It took me a while because of other work, but I finally got through Doom: The Dark Ages weeks after it debuted on May 15.
id Software’s latest title is a prequel to Doom 2016, which debuted in 2020 as a follow-up to Doom 2016. The new game is a blast, of course, as we’ve come to expect this from id, a division of Microsoft’s Bethesda. I have some history with this franchise, having played it from the very beginning in the 1990s. People also thought a video I posted on Doom 2016 was an example of hilariously bad gameplay, and so to counter them, I posted my completion video for Doom 2016. And I’ve done so again here.
Doom: The Dark Ages has a lot of action in the style of Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal, the most recent editions of the decades-old franchise. But it’s also got a pretty long story with a lot of prequel lore to satisfy those who like a narrative with their shooting. The story is here is about the “medieval war against hell.” The story has been taken out of the Codex (which is still there) and put into cut scenes that play in between the levels.
But make no mistake. This is a game with familiar fighting that Doom fans will love. And it’s a game best played if you repeat your gameplay until you get it just right.
So much weaponry
The emphasis on melee combat with handheld weapons and your shield is what’s different about this game.
But that “medieval” part is maybe just a figurative part of the story, as this war is full of modern shotguns, super shotguns, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, shredders that fire steel bolts, implaers that fire precision spikes, accelerator plasma rifles with explosive rounds, cyclers that shock enemies, pulverizers that launch crushed skulls in a wide arc, ravagers that are for close-range shooting, chainshots that can be charged for massive impact, and the Ballistic Force Crossbow. The latter BFC kills just about everything on the screen. Sadly, you only get three arrows with it until you have to fetch more of them.
But you can really get into the “medieval” play if you just embrace your shield (which you can throw as an amazingly effective offensive weapon) and your melee weapons. It is the combo of all of those guns, the shield and melee weapons that enables you to defeat just about any enemy. You have to cycle through them in rapid succession to get the right cascading effect that can take down the best-protected enemies.
The shield has a saw that eats through enemies, immobilizing them while you dash up to them and hit them with a melee weapon like a mace and chain. The shield also has a grappling hook mechanic that can get you across barriers and chasms. It’s a brilliant tool, kind of like a platform for many styles of offense and defense.
The wide array of enemies
You need all those weapons because of the pantheon of enemies from Hell. The simple ones are imps who hurl projectiles at you that can injure you if you’re too tied up dealing with other threats. The zombies are the same way, but slow and mindless. The soldiers are infantry with rapid-fire weapons and shields.
With many of the demons, you can beat them until you reach their stun point and they turn purple. Once they do, you can finish them with a Glory Kill melee blow that generates maximum amounts of health, ammo and armor for you.
The Hell Knight and Battle Knight have to be dealt with using all of your attention because they’re fast and though. But they can’t withstand your firepower in the latter part of the game.
The Pinky Rider is a menace early in the game, with a mounted archer and evasion tactics that make it harder to bring down. The Pinky itself is like a giant Wooly Mammoth. There are Lost Souls, or exploding flying skulls, and tentacles that lash out from the ground. The Hell Cultists are often often hidden in secret areas and do things like buff enemies, summon portals to bring in reinforcements and more.
The game’s graphics have advanced enough where the battle spaces are huge and there can be tons of enemies in the field, like you’re fighting a whole army all at once. id Software’s leaders said it’s the largest battle space they’ve ever had in a Doom game.
In the realm of big punchers and tanks, you have to deal with the Mancubus, which has arm cannon and a lot of health. The Titan and Cyclops Titans are massive beasts that can move fast. The Cyberdemon has all kinds of melee and ranged weaponry. The Arachnotron/Vagary are spider-like demons that have turrets and cybernetic upgrades. You have to knock their armor off first and then disable them with a saw before you close in for the kill. Helltanks are giant siege machines that can harass you from afar. And there’s Hell Ships/Hell Carrier with airborne biomechanical threats.
Late in the game, there are floating Cacodemons of the hybrid and giant variations. Komodo warriors have chain-parry abilities. The cosmic Baron can fire a blend of attacks against you. The Acolytes can teleport to different places and protect themselves with shields. And there’s the Maykr Drone, obedient servants in the Maykr faction.
The game has seven elite foes, including the Vagary Champion who is an armored spider with projectile barrages. The Agaddan Champion is a shielded melee fighter. Komodo Champion is agile and not easy to predict. The Kreed Maykr is a corrupt bishop, a representative of the medieval church, who has magical attacks. The Old One is a resurrected god machine. Enhanced Ahzrak is the prince of Hell in his true form. And then there’s Ahzrak and the Witch, a final boss duo that blends Hell and magic to constantly attack you in the final battle.
