DOOM Eternal: Horde Guide - How to get the high score!

In our DOOM Eternal Horde Guide you will learn:

  • How a typical horde mode run works
  • Why you should complete optional challenges and rounds
  • How to collect as many points as possible in a fight

After a long wait, Horde Mode has finally been released for DOOM Eternal - and it's completely free. With our guide, you are guaranteed to become the ultimate Doomslayer.

What is a typical horde run in DOOM Eternal like?

During a horde run, you'll fight through a total of three levels, each with three arena battles awaiting you. In each arena battle, you will face at least two waves of demons. During an arena battle, prey demons will appear, and killing them within the time limit will activate a bonus wave of especially strong demons. In the last arena of a level, you can even activate two bonus waves.

You'll always see your progress between each round.

At the beginning of each run, you'll only be equipped with a fully upgraded shotgun with both extensions. Your slayer and its abilities are fully leveled up. You get new weapons by completing an arena battle - but which weapons you get is randomized. In some runs you'll get the super shotgun after the first arena, in others you might only get the assault rifle.

The first arena is always followed by a Blitz round - there you have to kill a certain amount of demons within a time limit. You'll be given tools to do this, such as quad damage or environmental traps that can be activated. You always get points for killing the demons, but their value decreases as time goes on. At first, the demons start at the Gold rating, then they change to Silver and finally Bronze.

In the lightning round, you'll be allowed to use the blade trap from the cultist base to slaughter demons, among other things.

Once you've slain the required number of demons, you'll get three extra lives and also unlock a coin round. In the coin round, you collect golden coins, which, like the demons, lose value in the lightning round. To keep this from being too easy, a cursed prowler will appear to slow you down. Once you've collected all the coins within the time limit, you'll get three more extra lives.

Between the second and third arena, a platform round awaits. In these platform rounds you complete jump-and-run interludes and collect coins within the time limit. Once again, these coins lose value. Once you've collected all the coins within the time limit and earned enough points, you activate a second lightning round.

Collect the coins while they still have the gold value to collect as many points as possible.

When you kill all the prey demons, a glowing skull will appear on the board. This is the point multiplier. When you collect the point multiplier, "Rush" is activated. On the one hand, you'll get points for killing demons, and at the same time, you'll also deal significantly more damage.

The amount of the point multiplier and the duration of "Rush" depend on the value of the skull. If you kill the prey demons while they still have the gold value, you will get the gold point multiplier. Silver and bronze will have a correspondingly weaker point multiplier.

The score multiplier appears at the point where you killed the last prey demon.

You can't save manually in Horde mode. At the beginning of one of the three levels, the game automatically saves your progress so you don't have to quit and restart the entire run next time. However, if you lose all your extra lives, the run will be considered a failure and you will have to start all over again - the first level!

How do I properly prepare for a run?

The premise of Horde mode is simple - kill all the demons. But if you want to achieve the highest possible high score to get a high rating in one of the new leaderboard lists, it takes more than just bluntly killing all the enemies.

Switch down a difficulty level

The number of demons and their constellation remains the same for each run. So, this means that the two tyrants in Arena 3 of Level 1 will appear in the same places on each run. Even if you have mastered the combat system and have invested many hours in DOOM Eternal, we still recommend playing through the Horde mode on a low difficulty level first. This way you'll get to know the individual enemy constellations, prey demons and arenas.

Take your time

A typical Horde playthrough takes between one and one and a half hours. Since there are only checkpoints at the beginning of a level, you'll always need to allow at least 20 to 30 minutes if you want to play a round of Horde. You'll definitely want to finish one level per session, because otherwise you'll have to start the entire level over again. This will also save your current weapon selection - extremely useful if you already got powerful weapons like the Super Shotgun or Ballista in the first level.

How do I increase the high score?

At this point we will give you a few tips on how to effectively collect points.

Always play the bonus rounds

The bonus rounds are optional, but they give you a lot of points because you can easily kill a lot of big demons in a short period of time thanks to tools like traps. Unlocking a bonus round is not difficult, especially for skilled players, and a bonus round doesn't take more than a minute.

Always kill the prey demons

Prioritize the prey demons as soon as they appear in the arena. They will give you a lot of extra points if you kill them while they still have the Gold rating. The subsequent bonus waves are a decent challenge, but if you want a lot of points, you can't avoid them.

You can tell how valuable the prey demons are by the color of their border and the symbol above their head.

Save up the points multiplier

Do not collect the point multiplier as soon as it is on the field. It always takes a few seconds before the next wave goes off, so you'd just be wasting it. The multiplier is only worth it when the really big demons like Tyrants, Hell Barons or Marauders show up. You already get more points for big demons, and thanks to the increased damage from Rush, you kill demons much faster, allowing you to kill more demons for extra points.

We therefore also recommend playing Horde mode on a lower difficulty. Because if you know the arenas, you'll be able to judge much better when it 's worth using the point multiplier.

More interesting articles about DOOM Eternal on GameZ:

Visit us on Facebook and Instagram and discuss your favorite games with us.