Doom is popular franchise that is considered by many The father of the FPS as in the early 1993 it was the first game of it's genre.
Needless to say it had a massive impact within the gaming industry and definetely inspired many games that followed. Whether it was a direct "copy" or simply inspired by the idea. In 2014, Doom as a
franchise has been rebooted with 2016 Doom. The game was a commercial success and it succesffully revive the IP as it was able to satisfy the fans of the franchise and capticate new people
such as myself to experience the series. A couple of Years later a sequel was announced and in 2020, Doom Eternal was released. Doom Eternal continued the story of Doom(2016)
and it was also a succesffull game praised for its gameplay, innovation and overall package.
In 2022, a year after the final DLC of Doom Eternal, the developers Id Software briefly mentioned, that they have something in the workd for the Doom Ip, however they werent allowed to confirm anything.
Two years later, in 2024, during Summer game Fest, the trailer of a new DOOM game was shown and this was, Doom: The Dark Ages. The game was then confirmed to chronologically be a prequel of Doom 2016 and that it takes place
somewhere before that. They also did confirm that the Doom guy wont end up in the Sarcophagus which is where Doom 2016 begins. The trailer proceed to show something more medival with Doomguy using multiple medival weapons like
shields, maces and others. The developers also explained that in Eternal, the slayer had a lot of mobility and futuristic weaponry that allowed for some crazy fights which is somthing the Dark Ages will approach differently. They
made sure to mention that yes, Doom will be like all the others, BUT the slayer will be more grounded with heavy weaponry. Needless to say, the game was building hype with every trailer and with every discussion.
In May 2025, publisher Bethesda reveal the following forms in which you can buy the game. These were:
Standard
Included the game alone
Premium
Included the game, 2 Early access to the game, the future DLC, Digital Artbook and Soundtrack
Collector Edition
Included everything from the Premium edition, a steelcase, a Replica of the Red Key and a 30cm statue of Doomslayer.
Story of the Game
Before briefly mentionning the plot of the game, it is important to explain where Doom The Dark Ages fit in the Doom timeline. Chronologically the game is placed between the old 8bit games and the 2016 reboot. It is NOT a continuation from Eternal. From early dialogs and the overall beginning of the game, the slayer has already received his powers from the
Seraphim and he is officially the slayer. In the Dark Ages we are introduce to the war between the Night Sentinels of Argent DNur who allied with the Maykrs againts the forces of hell and more specificaaly the prince Ahzrak. Prince Ahzrak believes that he should become the leader of all Hell and knows that the only thing standing in his way is the Slayer
who all of demons in hell seems to be afraid. He teams up with a witch in search of an artefact called the heart of Argent with which he believes that will gain enough power to defeat the Slayer. The Doomslayer, is always placed in the ship of the Maykrs and is treated like a weapon. The leader of the Maykrs, master Kreed has the Doom guy acting under his behalf
and each time the slayer tries to get control of his body the Maykrs suppress his mind with a device called the Tether which is installed in his armor.
The prince of hell finds the whereabaouts of the Heart but before capturing it he is stopped by the Slayer and King Novik who successfully steal the heart under the prince palm. The king decides to keep the item himself as he doesnt trust the slayer, or more specifically he doesnt trust the Maykrs, showing that even though they re allies they re not fully commited with eachother.
Enrage by the events, prince Ahzrak locates the fortress of the Sentinels and brings his army to eradicate everyone. Kreed refuses to sent the Slayer to enforce the Sentinels as he prefers having him around incase the Maykrs are in danger. The Doomslayer manages to break free of the mind control of the Maykrs by hearing the screams of the Sentinels forcing the Maykrs to sent him down to
assist the Sentinels before things could turn ugly. Without spoiling much, the Doom guy successfully stalss the demons and the Sentinels escape. The prince gets the artefact but not its content which once again angers him and tries to strike a deal with Kreed whom after seing the Slayer successfully snap out of his mind control became scared of him. With Kreed and Prince Ahzrak working together
the odds turn againts the Sentinels, but atleast now the Doom Slayer is free to act on his own and his rage againts the demons and the Maykrs is at a new time high.
Will the Sentinels win the war?
Will the Prince manage to overpower the Slayer?
What are the Maykrs Scheming?
What is the fate of the Slayer?
