As technology develops and video games along with it, we are seeing an increasingly rapid advancement of the industry. Video games are becoming stupendously realistic, not only due to the video-footage-like graphics but also the depth of the worlds these games inhabit. Games like Baldur’s Gate 3 have demonstrated the layered and complex stories that NPCs have to offer.
Take a game like Unrecord, for example. If you have yet to watch the demo, I will spoil the fact that most people thought they were watching body cam footage the first time they saw it. But more exciting than that was the budget; the demo cost them a meagre €20,000. In the video game world, that’s lunch money. Helldivers 2 has been estimated to be between $50M and $100M USD, while some estimates have put the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI between $1B and $2B USD.
Video games are not only becoming ‘better’, but developers need to reach increasingly further and to newer areas, in order to make a splash.
The Road to the Dark Ages
A few games have defied this, primarily due to their innovation in their genre. 1993’s Doom practically invented the boomer shooter genre, or at least made it mainstream; there are games like Wolfenstein 3D, but this really set the baseline for first-person shooters.
Every successful arcade-style FPS that followed has been built off the core, foundational principles set by Doom. The simple, chaotic, unrelenting violence. The Call of Duty series, Titanfall, and Overwatch have all furthered the Doom principles because if they didn’t, we’d all call them out for being trite.
A big point gets made to define the Doom games by those principles: violence, frenetic action, and swathes of demonic enemies.
With this upcoming release in the rebooted series – succeeding 2016’s Doom reboot and DOOM Eternal – a big point has been made to highlight the shift away from this towards a brand-new style of combat and storytelling.
The combat is more tactical, but not overly so, such that you plan a strategy before the battle. The storytelling is moving away from the audio logs and scattered remnants throughout the maps.
The knee-jerk reaction is to say, “This is not a Doom game,” and in part, it’s true. But to say that is to mar the typical Doom fundamentals with a cynical stubbornness towards change. A kind of NIMBYism for video games. All the good stuff is there, but additional attention is given to the storytelling and combat elements.
Shield-play
If you’ve played the previous two games in this rebooted series, then you’ll have a feel for the visual style and art direction. This game takes that pretty much to where you’d expect it, although there are some pretty cool, almost steampunk aesthetics at certain points of the Slayer’s story.
The Slayer is the protagonist and the man to ultimately become the Doom Slayer. His character is well-handled, and he’s given an immense aura of brutality. The story places him on the edge of the void he falls into, which turns him into the frenzied vindicator we are familiar with. It’s a clever place to put the Slayer because, for everyone at home, they know what he turns into.
A great job has been done reflecting this version of his character through the gameplay. At the very least, even if you don’t like the more grounded, stand-and-deliver combat, you can appreciate that that’s who the Slayer is. From where I jumped in, he’s a weapon not yet free to the fervours of his rageful desires.
When he charges into battle, his footsteps land with a tremorous thud. His attacks have less rapacity and more measure. He has this chainsaw-shield-boomerang which becomes a channel for aggression, something of a masochistic Captain America.
In the previous installations, I felt you sort of let yourself drown in the enemies a bit because it was more fun blowing up twenty demons at once than two. But that doesn’t work here. When I died, I had to reassess my approach because unhinged violence isn’t quite yet the fashion for the Slayer.
The gameplay also stretches across a few mechanically unique sections, with new additions, particularly the dragon and giant mech armour. The mech armour turns the Doom experience up to a giant scale, complete with the lumbering, bulldozing swings fit for the scale. The dragon, however, misses the mark. Even for this slower, more tactical game, it is too slow and basic. When battling the dragon, the aiming is achieved with a lock-on system, so all you do is hold down shoot and dodge some retaliatory fire. It lacks both the frenzied violence and the tactical combat.
The other major gameplay change comes with the ‘Siege’ level, an open-world, sandbox-style level that does something unseen in Doom before. I was skeptical at first, but ultimately, the world is sufficiently filled with enemies and side paths, and secret areas and rooms. It was here where I died the most because you don’t just speed through the enemies into the next room.
You have to put up a fight, and this is where the combat tactics play a part. There are some pretty cool side rooms and paths you can go down, which also provide more puzzles than enemies to progress. Although really, the puzzles are far too simple most of the time, at least in what I played.
Importantly, too, is the radical overhaul in the storytelling. There are far more cinematic moments and cutscenes that slow the overall game down. At first, I fell back onto the sort of cynicism I mentioned before, the sort of “this isn’t very Doom-like.”
But as it progresses further, you begin to be fueled by the sense of importance given by the story. It isn’t just vengeful destruction; no, you’re fighting for a greater cause, whether with pride or not.
And I think most importantly regarding the storytelling: what other way is there? Because if this game played out more like the previous instalments, it’d be a punch in the gut—a brand-new AAA release that plays out just like its predecessors. Not to mention a truly compelling story is. I can only imagine the misery of being told this story in small fragments and audio logs. The previous games got away with this because really, they were teasing at a payoff in this game.
Thoughts So Far
I think overall Doom: The Dark Ages is not just a captivating advancement of one of the great video game franchises, but one that feels faithful at its core. Doom has done everything it needed to and across three generations of gaming. It is well due for its ‘Ocarina of Time’ moment—a radical shift to storytelling and depth.
I would hope that what I demoed is a tease for the upcoming variety in the game, more than just a showcase of the full breadth of the gameplay. If it does what I expect it to, then I think Doom will have fulfilled everything it needed to while sufficiently changing the video game world. It is where the series needed to go and it looks on pace to tidily tie off this rebooted series.
Most exciting, though, is the moment that I think everyone will look forward to: the moment the Slayer becomes the Doom Slayer.
Doom: The Dark Ages releases on the 13th of May, 2025 on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC. Stay tuned for our full review closer to release.
