Review : DOOM The Dark Ages : Ye Olde Ultra Violence

DOOM is one of the most iconic video game franchises of all time. When it landed back in 1993, it was so seismic that its reverberations are still being felt to this very day. And that’s not just from the many games and industry standards influenced by it, but also because, even after 30 years, the series is bigger than ever. The age-old concept of blasting demons from hell with a super shotgun will always ensure DOOM stays fun, but it’s the franchise’s insistence on reinventing itself time and time again that makes it undeniable.

The latest such reinvention takes the series back in time to the Dark Ages, trading demon-infested space stations for demon-infested castles. It’s not often that you see such big changes to a game’s core mechanics from entry to entry, and for good reason. Changing something people already love is a double-edged crucible sword. Does this new flavor of DOOM keep id Software‘s win streak alive?

DOOM-splaining the Divide

Off the rip (and tear), I think it’s important to confront the fact that DOOM fans, especially fans of the most recent entries, are pretty divided on which entry is superior between DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal. While most can agree that each entry is a fantastic experience in general, many will have a strong preference for one over the other. Some people love the simplicity of grabbing your favorite demon-slaying device and sending those “mortally-challenged” folks back to where they came from. Others prefer breakneck speed, mechanical depth, and the “combat-puzzle” of DOOM Eternal. Personally, I’m 100% on team Eternal.

DOOM (2016) is a great game, but I think Eternal might just provide the best FPS gameplay loops we’ve seen in a single-player shooter. I wanted to make that clear because it greatly painted my expectations for Dark Ages. It’s a tough problem to solve as most sequels just give us more of the same. In the case of DOOM, though, how does ID Software choose which flavor to give us more of? Well, their answer to this problem was to create a new flavor, one that tries to appeal to both sides of the coin. That is exactly what they managed to do here, albeit with a bit of an aftertaste.

Once Upon a Time in Argent D’Nur

As mentioned in the opening, DOOM: The Dark Ages is a prequel that takes place well before the events of the first game. The planet of Argent D’Nur, is in constant battle with the forces of Hell. Doom guy is put on a leash by the angelic Makyrs and used as a weapon against Hell’s Army by King Novik, ruler of the Argentans. I know those last few sentences were a mouthful, but get used to it because the game’s story and lore take center stage in this entry more than any of the past games. DOOM has always had a surprising amount of world building and lore, especially in the last two entries. However, Dark Ages ramps the importance of the plot up to new heights. Cutscenes and interstitials have changed from quick hitters of Doom Guy humorously punching a computer screen to a Saturday morning cartoon that is equal parts Diablo and He-Man. One welcome change for me was the greater emphasis on the game’s central antagonist, who shares a near equal amount of screen time as The Slayer. While I don’t see any Oscars in DOOM‘s future, I never felt the urge to skip a cutscene, and things did get somewhat interesting in the game’s back third.

Visually, the game is, perhaps, the series’ best. Initial impressions lead me to believe that this game may be a throwback to the greys and browns of Quake fame, but I was quickly proven wrong. Leaving Mars and Hell-ified Earth in the rearview allowed the art department at ID to have a lot more freedom with the game’s environments. Don’t worry too much, though, as they are not afraid to mix in some of the classics as well. The added variety and new biomes make The Dark Ages a treat for the eyes. On top of that, Hugo Martin and company’s uncanny ability to make Doom Guy look like the most bad ass thing you have ever seen, in every frame he is in, somehow manages to shine even brighter with his extra screen time in cutscenes.

Slayer, Party of One

Astonishingly, these new locales, on top of the increase in visual fidelity, don’t seem to come at any cost to the game’s performance as ID Tech 8 was humming the whole way through the game. I was able to play at a near locked 120FPS at 1440p on an RTX 3080, and both console versions performed well at their near locked 60fps target. On top of that, in my entire playthrough and a half of the game’s campaign, I did not experience a single crash or bug. Kudos to the wizards over at ID Software; 30 years later, and they are still at the top of the industry when it comes to the tech that powers their games.

