Glory kill

Glory kills are exceptionally violent, gruesome deaths which the Doom Slayer is capable of inflicting upon monsters and other players in the 2016 Doom and in Doom Eternal. The most common type of glory kill occurs when monsters or players have been staggered, which is caused by taking a critical amount of damage; they will be highlighted by the Praetor suit's dynamic HUD as being vulnerable to direct attack and the monster itself will be briefly unable to retaliate. Closing to melee range and pressing the melee attack button or key will then engage the player directly with the target and execute one of many fatal attacks. Each monster species has several possible glory kills that can be performed against it, depending on the angle of approach. A short period of invulnerability is invoked during the beginning of most glory kills in Doom (2016), but this does not last through the entire animation and recovery in most cases, making the execution of glory kills a matter of careful timing when in the heat of battle. In Doom Eternal, the player is invulnerable throughout the entire animation.

Kills made with the berserk power-up, which are similarly gruesome and capable of taking out even extremely powerful enemies in a single deft blow, are additionally counted as glory kills. In Doom Eternal, kills with the chainsaw count as glory kills in specific situations, specifically for the Blood Fueled rune.

In the single player campaign, glory kills increase the amount of health dropped from monsters, or in the case of the weakest monsters, will cause them to drop health when they would not otherwise. They are also the subject of many achievements and are required to be executed in order to accomplish goals in some of the game's upgrade paths. In Doom Eternal, they will also charge up the blood punch and/or the Sentinel Hammer.

A fairly large number of glory kills exist, with weaker demons usually having the most glory kills. The animation has no effect on the rewards from the glory kill, but may matter for completing challenges for the level. Additionally, certain animations may be shorter, allowing less time for enemies to surround the player.

Doom: The Dark Ages

In Doom: The Dark Ages, glory kills are replaced with executions and glory strikes. An execution is a finishing blow that can be performed on Heavy and Super Heavy demons that have been dazed by taking a critical amount of damage, indicated by them standing still and glowing purple—the Slayer can then finish them off with punches, kicks, bashing with the shield saw, striking with his equipped melee weapon, or by jumping above the dazed monster to perform the execution. Executed demons will drop additional health.

Cinematic executions are also performed when defeating a demonic leader, where the Slayer will rip out a heart-like organ called a demonic essence and crush it in his hand. Absorbing the power of the leader in this way grants upgrades to essential statistics.

Glory strikes are damaging blows that can be performed on specific demons when they have taken enough damage, and will weaken the demon in some way; these include knocking a pinky rider off its mount, damaging a cyberdemon's arm cannon, and breaking the armor on a komodo's left arm. Glory strikes can also be performed on champions when they have been stunned, which will not weaken the champion but will inflict significant damage.

Trivia

• Comments made by id Software and Bethesda in the run-up to and aftermath of QuakeCon in 2014 suggested that this feature was inspired both by the popularity of Brutal Doom and the insane violence of the Doom comic.
• Glory kills were preceded by and based upon a similar mechanic known as sync melee, which was to be a part of the cancelled Doom 4 1.0 project.
• Judging by the animatic of Doom 2016's level UAC, it was originally planned that glory killed enemies could only drop ammo.