Brutal Doom to add night vision rocket launcher and revamp online multiplayer

Just when you thought Brutal Doom was as ridiculous as it could be, it goes and adds a 3x zoom night vision scope to its rocket launcher. That's just one of many changes announced for the next month's update to the gory fan-made Doom mod, which is now approaching its 21st version.

The night vision scope is part of a suite of alt-fire modes that will be added to weapons. Alt-fire with a pistol and you'll batter a monster in a face, for example. Many of the larger monsters will be updated with shootable dead bodies, so you can pump bullets into their lifeless heads until they explode or play kickabout with dismembered limbs.

After the update, which will have a public beta next week, some nasties will have new death animations: my favourites are for the mancubus, the cybernetic humanoid monster with flamethrowers for arms. When he dies he'll drop his weapons and just stand there, hopelessly, as the player gradually blows bits of torso off with a shotgun.

I'm impressed with the detail the update goes into, right down to adding smoke trails to spent shotgun shells, and if you're the sadistic type then all dead bodies can now be squished by doors (a feature previously removed from the mod).

Changes galore in the game's multiplayer, too, and creator Sgt. Mark IV is adding a new offline deathmatch mode with bots alongside 10 new levels, some of which are updated versions of classic Doom arenas. They are also tweaking weapon balance on the online side, nerfing rocket launchers and buffing chainsaws so that it's easier to slice your opponents in half. You can also grab them and split their body in two thanks to new execution animations.

Many more changes are detailed in the video at the top of this post, including reworked vehicles. Have a look, and let me know what you think.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.