DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods is a fantastic expansion for one of 2020’s best games that brings faster, crazier combat, along with new enemies and weapons. However, its storyline, particularly the ending to Part Two, needs some explaining.
It’s not that the storyline is bad, per se, just that it overcomplicates matters with a lot of background lore that you are left to figure out in codex and by reading between the lines. A bad guy will mention someone, something, or somewhere and then just kind of leave it up to you to figure out what they mean. This makes DOOM Eternal a much deeper game in terms of lore than its 2016 predecessor, though it suffers as making all the story points come together properly is clearly not the focus — it’s stabbing demons in the head.
So, who is The Dark Lord? What does he mean in his big twist? How does he look so similar to Doomguy? Here’s the story, ending and characters of DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods all explained.
Who Is The Dark Lord?
At the conclusion of DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods – Part Two, Davoth (the first Dark Lord of Hell) reveals that he is the creator of everything, including The Father and, by association, Doomguy (also known as The Slayer and Doom Slayer, i.e. you), and is basically the DOOM world’s God. This contradicts an earlier revelation in which it’s revealed that The Father is the creator of everything and Davoth.
It’s basically God and the Devil flipped on its head. It’s a bit of a weird, somewhat unnecessary twist, in truth.
But who exactly is Davoth?
After he created all of reality, Davoth wanted all of his subjects and creations to become immortals. Unable to figure out how, Davoth then created The Father, who betrayed him, stealing his power and confining him to his own realm, Jekkad. Davoth’s fury led to Jekkad becoming dark and twisted, his anger turning it into Hell.
The Father then created the Maykrs and Urdak, which is basically Heaven and where the Khan Maykr ruled before the events of DOOM Eternal, Samur Makyr (also known as the Seraphim) acting as the chancellor to The Father and later as the keeper of the Doom Slayer (Doomguy). Sometime before the events of the recent games, The Father inhabited the VEGA AI and Samur Maykr became Samuel Hayden to effectively keep an eye on humanity’s grasp of Argent Energy and ready Earth against the encroaching forces of Hell.
Davoth and The Father battled it out with Davoth’s forces continuing to escape Hell to cause havoc. Forced to act, The Father confronted and defeated Davoth in Hell, tearing his Life Sphere from his body in the process. Rather than destroying it and killing Davoth once and for all, The Father instead kept the Sphere in the Temple of Souls alongside his own after The Father decides to step away from ruling, tired from all the conflict.
Despite being disembodied, Davoth is able to spread his influence across Urdak, slowly turning the Khan Maykr insane before convincing Samur Maykr to place Doomguy – who had been fighting the forces of Hell across the original DOOM games before finding himself at Argent D’Nur and later as the leader of The Night Sentinels – into the Divinity Machine, giving him Davoth’s superhuman strength and capabilities. Davoth’s intention had been for Doom Slayer to eventually destroy the Maykrs, The Father, Urdak, and all of his enemies before Davoth could later dispatch of him unopposed, but sadly for Davoth, Doomguy is not an idiot.
The Slayer later destroys The Father’s Life Sphere before retrieving Davoth’s Sphere and placing it in the Luminarium to revive him, presumably to finish Davoth once and for all. It’s unclear why the Slayer didn’t simply destroy the Life Sphere, maybe he just wanted a fight.
After resurrecting him during the conclusion of Part One, Doomguy defeats Davoth in Immora in Hell in Part Two with the help of the remaining Night Sentinels, including Valen the Betrayer, killing all remaining demons outside of Hell. Doomguy keels over before he is placed in a sarcophagus by The Father and the Maykrs and then left in the Temple of Souls, the same place where Davoth’s Life Sphere was held for an age.
Is Doomguy Dead?
No. Doomguy is not dead at the end of The Ancient Gods. DOOM Eternal is also not a prequel, and there’s no time loop stuff.
Instead, he is in a comatose state. It’s not clear whether Doomguy has lost his power now that Davoth’s Life Sphere has been definitively destroyed, but Davoth’s death has affected Doomguy in some way.
Based on the message that appears on-screen at the end of the DLC, Corrax Entry 7:17, Doomguy is ready to be called upon when the next Dark Lord or new threat from Hell comes around:
“So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.“
This runs parallel with a message seen in DOOM 2016, in which Doomguy awakened from a different sarcophagus on Mars after a long time of being contained following earlier conquests. After battling the forces of Hell as one of the only remaining members of The Night Sentinels and after being betrayed by Valen, he is eventually neutralised when a whole building is dropped on him and is stripped of his Sentinel armour, confined into the sarcophagus seen at the start of DOOM 2016, which Samuel Hayden (Seraphim/Samur) found while searching for artifacts as part of the UAC.
The Next Doom Game
But who will Doomguy face if he is ever awoken?
Davoth was not the only Dark Lord, just the first. With Davoth dead once and for all, it’s likely that what’s left of the Maykrs and/or The Father will try to create a new Dark Lord to manage Hell. Doomguy may be their insurance plan in case the new Dark Lord gets any ideas.
A new DOOM game may also involve Doomguy fighting The Father, who may well become twisted as time goes on, especially without his Life Sphere. He may even try to reforge his Life Sphere, giving him back his body.
In addition, when you defeat the Khan Maykr in the base game, a “Mysterious Voice” shouts “noooo!”, which isn’t Davoth, despite the fact that it was accidentally patched to appear so. This could be another Primeval, or maybe even the creator of the Primevals. It would appear that Davoth perhaps isn’t the alpha and omega after all.
Whatever the case may be, this is certainly not the end of Doomguy and the wider DOOM franchise.
Why Does Doomguy Look Like Davoth?
This is never properly explained in-game. Doomguy was born on Earth, far beyond Davoth’s influence, so Davoth hardly could have managed an immaculate conception or something similar.
In some codex entries, it’s shown that Davoth looks similar to Doomguy before he’s even resurrected. It could be that Davoth was just “destined” to take the form of whoever resurrected him from the Life Sphere, but this may be a stretch.
However, in the final part of a streamed playthrough of DOOM Eternal, Hugo Martin mentioned that both Doomguy and Davoth are Primevals, ancient beings who look after a realm. The fact that they look similar is either down to their race, or the fact that they were created by someone who wanted them to all look similar.
Who Is The Intern?
The Intern is the best.
DOOM Eternal is available now for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.
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