Thoughts on the story
This is the first time that developers id software tried to implement a big story in the Doom IP. Doom 2016's narrative was mainly used by subtitles with people direclty speaking to the slayer exposing the players to the lore. In Doom Eternal, they continued in a similar way but they experimended with cutscenes. In Doom the Dark Ages,
the developers seems to outdone themselves as they delivered plenty of cutscenes troughtoout the game. That is not to say that the old classic narrative whilst playing isnt in the game. The cutscenes are well done and they definetelly knew what they were doing with the Slayer who geenrally is a character of a few worlds. Arguably, the humans(Argentas),
prince Ahzrak and the Maykers are the protagonists of the cutscenes with Doomguy being there. The cutscenes where Doomguy is alone usually have him do something bizzare like jumping on a giant titan or chasing demons. As a narrative, the plot is easy to follow and it does contain some minor plot twist that will surprise the player. Overall the presentation
was done well and it left things open for the devs to continue exploring the Dark Ages saga before they conclude to the beginning of Doom 2016.
Gameplay
Similarly to it's predecessors, Doom the Dark Ages is an Action First person shooter where the player controls the Doomslayer who is ready to bring Hell down in order to help the Sentinels. The game is fast pace that focusses on the action and the chaos in the mense of the battle. From the beinning of the game the player is given his weapon and shield to begin his mission. As expected
and as seen in promos and trailers, the slayer picks weapons from the battlefield in order to increase his weaponry and ofcourse to make the gameplay more flexible. Unlike the last two games the weapons are given to the slayer through the story so you cannot miss any. The world has a linear design that leads the player to the main objective but there plenty of open areas where the players can battle
freely with the demonic spawns. Additionally smaller routes exist that sometimes lead to key items or simply allow the players to reach the same objective through a different path. A great addition to the game were the missions that were an open battlefield. Pretty much in these missions, the Slayer has to do the same objective around the world, E.g Shut down the portals where the demons come from. The players
are free to choose which portals they should close and in which order. These mission maps are also filled with plenty of demons who re scattered arround. These open sandboxes are decently sized that despite their size dont feel overcrowded or empty
The Doomslayer allows the players to feel very powerfull as they traverse through the battlegrounds. The players can traverse freely to any direction they want and they can even platform around by jumping and crawling up certain walls. The Slayer can also Shield dash into certain walls causing the to collapse and reveal secret paths or shortcuts. Puzzles can also be solved using the shield to break
chains or simply cause the gears to spin. The player should always look for the yellow objective if they ever get lost or open the map which will indicate the location of collectables and encounters. When the yellow symbol appears as a gate, it means the player will no longer be able to come back for collectables as its a point of no return.
On the bottom center there is a blue and a green bar with numbers. The green bar indicates shields where as the blue life is the actual HP of the slayer. Receiving damage reduces the bars and when the blue ones completely runs out the slayer dies. Dying will simply spawn the slayer back before the encounter or instantly back if the death was by falling of a cliff. If the player have a Life Sigil(needs 3) they
can revive themselves. Life and Armor can be regenerated by collecting armor pieces thats appear in light green or health capsule represented in a blue with a cross. These recovery items can be found around the world and can also dropped by fallen enemies. Burning enemies will also cause them to drop armor pieces slowly over time or faster if you hit them. Life Sigils count as collectibles and can also be found
around the map. In the minimap they re depicted as Doom guys helmet. The player needs atleast three to be able to revive. There is no fall damage, and in fact jumping for a higher ground can kill lesser demons and stunt heavier ones.
The basic gameplay will have the slayer going through different levels, slaying demons and collecting key items in order to progress. The game can also be seen as a FPS Run and Gun. The slayer collects various weapons which can be used to slay the beasts that come with different strengths and usage as some can clear enemies faster cause they scatter, others deal more damage but need better aim and in general
the standard long and close range weapon effectiveness. The player can have two weapons equiped at the same time and he can swap between them with a tap of a button. The weapon Wheel can also be accesed by holding down a button and selcting a weapon which will replace the one not currently equiped. New to dark ages is the fact that each weapon has two forms and can be swapped by tapping a button. For exmple, Super shotgun and
shotgun both take the same spot on the wheel and pressing a button whilst equip with one of them will swap to the other(not the secondary). You could say that 4 weapons are equiped at the same time. This is similar to Doom 2016 weapon enchancments where one tap would make the sniper have a scope or mini rockets. In dark Ages theres no weapon enchancments but theres mastery. At a shrine a player can upgrade a weapon up to 4 times
spending different types of currency (Gold, rubbies, wraithstones). Upgrading a shotgun will make it burn enemies(which drops armor), shoot multiple bullets etc. The BFC(Big F**ing Crossbow) is the ultimate weapon that has its own button and causes an enormous destructive AoE. The player can only have 3 ammo/arrows total.