There are enemy variants, like armored ones with protection you must break through. There are enforcers, who can buff nearby demons and summon reinforcements. There are leaders, shielded by allies. You have to clear the minions out first. And there are gold-armored elites — the champions — who take less damage when you hit them.
Interludes
Every now and then, there are missions that require you to mount up on your flying cybernetic dragon, dubbed the Mecha Dragon, which has a heavy projectile weapon on top of it. And there are also giant mechs, dubbed Atlans. These kaiju-like giants are robotic machines that the Doom Slayer can use against huge enemies. And other the enemy side there are big demons that you have to fight in hand-to-hand combat with you giant mech. These serve to break up the action and allow you to fight in a different way, but they’re not as fun as the core basic gameplay of melee fighting.
To repeat, you can defeat anything just through the right form of aggression, as you get everything you lose back in the form of rewards for killing enemies. For instance, you get health, armor and ammo for free by taking out one enemy after another.
Setting the difficulty right
This is a title where customization matters a lot. You can tune just about any level of difficulty. I played it on the Hurt Me Plenty difficulty setting, a notch above normal but three levels below the most difficult settings. You can see that I got to the ending in the video (spoilers), but the gameplay wasn’t as challenging at that moment as I expected.
Aspiring Slayer is a mode for story-focused plaeyrs, with weak enemies and plentiful resources. Hurt Me Plenty is a balanced experience recommended for most players. There are three expert levels that you can also play upon graduating upward.
You can adjust sliders, however, for micro control of the difficulty. You can dial up or down the damage that demons can do to the player, or how much you do to the demons. You can control how many enemies can attack at once and how often. You can make parrying enemy blowers easier. You can speed up or slow down the action. You can change how many resources you get like health, ammo and armor. And you can use assists for better targeting or empowered attacks. I found it was useful to dial all of these settings.
This also means that, if you like it, this is probably a game that you should play more than once. If you do, you’ll notice that it is full of amazing imagery that combines so many different genres of art. The Doom Slayer himself has a dark visor that makes his face look green, like a monster’s face. His armor comes with a kind of dark lion’s mane. For all of the variety of enemies, I would say none gave me as hard a time as the final bosses of the previous games or even the Marauder character from Doom Eternal that was so hard to defeat.
Looking at my analytics on Steam (I played it on the PC on a Falcon Northwest 5090 Tiki machine), I completed the game. Only about 38% of Steam players got there. I acquired Essential Ammo (31.4% of players got there), The Only Thing They Fear (38.8% of players got there) and Argent Return (39.3% of players got there). The PC never choked on the graphics when I played, can I don’t even remember the game crashing a single time.
Overall, I unlocked 19 of 28 achievements. It’s not brilliant play by any means, but I was trying to get through it on limited time. But this shows how big a part of the level exploration is the time you spend searching for secrets. These Easter Eggs allow you to get bragging rights, unlock new powers, and get rewards like the Sigil for an extra life.
Steam says I played for 332 hours, but that’s not right as I often just left the machine running. I would estimate it was maybe 25 hours of gameplay across the 22 levels of the game, which is significantly longer than the 15 to 20 hours of gameplay for Doom Eternal, which had 13 levels. During much of that time, I enjoyed the soundtrack from Finishing Move, which gave the world an edgy, heavy metal feel.
Looking back, especially toward the ending, I should have made the difficulty setting more difficult as I progressed in the game. I didn’t die nearly as much as I did during Doom Eternal.
Conclusion
I am impressed with all of the different ways that you can dispatch demons. There were good story moments that helped us understand the Slayer’s rage that show up in the later stories.
I would rate this game as a four out of five, partly because the ending was a little underwhelming and could have been a lot more difficult. Still, I appreciate the thinking that went into making the game more flexible to make the game accessible for all Slayers.
In the Hurt Me Plenty level of difficulty, I found it was easier to beat the final bosses than it was to take on the Spider Mastermind in Doom 2016 or the Icon of Sin in Doom Eternal. I think I’ll have to trying going back to see how tough they are in the more difficult levels.
Sadly, the game doesn’t have a co-op mode or a multiplayer mode. I would love it if id Software brought those things modes back with future content drops. I truly think the game was wonderful, and I hope that id Software keeps making these games for years to come. In this sad day and age, that’s not always a given, even for an awesome franchise like Doom.
Disclosure: Bethesda gave me a copy of the game for the purposes of this review. The game is available on the PC, Xbox Series X/S and the PlayStation 5. I played it on the PC.