Just because there is no performance cost, though, doesn’t mean there aren’t any costs. As one small sacrifice for the game’s increased focus on narrative and storytelling is that this is one of the only mainline DOOM entries to not ship with any kind of multiplayer experience.

Once you finish the campaign, you can, of course, run it back at a higher difficulty or hunt down collectables and challenges that you might have missed, but for anyone who considers themselves a member of the (admittedly) small clan of DOOM Deathmatch or Battle Mode fans, you might be a little disappointed by the absence of anything like that.

From Fighter Jet to Iron Tank

Once the game’s narrative table is set and you step inside the Doom Slayer’s heavy demon-stomping boots, it doesn’t take long before DOOM veterans start to see the design changes ID undertook for Dark Ages. Game Director Hugo Martin compared the experience of playing DOOM Eternal to that of being in a fighter jet, while the team crafted Dark Ages with the intent of having the player become an iron tank. The game’s mantra is “Stand and Fight,” and I can confidently say they nailed that feeling. They emphasize this feeling of power over agility in several clever ways. For starters, by offering a somewhat slower pace of combat and having many of the game’s enemies’ projectiles be slowed down, it provides you with ample opportunities to get up close and personal with your foes. An interesting byproduct of this is how much they evoke a sense of nostalgia for the more seasoned DOOM games, paying a nice homage to the game’s 90s shooter roots. Many of the game’s weapons also encourage you to get a little bit closer to Hell’s Finest, from the iconic shotgun to a rocket launcher that can be tweaked to have its splash damage heal you.

There is one thing that evangelized this new way of DOOMing more than anything else, and it’s also probably the most OP weapon I’ve used in a video game since the Halo CE pistol. Yes, I’m talking about the Shield Saw. Very early on in the game, you are blessed with this beautiful armament, and it will be one of the core pieces of your journey through the Dark Ages campaign. Of course, you can block enemy attacks, and yes, you can throw it like Captain America and watch it devastate groups of trash minions, or even tougher enemies, stunning them as the Shield Saw rips them apart and allowing you to tend to other pressing matters. Its most distinguishing feature, however, is using it to parry enemy attacks. Parriable enemy attacks, whether it’s a projectile or melee attack, are easily identified by their green glow. Successfully parrying them often results in big damage while also giving you a window to add insult to injury.

The concept of parrying is not necessarily new to DOOM, as it was pivotal in taking down Eternal‘s progression gatekeeper, otherwise known as everyone’s favorite enemy: The Marauder. Don’t worry, though, for anyone having horrifying flashbacks to that… divisive… aspect of Eternal, parrying is very much not a skill check in Dark Ages. The window for parrying is perhaps the most generous I’ve ever seen in a video game, and, overall, the game’s difficulty has been toned down quite a bit. The Marauder can’t hurt you anymore.

Difficulty? I Hardly Knew Ye

I opted for the Ultra Violence difficulty option for my first play through, the same difficulty I used for my first run through of Eternal. Now, I’m not the world’s best gamer by any stretch, but during my entire run of Dark Ages, I didn’t see the game over screen once. The game is very generous with its ammo and health economy. Ammo, shield, and health pickups are littered all around the maps and combat arenas. Once you have a couple of upgrades, the game’s enemies essentially act as health and shield piñatas as well. I wanted to keep the difficulty set at Ultra Violence for the purpose of this review and as a comparison to Eternal, but I would advise taking whatever you would normally choose and bumping it up one notch. Thankfully, the game also lets you customize your difficulty settings more granularly, by adjusting things like the parry windows, damage dealt and received, and much more. In a second run, I was able to fine-tune this to my liking, and it drastically improved the experience.

