Games to Play While You Wait for Doom Eternal

After all that zesty Doom Eternal gameplay Bethesda dropped, you've probably got quite the hankering for a gritty, cathartic first-person-shooter (FPS) experience to tide you over until Doomguy returns. Thankfully, we've got a ton of other great Bethesda games — as well as plenty of other cool, ultraviolent shooters — on here to keep you busy until Eternal continues the Doom franchise's grand return. From sci-fi shooters set in space to challenging cyberpunk simulators, here's what to play while you wait for Doom Eternal.

Credit: Betheseda

What better way to prepare yourself for Doom Eternal than with 2016's Doom? Given how similar Eternal looks, playing through the 2016 game in preparation for Eternal will likely feel like sharpening your demon-slaying skills on a prototype of the latter. Couple Doom 2016's lengthy, excitement-filled campaign with its populated, still-lively online community, and this is a good pick for anyone who wants a game as close to Eternal as possible.

Credit: Bethesda

Just like Doom, Quake Champions is all about shooting people with weird faces at high speeds. It's a zippy, brutal multiplayer arena shooter in which there are enough zany guns and power-ups scattered around maps to keep every player on their toes till each match wraps. Plus, Doomguy is playable in it, so you can treat the game like an unofficial free-to-play multiplayer-only spin-off released in anticipation of Doom Eternal.

Credit: Bethesda

As 343 Industries draws Halo further from the gameplay style of the original Bungie games, the series has inadvertently become a somewhat similar experience to Doom 2016. The guns have a nice, clunky heft to them; the combat is a bit faster-paced; and your character's movement is a little more kinetic and zappy. (Halo 5 even has a miniboost move, much like Eternal.) If you want a makeshift multiplayer training ground for Eternal, Halo 5 is a good way to prep.

Credit: Microsoft

Similar to Doom, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has hard-core gunplay and absolutely brutal, awesomely animated one-button enemy takedowns. However, Mankind Divided brings a bit more to the table, in the form of cool abilities that include nano-armor, blades you can shoot out of your forearms, explosive pellets that eject from your body and electric shock waves you can summon while falling from insane heights. Plus, if you ever want a break from the nonstop shooting action, you can always turn invisible and take a stealthy approach — a bonus of the Deus Ex formula.

Credit: Square Enix

If you like how Bethesda makes first-person shooters, you'll like Wolfenstein, too. Both Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus feature pretty graphics, lots of ridiculous gameplay and stories that are well into so-bad-they're-good territory. These are games where you can dual-wield LMGs while gunning down *actual* Nazis in an alternate timeline where Germany won World War II, to give you an idea of what's in store. Get down and dirty with Wolfenstein if you crave weighty, fast-paced gunplay and want it served with a thick layer of goofy panache slopped on top.

Credit: Bethesda

Syndicate has a few of the same core thrills as Doom: badass music, weighty gunplay (weightier than Doom's, in fact) and mechanics that are meant to emphasize brutality. The big difference with Syndicate is its incredibly atmospheric cyberpunk aesthetic. If you want to experience a game that combines Doom 2016 with the version of Watch_Dogs we wanted but never got, Syndicate is the hard-core sci-fi FPS to hack your way into.

Credit: EA

This might be a better contender for "games to play while you wait for Rage 2," but we're putting it on here because it's another Bethesda/id Software FPS packed with grizzly gunplay, dystopian landscapes and creepy enemies. What Rage has been praised for more notably than most other shooters is its AI, which pushes the player to be a bit more creative and tactical than in the usual FPS. For those who want a bit more challenge and stress in their wasteland shootouts, Rage is worth a look.

Credit: Bethesda