New to Dark Ages is the Shield and Mellee weapons. The shield is fun and amazing. The basic usage of it its blocking projectiles. Blocking a green projectile will parry the projectile or the demons mellee attack stunning them in the processs. The player eventually gets access to Shield rune which are powerfull abilities that can be triggered when parrying such as summoning magical blades, causing an AoE Stunn attack summonning a
turret on the slayers shoulders and others. The shield has a bunch of updates and is a must use. Offensively the Slayer can dash while blocking(which goes far) and can stunt an enemy and the nearby demons. Just like captain America the slayer can throw his shield which will kill enemies on its way and return to slayer. The player can move away from it which will allow it to kill even more demons on its way back. Throwing a shield on enemies
whose armor is overheated(from being shot by you) will cause an explosion killing the demon or removing its armor. Last but not least throwing the shield on a heavy enemy will cause its chainsaw to spin and stuck on the enemy stunning it and allowing you to shoot it. The mellee weapons deal heavy damage and drops alot of ammo, health and shield off the enemies. The mellee weapons differ based on their upgrades, for example one cause show whilst
other sets on fire. Unlike the older games the mellee is rechargable and its capacity can be seen bottom right next to the weapon. Mellee charges slowly overtime or by collecting glove like ammo. Ofcourse parrying has the ability to instantly recharge the melle and certain weapons when hit targets also reduce the cooldown. Personally it never felt like i didnt have a mellee available.
A thing that will stand out from the first minute is the brutality of the slayer. When you damage an enemy they will sometimes begin to flash. If the player continues to shoot them with the guns they would die normaly, however if the melle button is used near them, the Doom slayer will perform a "fake" Glory kill. As you may know from Doom, glory kills are these brutal cinematic kills where the slayers demolishes the demons whilst having
frames of invisibility and gainning alot of health/ammo/armor from them. In the third installment the devs decided to change this as they felt like the cinematics took away from the quick pace. Instead of a cinematic, the slayer will sometimes punch or use the equiped mellee weapon the demons into pieces, will sometimes use his shield to destroy them or give them a kick with his heavy boots. Traditional glory kills can be seen when the player sprints towards
a flashing enemy, jumps and then performs the mellee hit. This will trigger a glory cinematic where the slayer uses the chainsaw of his shield. Performing these brutal kills like before will reward the players with alot of Ammo, health and armor.
As seen in the trailers, the slayer can ride a giant robot mech to take down big enemies. During these missions the player is inside a mecha and can crush every building, village near him. The visuals are amazing and the destructive environment is satisfied to watch. Gameplay wise the player moves into small predetirmined paths where giant demons will get in the slayers way. The slayer can mellee them which will fill a bar. When the bar is half way, the player
can use a Stomp which will stunt the demons and when fully charged the mecha will power punch enemies usually killing them or removing their armor pieces. Occasionnaly, the Sentinels will sent a minigun to the slayer with which instead of melleeing enemies he will simply shoot them. Defensive wise, the player can only press one dodging button when the enemy flashes green. Dodging an attack will cause the next punch to be more powerfull or will cause the weapon
to shoot faster than before. The gameplay will remain the same until the player reach the checkpoint and similarly the enemies will be the same(hammer/weapon)with some having extra armor or shield.
Last but not least there are missions where the Doomslayer becomes a dragon rider. In these missions the slayer is ontop of a dragon controlling the machine gun whilst also flying around the world. Flying is fast and usually the player is free to go whereever they want until they decide to do the objective. Combat is seperated into two forms. Chasing demons and 1vs1. In the chasing sections, the player follows an enemy ship which if not destroyed in time will go away.
The player can follow the green trace of the enemy whilst at the same time shooting them down. The enemy will not attack back but as mentioned will go away if not beaten in time. One on one will have the dragon staying still whilst being locked on on a target. The opponent will usually shoot and the player can tap a button and a direction to dodge whilst shooting them down. These encounters usually end with the enemy going down and revealding a landing spot or if its a demon will
allow the dragon to perform a glory kill. In order to heal the dragon, the player will have to fly through giant blue rings.
Thoughts on the Gameplay
Id Software's latest Doom game left me with some controversy. The gameplay of the Doomslayer is as good as all the previous games. You move around bringing the demons down with the weaponry. The shield is an amazing edition that adds to the face pace combat and can be used in multiple ways, blocking projectiles, damaging enemies, parrying and attacking.