On top of the mighty Shield Saw, there are also a lot of other new weapons to discover throughout the campaign, each with different upgrade paths and alternate fires that will change how they play. There are also several new enemies that better match the game’s new scenery. They are fun to fight against and fit right in with all of the returning favorites. ID has also included some boss fights with mechanics that go beyond simply filling them with as many bullets as possible. These are all nice new additions to the franchise, but the most notable new arrivals are much bigger (literally). As seen in the trailers, yes, you do get to ride on a giant dragon with laser wings, and, yes, it is quite awesome. The Doom Slayer also gets to suit up in a giant mech and participate in hellish megazord battles, which is also very awesome. These missions are scattered throughout the campaign and provide a nice moment of levity and pure fun. There’s not enough depth in these modes for me to be clamoring for IDs next game to feature either of these segments exclusively, but they did flesh out the campaign quite nicely here.

Outside of those specialty missions, there are also some significant changes to the rank-and-file missions as well. For starters, each mission’s map has expanded greatly in size. Missions in past entries felt a lot like fighting your way from point “A” to point “B.” The Dark Ages does have some maps that feel like that, but many of them feel a lot more like an actual battlefield. Objectives can be approached in any order, and there is a lot more freedom in exploration. The game also makes exploring worthwhile considering that most of what you will find off the beaten path is the currency you use to upgrade your health, ammo, shields, and weapons. These new maps are quite refreshing without feeling too foreign in a DOOM game. ID did a really nice job of finding a balance and not making things too open.

Glory Daze Are Over

Unfortunately, not all of the gameplay changes landed as well as the new maps did, as Glory Kills took a pretty massive hit. Glory Kills, the act of finishing off a weakened enemy in ways that get increasingly more visceral as the game goes on, is an iconic aspect of what makes up a modern DOOM game. I have vivid memories of DOOM (2016)’s original reveal at QuakeCon, and trust me when I say the first time fans witnessed a Glory Kill resulted in that reveal’s biggest crowd pop. While there is an argument to be made that they were a bit excessive in how often you would perform them and how much they took control away from you, I’m personally a fan, especially in Eternal where they acted as one of the only ways you could take a breather during the game’s fast-paced combat.

What we get in Dark Ages is a bit of a half-measure attempt to fix what some didn’t like about the Glory Kill system. The frequency at which you perform them hasn’t changed much; you will still be performing Glory Kills left, right, and center. However, the creativity and spectacle have been heavily sapped. Instead of slicing a demon to bits, you kick it in the stomach. Instead of stabbing them in the head with their own claw, you punch them in the head. It accomplishes the goal of keeping the player in control of the Doom Slayer at all times, but I couldn’t help but feel like a big chunk of the DOOM experience was lost because of it. On paper, these constant interruptions in gameplay do sound like they could get frustrating, but during the act of playing DOOM (2016) or Eternal, they felt like an essential part of the experience.

Another absence that was sorely missed in The Dark Ages was that of Mick Gordon, the composer for both DOOM (2016) and Eternal‘s award-winning soundtracks. Irreconcilable differences that had spawned during the development of Eternal caused Mick and ID Software to go their separate ways, and, as a result, the audio package in Dark Ages sadly suffers. What we have here by Finishing Move Inc. is by no means bad. If we are measuring it against other video games in general, I would say it’s quite good. However, the bar was set so high with the past entries, and the OST has become such a big piece of the package, that I was left wanting the whole way through as nothing matched the punchiness of the previous games. It’s not just the music, either, since the audio mix, itself, also felt off to me, causing the soundtrack to sound somewhat muted at times.

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Overall, even though I would consider Dark Ages a step back from DOOM (2016), and especially Eternal, it is only a slight one. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was trading DOOM Eternal‘s combat chess with Dark Ages‘ combat checkers. However, the fresh new look that this trip back in time has provided was still an extremely fun ride, and it’s one that I would recommend to anyone who’s in any way a fan of the franchise.

Since thanks to Bethesda and their PR partners for providing a DOOM The Dark Ages review code. You can find Seasoned Gaming’s review policy here.