not by listening to feedback.
"Jaws dropped; someone fainted; Questions asked in the Parliament"
Doom 2016 was successful because it was novel as you put it. Doom eternal could have been novel, instead, they delved into the comfy security of "Don't fix what is not broken" conservative mantra.