Doom was a new experience for me. I would consider myself a video game connoisseur. But the Doom franchise has eluded me to this point — a Doom noob for all intents and purposes. But here comes Doom: The Dark Ages. What an experience it is. Visceral combat, aggressive enemies, and absolute slaughter for the entire 14–16-hour experience.
From top to bottom, Doom: The Dark Ages is a high-quality first-person shooter made by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is a prequel to the high-flying and action-packed Doom Eternal and Doom (2016). Being the Doom Slayer was a trip for me, with his super-fast sprinting and a weapon wheel complete with enough options to make even James Bond second guess himself. I have to say I really enjoyed my time with Doom: The Dark Ages. So much so that I am going back through currently and trying to finish up all collectibles in an attempt to 100% the game, which is something I never do. But without further ado, let’s get into the details of Doom: The Dark Ages.
Stand and Fight
id Software has innovated on their longtime great idTech engine once again. The game looks absolutely fantastic. When the game booted up for the first time I was amazed by the detail and the environment that I was dropped into. I liked the premise of a medieval war against Hell. Although, it was a bit humorous to me that spaceships and futuristic weaponry still existed.
The forces of Hell come in hot as the game gives a couple cutscenes and then drops players right into what is a semi-open world with plenty of hordes to fight and demons to send back to the grave. The game drip feeds tutorials to you as you go through the first few chapters, giving players new techniques as they move along. Players will quickly have the ability to shield bash and throw their shield at enemies. These are two of my favorite moves in the game, as I used them consistently throughout my playthrough. In the early going, weapons are introduced at a steady rate. Players start with the combat shotgun and work their way through a wide variety of weapons, proving useful against different types of foes. I felt each new weapon was unique in its shooting style and what abilities it would allow my slayer to benefit from.
There I am in the middle of a medieval Hellscape, choosing whether to throw my shield at some unsuspecting minions or shoot them with one of my weapons from my quickly growing weapon wheel, I felt on top of the world. The feeling of being the Doom Slayer was a great feeling. The speed in movement the game gives is impressively fast paced, and I was surprised to see the game gives customization options for difficulty and game speed. I feel this is a nice option for players and gives an excellent amount of freedom to those who want to dive into their difficulty settings and play the game how they want to play it.
Each chapter is a new map in the game, and there are various sections where Doom Slayer will get in a huge mech or ride a dragon around. These sections are the weakest parts of the game by far. I still enjoyed these chapters, and I respect the developers for changing up the formula. These chapters are also fairly short and move quickly, and there is a story significance to the sections. But I wanted to note that these parts of the game, although sparse, are imperfect and felt like they needed a bit more.
Combat
Nearly this entire game is combat. But I wanted to cover a little bit more in depth about some of the features here. As I touched on in the previous section, id Software gives players a weapon wheel with a healthy set of options to choose from for the Doom Slayer’s killing machines. Each of these weapons have strengths and weaknesses that they present. Depending on the enemy that the player is fighting, a certain weapon might be more well-suited to achieving victory. For example, blue shielded enemies can be dealt with fairly quickly when using a plasma-based weapon such as the Accelerator or the Cycler. Having a multitude of options for weapons doesn’t mean that you should choose one and just use that the whole time. I found myself cycling through all the weapons fairly frequently, and also quite often switching them up while in the heat of battle.
The Doom Slayer’s movement might have been what impressed me the most in the early stages of the game. Being new to Doom, I was not used to the quick nature of the sprinting in these games. It took some getting used to, but it wasn’t long before I became accustomed to the swift movements. Moving this fast made the whole game open up and made jumping feel different than most other games. Jumping felt like flying in certain circumstances. Climbing felt speedier as well. Not to mention that the game is so smooth, and I think players will notice this pretty quickly into their experience.
The shield makes or breaks the gameplay from a combat standpoint. Players that learn to use their shield and use it well, will find their combat scenarios are won more often than not. The shield in this game is not so much a tool, as it is more a part of the Slayer as a whole. Players will find themselves using their shield quite often if they want to be successful both inside and outside of combat. There is more usage out of the shield than one would anticipate going into this, even map traversal involves the need for the shield.
Combat can be as difficult or as easy as players want it to be. I personally would recommend adding a little bit of challenge to the game to make success feel like an accomplishment. Enemies in this game vary on how difficult they are. Some are tanky, some are large and hit hard, some are small and really don’t do anything as far as damage to the Slayer. So, a wide variety of fights are sure to be found, with some being more burdensome than others. The scenarios players find themselves in will vary and certain enemy types are aggressive, which will make encounters more difficult if you allow those enemies to live longer than you should. I am sure will be slight learning curve for certain players out there, but most Doom pros will no doubt have it down in no time.
Summary
Doom: The Dark Ages is a complete experience from top to bottom. Top notch combat that comes from a dev team that has been doing FPS for a long time. A story that moves the plot along in a meaningful way and keeps intrigue, at least enough to get to the next fighting sequence. Quality cutscenes give players the full depth of the story as it happens and adds to the overall production value of the game. A chapter here and there where the game seems to stumble a bit during the mech and dragon sequences, but again, these parts do change up the formula a bit and I can appreciate what they were trying to do here.
The vast majority of the game is fighting, which I understand is how Doom should be. And the fighting in this game is really superb. It really kept me coming back for more. There was never a point where I felt tired or that I wished the game would be done already. I simply wanted more Doom. The medieval setting was nice for a fantasy fan like me. I thought the fantasy setting mixed with futuristic vibes was an interesting blend.
My final answer on this is a superb solid first-person shooter game. One that has introduced me to the Doom franchise and left me wanting more. I have now determined that later this year, I will go back and play Eternal and the Doom (2016) because now I can say that I loved what I got from this. I also loved this one so much, that I am going back through and getting that 100% on it right now. This game is downright fun, and I feel more developers should aim for this level for their own games.
Doom: The Dark Ages is out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S via Game Pass Ultimate.
The Review
Superb