The mellee weapons should be used often as they re very helpfull and powerfull. The "removal" of the glory kills is something i didnt really mind as melleing enemies who glow once again performs a killing action whether is punching the demons with a weapon or shield or simply giving them the boot. It keeps the momentum going. Some old fashion glory kills
can be seen when the slayer finish of the enemies with his chainsaw shield. Parrying was a nice addition since its not as punishing as something like a souls game and the projectiles that can be parried are clear. Its also worth mentionning that the parry window can be altered to your preference, making it easier or harder, nevertheless the default options
are very good. The puzzles of the game were fun to solve as most of them simply require your observation skills than actual solving complex puzzles. The level design keeps the typical Doom formula of straight room but certain mission experimented with big ares which were fun to explore, as long as it is not fully open world it works as good as others but it also
proved to me that Doom should not go Open world.
One of my main issues with the game is the weapons. The weapons in the dark Ages are very over powered and non situational. In older Doom games the player could use certain weapons to take down certain enemies easier, Eg.:Using a sniper on a Maykr head would instakill them, shooting Revenants weapons will stop their attacks and throwing granades to Cacodemons would
cause them to flash(for glory kills.) In the dark ages, using a single weapon can be as effective as others. For example i was mainly using my Plasma riffle and the skull weapon in most cases as they could take most enemies down. That is not to say that they dont have the situational weapons picks but their importance is not that highlighted. Yes, they do have the enemies
with the plasma shield which usually shooting them with a plasma will cause them to explode, but a skull weapon can easily remove their shield and kill them. To me it felt like i can just aimleslly shoot any weapon and expect an easy win. Keep in mind this overpower weapons are for all guns, mellee weapons and shield abilities. I am also referring to the default difficulties
NOT the custom ones (Ultra Violence).
The combat of the mecha to me felt like a Ps2 game. Visually i liked the destructive environments but gameplay wise i found them boring. All the Mecha does is three buttons, Dodge, Attack, super attack. The only change is the occasional weapon instead of punch which acts similar to it. Nothing changed throughout the mecha levels and i was personally dissapointed. Similarly the dragon
riding levels also felt like a ps2 game. The freelancing of the dragon is amazing, is fast and you can chase enemies trying to shoot them down, then come the key encounters where the game freezes as you lock on the target and dodge in certain directions killing all the momentum. Yet similarly to the mecha nothing changes in the dragon levels gameplay wise. Given how those two were the
new additions they felt lacklustered.
Post Game Content
Unlike the previous Doom games(2016 & Eternal) this is the first game that doesnt have an online mode, the developers did mention it prior to the release and they explain that there will be no plans of releasing one as a DLC. This significally reduces the playtime of the game.
At the same time, all the difficulty options are available from the getgo so there wont be a need to play the game atleast once to jump on the Ultra nighmare difficulty. However, there are alot of settings options that allows the players to experiment and create their own version of the game.
These accessibility features can change things like enemy speed, enemy damage, the slayers damage, projectile speeds and theres plenty of others options to experiment with.
Unlike before, the weaponry of the Doom Slayer is delivered to the player through the story and thus you cannot miss any of them, however the mastery of each is like the older games. in each levels, the player will spot shriners, depicted as small green gates on the minimap. Upon approaching them
the player can upgrade the weapons given they have the right ammount of resources. At first, the initial upgrade requires the player to spent gold which can be found around the map inside gold boxes, or stack of gold on the ground. The next upgrade will require the player to spent Rubies. Rubies
once again can be found around the world(Red gemstone on map). They re placed on golden statues and can be picked by interacting with them, some of them re locked and require the player to clean the area from nearby demons. Moreover, once the ruby upgrade is done, the final upgrade will require the player to use a Wraithstone.
Wraithstones are similar to rubies with the exception of being purple stones and being more of a challenge to obtain. Once the final upgrade is purchased, a mission will be unlocked called Mastery mission and it will require you to use the mastered weapon to deal damage or use it in a certain way.
The same goes for all Mellee and Shield updates. These close combat weapons also have their own skills that can be mastered. Last but not least, the slayer himself can be upgraded. Around the maps, there are optional bosses/encounters with a more powered version of the same demons. Defeating the leader will allow
the slayer to remove their demonic essence which based on the color will upgrade the slayers Health, Armor or Ammo capacity.
