The Doom series has gone to great lengths to establish itself as a staple; not just for the shooter genre, but for video games as a whole. With frenetic, over the top action that has few competitors within the same realm of intensity, Doom as en entity never seems to slow its roll, as each entry ups the ante in a different way. With Dark Ages being a prequel, does going back to a forgotten era from a bygone age yet to be explored slow the experience down any?


Yes…yes it does

The direct gut-punch of an answer seems like quite the diffusion of tension for the rest of this wrap-up, but I’ve always found official reviews to be far too dogmatic for their own good, carrying a nearly brutal weight of seriousness about them, which is why I’ve opted for more casual sit down discussions in the more recent past about games I’ve played through recently. I guess also, to that point, this would be following more than nine other articles on Doom: The Dark Ages (TDA) in the past two weeks, as I’ve written exhaustively about the title, and while the gameplay in TDA is a bit more paced in some ways, the game still cooks in most others. With both a brutal sense of exhilaration from demon death to demon death to be had, and the ridiculous lengths I’ve gone to cover the game, I am absolutely winded from both, but it’s the good kind of tired.


Though I am just straight up tired of dealing with demonic bullshit, mind you.

One of the interesting notes involving TDA is the alluded to mention of scaled down gameplay, which is considerably more grounded than Eternal’s, but more involved than 2016’s, as it’s not just shooting expertise that TDA demands of you. Perhaps in an effort to chase trends, id software has made a shield and parry system the star of the show, and in some ways, with much of the gameplay hinging on it’s very existence, this turn of events is a better or worse situation, depending on what kind of player you are. Better if you don’t mind an experimental take on a tried and true formula: worse if you are a hardcore traditionalist and wish for nothing more than running and gunning.


If, like me, you have a serious super shotgun problem, enough so that you should probably start going to group therapy to talk to others about it, you’ll be all set.

Following up on my first point, the grounded nature of the gameplay sees the focus shift from the high flying acrobatics of combat and the platforming segments in-between these encounters from Eternal all but vanish, with a now more focused sense of shield/parry/melee action keeping your feet planted at most times. A lot of games continue to scale upwards in creating depth, and verticality becomes the pivot point with which many different titles continued evolution of gameplay follow suit. Id must have felt they flew too close to the sun with Eternal, and responded to feedback that the loop of engagement had become perhaps too chaotically mobile, and thusly grounded the whole scenario with how TDA functions.

Not to say there aren’t a handful of sections with some seriously draconian ace combat involved (Dragon not pictured)

To my second point: traditionalists will indeed feel perhaps left out of the loop, as TDA’s bread and butter is very much contingent upon the parry, shield, melee system, and depending of your fierce love of classic weaponry and perverse flirtations with old school gunplay, these new turn of events will definitely be to your detriment.

I’ve mentioned in the past that Eternal felt almost like more of an action combat game then a straight up shooter, and TDA runs parallel with that thinking, as the demon destruction is almost predicated on a more varied sense of rhythmically destructive combat fueling the fires of furious endeavor rather than the sheer firepower. The Dark Ages more so than Eternal can really be chalked up to the parry, shield, melee combo almost exclusively, with my findings proving that if one knows what they’re doing, bullets barely come into the equation of consideration sometimes. Though, the inverse of this notion is that without the almighty, parry, shield, melee combo, a player will not get the same domineering sense of satisfaction out of the encounters, and may feel as if something is missing if they go at TDA with just the brute force of just strafe shooting and retro gunplay, which may infuriate any traditionalist of the genre.


Reactionary tactics being your go to, the best offense is truly defense, with the shield and parry making short work of hell’s armies more than bullets ever could

Further to that point, TDA doesn’t even require the player to practice their sense of accuracy, ever really feeling the need to challenge the player with a learning curve for their bullet based weaponry, or even demand a player master some type of physics engine to master the use of grenade play: when it comes to weapons, TDA is just more of a point and click spray and pray kind of romp, with most of the weaponry feeling as if it is simplistically automatic in their executions. Like most of TDA’s gameplay systems, the entire title is just trying to make you feel like something between a glorified battering ram and a seemingly never-ending perpetual motion fuck you machine, in all of your unstoppably bloody glory, and the game does this with gratuitous gusto.


Like some kind of benevolent, vengeance fueled, nlood soaked Energizer Bunny, the Doom Slayer just keeps going and going and going…

Beyond those basics of regular gameplay, TDA does come equipped with a first for the series with some divergent gameplay, in the form of both flying sections involving a dragon, and mech sections, which has a heavy focus on methodically weighted kaiju craziness, involving fisticuffs and destruction on a mass scale. I found both more than serviceable, feeling downright enjoyable throughout, though it continues to break away from the mold of the traditional Doom formula, perhaps even testing the boundaries of what players are willing to accept as part of the game’s pedigree.


Get in the robot, Doom Slayer

There are plenty of secrets to find, and the campaign is a lengthy one, feeling almost too bloated in it’s 22 level run time. Considering that the level designs lend themselves to similarly drab looking large scale encounters, with many samey battlefield scenarios to face, a little more focus on specifically varied combat scenarios would have likely made each level feel a little more distinct in it’s approach.


Some cooler locales do get visited, though the lack of variety is kind of a buzz killer

The game also has this weird problem with managing it’s “tension balancing”, which I’m phrasing with concise wordplay in mind, to distinguish what I’m referencing vs a confusion some might have with a more basic sense of difficulty balance, which the game has a vast and complex series of sliders one can vary on the fly to their liking. I’m speaking more to a feeling in the vein of an anti-climactic sense of the win/lose variety, depending on the slim margin of error in any given moment, as it feels like I either completely dominated an encounter most of the time, or was randomly halted in my insane momentum out of seemingly nowhere, with something as goofy as a little bit of acid stopping my ridiculous murder spree. That is to say it never felt like a struggle to win, and the losses always felt totally random.


The Dreadmace definitely evens the odds…flat out on the ground the majority of the time

The story isn’t worth mentioning: some really awesome set pieces throughout, though. I suppose it is worth it to mention that while the story is eh, there are some cool lore twists that occur, including diving into the idea of the cosmic realm, complete with eldritch horror madness to boot.


Meet the new boss(es)…same as the old (ones) bosses

While I’ve never been a big fan of Doom multiplayer, I’d be lying if I said it felt strange that TDA absolutely lacks it, and makes me miss the Battle Mode from Eternal, though I get it. As an ardent player of Eternal, even I grew tired of Battle Mode way too soon, and 2016’s multi was kind of a mess. If you combine that with how much time and resource multiplayer modes take these days, I don’t blame developer id software for skipping out. Though, with only a single player to enjoy, no multiplayer and absolutely no extra modes, I’m guessing a lot of people are going to be moving on fairly quickly from this one.


The upgrades and unlockables are fun treats, but they won’t keep you busy for too long at all

I am endeared to The Dark Ages, while simultaneously recognizing how divisive this title is going to be. The game may be asking too much, too quickly of it’s player base, in terms of the leap of faith it takes in redefining what makes Doom, Doom, and TDA will definitely leave a lot of shooter traditionalists feeling alienated, and died in the wool Doom purists rejecting the new direction and themselves rejected as a result, no doubt. The games sense of confidence in it’s new identity, and the gameplay hook based on the parry system that follows suit will sure to leave those with more open minds satisfied, as they bash their way through hell with reckless abandon and a devilish grin.

~Pashford