Rip and tear, until it is done.
In the first-person shooter genre, few have seen an evolution quite like Doom. While the original 1993 classic and its 1994 sequel revolutionised the run-and-gun formula, every sequel after brought something new to the table, including the horror-focused Doom 3 in 2004, a 2016 reboot modernising its classic gameplay, and its 2020 sequel, Doom Eternal, which placed mobility front and centre, with a strong emphasis on verticality and weapon hotswapping.
With a franchise that already seems comfortable experimenting with new concepts, it falls to developer id Software to provide something fresh while still retaining what makes the series so beloved to begin with. Its latest instalment, Doom: The Dark Ages, heralds the future of the franchise by looking to the past in more ways than one, providing not only a prequel to the rebooted duology but also grounding the series like never before.
And while the game presents an entirely different experience compared to its high-octane predecessors, there is some getting used to, but ultimately, id Software’s courage to break new ground has paid off, as Doom: The Dark Ages not only feels unlike any other game in the series, it also stands out as one of the best shooters in recent memory.
As a prequel to 2016’s Doom, the game’s campaign delves deeper into the conflict between humans and demons that was only briefly touched on in the last two games, but now thrusts players straight into a warzone between the legions of Hell and the human Sentinels. Led by the game’s big bad Prince Ahzrak, the demons seek to acquire the Heart of Argent, a powerful artefact that grants immeasurable power, which falls to the Sentinels to stop them, under the leadership of King Novik and his daughter, Commander Thira.
As the battle steadily leans towards the Demons’ favour, the Maykrs, an advanced extra-dimensional race often seen as gods by the humans, launch their ultimate weapon onto the battlefield – The Doom Slayer, an enslaved former Sentinel influenced to feel nothing but raw hatred towards the Demons.
Unlike earlier entries, Doom: The Dark Ages’ story serves as more than just a vessel to drive gameplay forward, as it expands upon its universe by fleshing out the Sentinels and the Maykrs. The story is by far the most engaging from the franchise, mainly because it now encompasses supporting characters integral to the plot, so it’s not just the Doom Slayer versus the world. Due to its sheer scale, the narrative often thrusts players straight into an all-out battle between the warring factions, elevating the game’s scope and scale.
Still, this is still Doom so gameplay is king, and id Software proves once again that it is worthy of the crown as game innovator, as Doom: The Dark Ages not only provides some of the most technically complex gameplay systems, but also a wholly unique experience offering a fresh spin on its well-established shooting formula.
For returning players from Doom Eternal, the biggest difference would be the game’s speed and mobility, as this latest outing grounds the experience substantially. Gone are moves like double jumps and dashes, and even the Doom Slayer himself moves slightly slower in general. Of course, these are all designed intentionally, as unlike past games where the goal was to avoid attacks and outmanoeuvre foes, Doom: The Dark Ages encourages players to stand their ground and fight.
This major change comes hand in hand with the game’s other notable addition – the Shield Saw. With this new tool at his disposal, the Slayer can now block or deflect enemy attacks. Every incoming strike or projectile can be absorbed by the shield, slowly draining its energy bar and leading to a guard break upon depletion that leaves the Slayer vulnerable, preventing players from constantly keeping up their defence. Green-coloured attacks, on the other hand, can be parried by blocking just as they connect, not only deflecting ranged attacks back at foes but also negating melee hits and stunning opponents for a chance to strike back.
That’s not all the Shield Saw offers as it can also be used to perform a Shield Charge, swiftly closing the gap between distant enemies and used to break certain parts of the environment for exploration. Like its name implies, the shield can also be revved up like a chainsaw and flung towards enemies, Captain America-style, allowing it to bounce between fodder foes or kill them outright. When thrown at larger baddies, the shield embeds itself in them briefly while grinding like a buzzsaw, stunning and leaving them open to additional attacks. Finally, runes can also be collected, which equips the shield with new abilities that enhances the game’s parry system, such as sending out a large shockwave that stuns all foes in a wide area.
On paper, the addition of a shield might not seem like much, but having it fundamentally changes how players approach each combat encounter, constantly needing to look out for green-tinted attacks to parry for maximum efficiency. Thankfully, the window needed to perform such deflections is rather generous on the game’s default difficulty setting, although this can be further fine-tuned to a player’s liking via an extensive difficulty-customising selection, an accessibility feature that’s always appreciated.