Finally, the typical collectables we have known since the reboot of Doom(2016) are back. As you may know, Doomguy likes to collect different figurines of the creatures he encountered. Unlike Eternal though, his collection is not displayed in a hubworld but instead they can be found in the home screen. The figurines
are chibi versions of the both the Slayers group and Hells troops. Interacting with the figure in the menu will make the model of the character appear so that you can zoom, tilt and look for details. Additionally, additional lore about the world can be found by collectng the Codex. Codex are pieces of flying paper which
upon collecting will be stored in the inventory. These papers, depict certain characters, artifacts or locations as well as some text regarding them.
Sound and Graphics
Doom the Dark Ages is the first game to feature fully length cutscenes. Id software did an amazing job delivering the narrative through these and ofcourse through the narrative within the gameplay. The cutscenes found in Doom the Darka ges are simple with characters and demons mainly interacting with each other with the slayer being there for most of them.
There are a few action scenes but for most of the time they re simple. Gameplay wise, Doom enviromental design is lovely. Some areas are design similarly to the other doom games but new to Dark Ages is the bigger maps where the players can fully explore. Most of the areas are well design that suits its location. For example, in hell theres plenty of demonics
statues and symbols where as in the world of humans there are normal forests and cities. The enemy monsteers and the slayer have unique silhouettes and designs matching the world and its medieval aesthetic. Also this is the first Doom game which allowed for alot of enemies to be placed without lagging or crushing and as a results the battles are way more chaotic.
Each weapon and projectile have unique colors which makes the easy to "read" during the chaos.
The music department of this game left me dissapointed which is a weird thing to say when referring to the Doom series. Perhaps this is because the 2 time award winning composer, Mick Gordon who composed the past 2 games(2016 & Eternal) did not return to compose OSt for Dark Ages. The third entry of the series feels like the music took a back seat in all of this
as some departments barely have soundtracks and if they do is placed back in the backround. There were a couple of cases in the background where the music was non existand and i could only hear the slayers steps. In rare cases, the sound glitched when i was solving puzzles. Some areas require the player to throw the shield on a blue gear to cause the trigger. If the player
withdaws the shield fast enough the audio will be glitched and unless the player dies or triggers the gear again it will remain there. The Voice acting was okay, nothing worth praising as none of the characters stood out. On the bright side, the sound effects used for the weapons is unique and make each weapon effect distinct from each other.
Final Thoughts
Overall Doom The dark Ages, left me with a bitter sweet taste but let me say this first. If you buy the game on its full price (80-100) the game is NOT worth it, but if you get it for less than 60 then we re talking about a completely different experience. The story is very straight forward and it revolves around the Doom slayer going againts Prince Ahzrak who
wishes to destroy the Night Sentinels and become the strongest Demon who will be worshipped by all hellspawns. The plot is easy to follow and is being delivered through cutscenes and through the chapters through dialog. Gameplay wise, the game is slower than Eternal but the use of Mellee weapons and the shield allow for an interesting type of combat. Parrying is inserted into
the mechanicks and ofcourse a new addition of weapons for the slayer to play with. The grounded combat is fun and sticks to the Doom formula.
The new additions giant mech and dragon piloting were dissapointing. Given the hype around them, i was expecting to go crazy but instead it felt like i was playing HD Ps2 games. The mecha missions are boring as the player can "mainly"
only use two buttons, dodge and punch/shoot(occasionally). The dragon mechanicks on the other hand were fun in terms of flying around and hunting bad guys but during the shooting phase, the player stops moving, locks on the target and shoots whilst
dodging in any direction stopping the momentum and the fun. I definetelly expecting more from these missions but they failed to reach the hype. Upon completing the game,
the player can go collect the collectables and play the game on a higher difficulty or a custom one. There is no online mode to keep you playing the game for months/year to come.
The physical purchase of the game is pretty much a key card that only holds 18MG of the game making the physical purchase useless as an Internet connection is required for the game to be downloaded. Last but not least,
the game can be completed in less than 20 hours and the platinum can be obtain within 22hrs. Unfortunatelly, as of now(26/May/2025) one of the trophies(Berserker) is glitched and cannot
be obtained unless you dont upgrade the shield until you reach chapter 16 and maxed them all in one go. The devs are aware and its expected to be fixed soon. In my honest opinion, despite enjoying most of my time with the game i fail to see how it justify its pricetag and i was dissapointed as this was the first one i bought on release.... for 100. Comparing it to games that came out prior to this, namely Expedition 33 and Splitfiction,
Doom is almost double their price and it offers way less than them. If this game was 60 upon release or if you buy it during a sale for that or less then its 100% worth it.
