Within every first-person shooter, there is a little bit of Doom. That 1993 game about a space marine slaying endless swarms of demons started a franchise known for ultraviolence and a broad arsenal of weapons, and also helped usher in a generation of successors.
More than three decades later, the arrival of Doom: The Dark Ages effectively reinvents the hellish shooter with a revamped movement system and deepened lore.
Players couldn’t jump or even look up in the original game as they navigated labyrinthine military bases and turned beasts into piles of flesh. The “3-D” space that made up the game’s levels was illusory — sections of each location were staggered in height.
After several sequels came a soft reboot also called Doom (2016) and its follow-up, Doom Eternal (2020), both of which rewarded players for mastering aggression, momentum and frantic movement in an entirely new way. For the first time, players could double jump.
The Dark Ages takes a striking shift in tone.
The celestial, sci-fi brutality of the previous two games is swapped for medieval goth, with the protagonist, Doom Slayer, sporting a fur cape, a heavily serrated shield and spiked pauldrons. Double jumping and dashing are ditched and replaced with an emphasis on raw power and slow, strategic melee combat.
Doom Slayer’s arsenal features a brand-new tool, the powerful Shield Saw, which Id Software made a point to showcase across its “Stand and Fight” trailers and advertisements. Used for absorbing damage at the expense of speed, the saw also allows players to bash enemies from afar and close the gap on chasms too wide to jump across.
While previous titles allowed players to quickly worm their way through bullet hell, The Dark Ages expects you to meet foes head on. “If you were an F-22 fighter jet in Doom Eternal, this time around we wanted you to feel like an Abrams tank,” Hugo Martin, the game’s creative director, has told journalists.
And Doom Slayer’s beefy durability and unstoppable nature does make the gameplay a refreshing experience.
The badassery is somehow ratcheted to new heights with the inclusion of a fully controllable mech, which has only a handful of attacks at its disposal, and actual dragons. Flight in a Doom game is entirely surprising and fluid, and the dragons feel relatively easy to maneuver through tight spots. They can also engage in combat more deliberately with the use of dodges and mounted cannons.
Id is returning to its roots with more grounded combat and movement mechanics, but the game isn’t hampered by other quality-of-life changes like dodging and parrying. A feature of timed challenges returns with more opportunities to exercise Doom Slayer’s brutality on unassuming imps and zombies.
The Dark Ages, which comes with a deep slate of accessibility and difficulty sliders, has a “choose-your-own adventure” feel because of its diverse collection of weapons. Like in the game’s predecessors, players can find secret collectibles and gather resources to improve the depth of their arsenal.
One of my favorite additions is the skullcrusher pulverizer. Equal parts heinous nutcracker and demonic woodchipper, the gun lodges skulls into a grinder and sends shards of bones flying at enemies. The animation is both goofy and satisfying.
The franchise’s approach to narrative has evolved since the original Doom, which told a scant back story through the environment and intermittent onscreen text.
The 2016 game introduced an ancient war between hell and other realms in the game’s universe. Codex entries such as fiery pieces of paper hovered in secret sections of the game, adding to the richness of a story that explored themes of corporate greed and divine wrath.
Since the reboot, the composer Mick Gordon’s face-melting soundtrack has been driving the dread home, and this latest entry is again flooded with industrial heavy metal sounds and punchy guitar riffs.
The Dark Ages stands out for its creative reinvention. But no matter what, Doom Slayer — a stoic gladiator beset by a demon scourge — sticks to his mantra to rip and tear.
Doom: The Dark Ages was reviewed on the Xbox Series X|S. It is also available on the PC and PlayStation 5.
