Reposting our video on the Doom Eternal gameplay preview

Over on YouTube, players and content creators have been roasting my bad gameplay video of Doom Eternal, the sequel to 2016’s Doom that comes out on the PC and consoles on March 20. In this video, it took me too long to figure out the path to escape to the next level, and it left people wondering if I was trolling them.

The internet attacked me. Or worse. It was laughing at me. To defuse and cool down the social media storm, I took the video down and thought about how I could explain myself to gamers who have become quite familiar with my unskilled gameplay. (Someone else kindly grabbed the video from the Internet archive and reposted it.) Sometimes I scratch my head and wonder why this matters to anyone, but in some circles, it has become emblematic of the gulf between game journalists and gamers. But I used this incident to bridge that gulf, and it made me feel better.