When credit rolled on Doom: Eternal, I was pretty content. While I acknowledge some didn’t enjoy it as much as I did, I felt like the new Doom game didn’t have many more places to go. It felt complete in many ways, both mechanically and narratively. But then, when The Dark Ages was announced, I was shocked that iD would return to Doom after wrapping everything up so neatly in Eternal. But having played The Dark Ages, it’s an entirely different beast to Eternal – that much is obvious. But it feels like a very direct response to the criticisms levied against Eternal. And while I loved Eternal, The Dark Ages takes things in a direction I could never expect, though to varying results.
Doom: The Dark Ages is a prequel to 2016’s Doom, chronicling the origin story of the Doom Slayer. While he’s had his fair share of trials and tribulations in the original Doom trilogy, The Dark Ages aims to establish how he became a mythical figure within the world, having briefly touched upon it in Doom: Eternal and its expansion. It’s a simple premise for a story in a game that arguably never needed one, though I it I was compelled to pay attention whenever the cinematics rolled. This is one of the major areas in which The Dark Ages improves upon the previous games. It knows how to tell a story much more effectively.
One of my issues with Doom Eternal’s opening was that it was incredibly vague, requiring you to delve into the codex to get a good understanding of what’s going on. The Dark Ages is different – it does a good job of establishing the stakes and the major players. I wanted to see how Doom Slayer got out of this, and, especially, I wanted to see how the Cosmic Realm ties into everything. While it’ll never reach the emotional heights of other games, to say iD had me actually care about a story in a Doom game is to be commended.
How The Dark Ages plays is bound to be a little more divisive. What you enjoyed about Doom Eternal will no doubt inform how much you enjoy the changes that The Dark Ages makes to the core combat loop. Speaking generally, the combat loop in The Dark Ages feels a lot simpler than in Eternal – you no longer need to juggle multiple tools to get the right pickups out of your enemies and – though it’s important to highlight here that simpler isn’t necessarily a negative.
The Slayer, this time around, feels a lot heavier than previously. He won’t be zipping around the arena using a grappling hook, instead standing firmly on the ground. The Dark Ages feels ostensibly slower than Doom Eternal, but when combined with enemies that can turn any arena into a bullet-hell-drenched nightmare, this is the direction in combat that feels like the old Doom games, albeit with new and modern twists that still make it feel like a new Doom game.
The major twist in the combat loop comes in the form of the Shield Saw, which the combat really feels built around. The shield can be used to block attacks, but can also be used to parry specific attacks, stunning enemies or even damaging them in the meantime. For distant enemies, the shield can also be used to either kill lower-class enemies or temporarily stun larger ones so you can focus on other threats. The shield is an endlessly satisfying addition to The Dark Ages’ combat that I never grew tired of, and feels like a really elegant streamlining of the chainsaw, flamethrower and other supplementary weapons that complicated things in Doom Eternal.
Beyond that, the parrying system feeds directly into the melee systems, where charges for your melee abilities are faster replenished with every successful parry. While there are three options available, each catering to your own preference of risk and reward, I never felt the need to change it up too much, and realistically, each of these melee weapons looks cool, but serves the same function.
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But beyond these changes, the question is posed – how does it all flow? Still remarkably well. While I will always miss the more convoluted, dextrously demanding flow of Eternal, there is something oddly appealing in the simplicity of The Dark Ages’ combat loop. There are still things you need to consider – armour must be heated by weapon fire before shattering it with your Shield Saw, for example – but it overall feels like a much more streamlined combat system. Which, in its simplicity, really does harken back to those big arenas filled with both enemies and bullets in the original Doom.
When you’re not fighting, you’ll be exploring, and I’m thankful that this element of Eternal has carried over into The Dark Ages. Every level is open to some extent, with collectibles and resources to find. And while the solutions to some of the puzzles you’ll encounter are usually solved with a quick throw of your shield, they’re a joy to uncover without being tedious or monotonous to find. While there are some platforming sections in the game too, nothing in The Dark Ages reaches the full extent of what was in Eternal.
But The Dark Ages tries to do a few things differently from Eternal that completely fall flat. At specific points in the story, you’ll be able to pilot an Atlan Mech or fly while saddled atop a cybernetic dragon. The mech is fine at first, but each level feels the same – just run through some buildings and hit things with your fists. I can appreciate and understand what the team was going for here – but the mechanics of the mech’s combat feel so repetitive that they’re not the palate cleansers I’d hoped for.
The dragon is more of a mixed bag. It’s used in certain levels where you’re jumping on it to fly from one point to another, usually shooting down a ship or a structure between landing points. These sections aren’t as much of a drawl as the mech, and if anything, remind me of piloting ships around a sky filled with Scarabs in the older Halo games. But they’re not as strong as the rest of The Dark Ages. That’s not to say these moments are bad, but they’re just there. Consider me whelmed.
Similarly, how The Dark Ages handles bosses feels like a missed opportunity. Many of them, called “Leaders”, are merely souped-up versions of standard enemies. Even worse, each of these encounters has them as invulnerable until you defeat the enemies surrounding them, which also feels like a bit of a cop-out from a design perspective. There are three moments throughout the campaign where you fight supposed “bosses” called champions, but they are once again just souped-up bosses. I wish there was more to the bosses in The Dark Ages as this is one of the areas where it categorically is a step back from Eternal.
Beyond my other issues with the game, The Dark Ages feels well-paced. Every chapter introduces something new – whether it be an enemy, an item, a weapon or even an environmental quirk – which keeps things interesting. This all dovetails rather nicely towards the end, where the game constantly mixes everything to throw new encounters at you. For the most part, while enemies might be repeated, they’re often remixed or thrown at you with other enemies to keep the encounters fresh and interesting. I was rarely bored when playing The Dark Ages, and I seldom wanted to take a break after finishing a chapter too, which is always a good sign.
One especially noteworthy thing is how The Dark Ages allows you to customise your experience. I spoke earlier about how the game naturally feels slower than Eternal. Thus, for me, it was easier, but adjusting the game speed via one of the game’s many sliders made the experience faster (and harder), too. There’s a whole bunch of customisation here, allowing you to move things in either direction to be easier or harder. I really appreciate this idea that people can adjust The Dark Ages to play how they want it to: tighter parries, slower but more deadlier projectiles. The choice is yours.
In of presentation, The Dark Ages has its own distinct visual identity compared to its older brethren. Where Doom Eternal looks like a bright and almost psychedelic adventure through Hell, The Dark Ages opts for a more muted colour palette not too dissimilar to the 2016 reboot. It still has its distinct look, owing to the clever transformation of classic enemies into medieval-tinged gothic counterparts, but it is much less visually exciting than Eternal. Despite this, the game still runs incredibly well, and I can’t recall running into any framerate hiccups or visual bugs when traipsing through the incredible worlds iD have created.
But I can’t say the same for the soundtrack. Much has been said about the identity and pizzazz that Mick Gordon brought to both Doom and Doom Eternal with his soundtracks. But the music in The Dark Age, while metal as fuck, just gets lost in the hectic nature of the game. As I type this, I can still hum BFG Division or even the title screen music from Eternal. I can’t give the same praise to The Dark Ages soundtrack; it is just a smidge too generic.
While I have a few more issues with Doom: The Dark Ages, I still enjoyed the entire experience. While unexpected, the new direction that it takes the story was welcome, and while the combat is an entirely different beast than what was in Eternal, it’s a beast I’m still happy to wrestle with. Doom: The Dark Ages will be divisive, just like Eternal before it, but I’m in the camp that’s just happy to have more Doom, even if it’s a little different.