Apart from the Shield Saw, weapons in Doom: The Dark Ages fall into the familiar archetypes that players would know and love, from the iconic Super Shotgun to the energy-based Accelerator and the Rocket Launcher, all returning with a fresh techno-medieval look. The shift to the past and its accompanying gothic inspiration also enables the game to feature some of its most unique weapons to date, such as the Skullcrusher Pulverizer, a gnarly weapon that literally crushes a skull to fire bone fragments in a wide area, or the Reaver Chainshot, which like its name suggests, fires a ball attached to a chain that can be charged up for maximum damage.
Melee combat also makes a return, albeit with a few changes. In the place of the series’ iconic chainsaw, the Slayer now has access to multiple melee choices at his disposal like a Power Gauntlet, which can be chained up to three times in a row, with each strike dropping valuable ammunition. The weapons similarly operate on a cooldown, although their recharge time and pickup availability are much more lenient compared to previous entries, encouraging players to constantly be in the action.
Glory kill finishers are back too, and operate mostly the same way, accompanied by Glory Strikes on larger foes that deal massive damage and can lead to them changing phases, switching up their attack patterns. In a push to retain the system without pausing the action, executions are now simpler and gone are the unique animations that play with every foe, which can be seen as a downside by some players. On the other hand, the feature can now be used in more ways that enhance mobility, as players can chain directly into an execution by using a Shield Charge from a distance to maintain the flow of battle.
Together, Doom: The Dark Ages’ new and returning features make players feel like an armoured tank, facing enemies head-on and smashing through them with a mix of gunplay, melee blows and shield parries. It’s a bold move by id Software to change up the reboot series’ well-established gameplay loop, but the risk has certainly paid off, as the title’s newly grounded nature that encourages players to always be in the thick of the action helps cement it as a power fantasy on an unprecedented scale.
The thrill of combat is further amplified by the game’s sound design, with everything from gunfire, explosions and even the Slayers’ footsteps sounding appropriately hefty, once again adding to the notion that players are controlling a walking tank. These are all wrapped up by a pulse-pounding metal soundtrack composed by Finishing Move Inc. (Halo 2 Anniversary, The Callisto Protocol, Borderlands 3), offering the same head-banging beats the series is known for, accented by a touch of medieval flair with the subtle use of accompanying string instruments.
Spread across 22 levels in a lengthy 20-plus hour single-player campaign, players will constantly be introduced to something new at every turn, be it its many hellish landscapes like grand medieval castles, the fiery depths of Hell, and even the mysterious Cosmic Realm ripped straight out of a Lovecraftian tale, to exhilarating gameplay switch-ups peppered between levels like the ability to pilot a giant mech for intense melees between enemy titans or riding a literal dragon. While some of these segments are admittedly less complex gameplay-wise compared to the rest of the game, they do provide some cool power fantasy moments and serve as a welcome break from the usual shooting action.
Powered by hardware of the current generation, each level is not only a sight to behold but ripe for exploration too, thanks to its renewed sense of scale. Many of the game’s stages occur on a sprawling battlefield with multiple objectives to tackle at once, with no shortage of opportunities to explore off the beaten path to find items like equipment-upgrading currency, weapon skins or collectable toys in the shape of the various foes. Exploration is also made intuitive thanks to a generous automap system, which automatically marks nearby item locations for easy reference.
Best of all, despite all the action that can occur on screen at once, Doom: The Dark Ages benefits from its incredible optimisation on PC. Using an RTX 4090 graphics card with all settings pushed to the max with ray tracing on, supported by NVIDIA DLSS on its quality mode and frame generation, framerates were well above 60fps even in the most intense scenes, with its smooth performance being an absolute boon when it comes to a high-octane title such as this.
Once again, id Software has proven the masters of their craft, and while they could have simply offered more of the same Doom experience just to cater to fans, they chose to innovate instead, enhancing the franchise’s core shooter mechanics with not only an epic soundtrack, glorious weapon and level design, and a massive sense of scale, but also pushing the boundaries of its already well-defined first-person shooter gameplay with a satisfying parry system that literally changes the game. Doom: The Dark Ages might have brought the franchise back in time, but it also propelled it towards the future by elevating the shooter to new heights, with no double jumping required.
GEEK REVIEW SCORE
Summary
Doom: The Dark Ages isn’t just more of the same; it’s a bold evolution of the beloved shooter that fundamentally changes the first-person shooter formula for a power fantasy that’s always firing on all cylinders.
Overall
9.3/10
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Gameplay - 9.5/10
9.5/10
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Story - 8.5/10
8.5/10
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Presentation - 9.5/10
9.5/10
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Value - 9/10
9/10
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Geek Satisfaction - 10/10
10/10
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
