We got the chance to review Doom: The Dark Ages earlier last year upon its release, and for the most part, had a bunch of fun with it. It’s violent, fast-paced and utterly addictive, so when we saw the reveal of the new chapter, titled Revelations, it was safe to count us in.
We got the chance to check out some gameplay, along with a breakdown of the new weapons, systems and story, which expand upon the character development and lore of the core experience. While Revelations might be touted as DLC, it’s seemingly much more than that; the next chapter to build upon Doom: The Dark Ages as a whole.
The Slayer Returns
While the Doom franchise isn’t necessarily known for its gripping storytelling, I’ll admit that Doom: The Dark Ages gave it a red-hot crack. In Revelations, the same Slayer you know and love returns, and this time, he is stripped of his tools and armour and banished to the depths of Hell in a bid to reclaim his place on the surface and escape for good.
We didn’t really get much more than that in terms of context, but I’m happy to see where this takes the Slayer, given we also got a few hints regarding a mysterious character set on helping the Slayer break free.
New Tools for the Job
In many ways, Revelations is as much a Doom experience as you would expect. Much like Doom: The Dark Ages, you’ll be dual-wielding your standard firearm along with an assortment of melee options, the newest addition being the Chain Spear. It really is as dangerous as it sounds, and can be used to stab and slash enemies at close range, thrown at enemies from afar, and even used to sling shot towards enemies with the attached chain, allowing you to swing about and gain advantageous positions above or behind them, for example.
The slash of the Chain Spear in particular can be used to parry enemy melee and projectile attacks, but also break armour and collect resources from enemies. While these abilities can also be done with the trusty Shield Saw, there’s a certain cohesiveness this brings to melee combat, without forcing you to choose between two vastly different options.
In many ways, the Chain Spear alone still adds a layer of speed, traversal and fluidity that the core experience wasn’t necessarily missing, but not serving to this degree either.
The gameplay footage certainly highlights the Chain Spear as a main option, but as narrated by id Software’s very own Game Director Hugo Martin, you’ll need to balance and utilise your Shield Saw, Chain Spear and firearms to ultimately prevail. While difficult sliders can be adjusted to your liking, most encounters, and ultimately boss encounters, will require some sort of skill and experience with each weapon.
Most of the upgrades throughout the experience will come from your left-handed melee options, with the Chain Spear having new and exciting moves and abilities to play around with as you progress. This will change the flow and versatility of your encounters, broadening the combat experience along the way.
But what would all of this be worth without some new enemies to slay? Well, we’re not sure either. There’s a new Wizard enemy that looks much quicker than most enemy types, along with new and upgraded AI, including explosive variants of existing enemies.
Find Your Way
Much like previous Doom titles, there’s plenty to explore off the beaten track. The Main Path portion of any map will highlight main areas and objectives, while the End Game option will highlight new and unique objectives.
Around 60% of the map and overall experience will be reserved for the Main Path or campaign, with End Game content essentially being reserved and available once you finish the story. The story is said to take around 10-12 hours to complete, across 6 unique levels, which is admittedly impressive.
End Game content will also give you plenty to do, from new pathways through levels, new challenge arenas, Slayer Mode trials, which act like a remixed version of existing areas with new challenges, and even Classic Levels, which tap into the older iterations of Doom. Keep in mind that all of this is played through on the Master difficulty settings, unlocked once you complete the main story.
Finally, the Ripatorium will also give you more to do outside of these two main experiences and bring with it new arenas and challenges, which grant you unlockable goodies and upgrades to progress further and further through its content. Its new 3.0 update will also bring plenty of preset options to mess around with to bring additional conditions to existing challenges. There’s also a bunch of new tracks by Finishing Move to keep the action flowing.
The Slayer’s Hub will also give you some cool areas to explore and secrets to find, and can be used as a hotspot to select challenges and dig through extra lore.
Thoughts So Far
Given that the same chaotic action is present here in Revelations, consider us sold. But for what it’s worth, there is a bunch of stuff we can’t wait to try in Revelations. The Chain Spear is definitely a highlight, but with new maps and even Classic Levels to hunt down and play through, it seems as though the experience has plenty to give beyond its initial story.
The fact that the End Game exists beyond the Main Path honestly stuns me, as the team at iD Software still goes as far as to call this DLC. We feel like there’s plenty more to give, and we can’t wait to jump in.
Doom: The Dark Ages – Revelations will launch on July 7 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC.
Keep in mind, you will need to own the base game in addition to purchasing this DLC, or own the Premium Edition of the base game, which includes access to Revelations.
Featured header image provided by the publisher.
