Doom: The Dark Ages (2025)

Ok. I'm about halfway through the game. Playing on Nightmare (hardest difficulty w/o permadeath) with default sliders. I got a good enough grasp of how this plays. Also, Nightmare in Dark Ages is another rare hardest difficulty that is just perfect. Great work from id as usual regarding that.

It's another parry-centric game in 2025. Who woud have thought? Ok, you do parry a lot and you're incentivized to do so, but it doesn't make other strategies obsolete. You still have to exploit weaknesses like metal shield, easily regain ammo by meleeing, still manage your resources, stun enemies that are harassing you. Like some of that quickswapping DNA from 2016 and Eternal is carried over to animation cancelling instead. Especially with the SSG. SSG + Shield Bash, SSG. Shield bash cancels the slow SSG reload for another SSG shot immediately after. It easily takes out a good amount of heavy demons. It's still combo-centric like Eternal is. Reaver, parry to instantly charge the reaver, then reaver again. Rocket launcher + parry, shield bash, and then shoot the enemy and yourself with another rocket to deal damage and to heal yourself. You aren't as incentivised to use a lot of your arsenal since swapping is so slow now, which is the point because of your multi-purpose shield, but I tend to do so because it's what I'm used to after pver 500 hours on Eternal. A good amount of fights, I use 2 guns at most. Either the SSG or the reaver. I am having so much fun delving into this combat loop. It's the most fun I have had delving deep into an FPS's combat since ULTRAKILL. It's so different and still, these systems are feeding into each other well enough. Some of that Eternal DNA is carried over here, yet what is carried over here is so new that I am still very happy playing it.

Played an hour. 3 out of 22 levels

If you are very experienced at DOOM: Eternal like I am, someone who has been replaying this game on Nightmare so often, I strongly recommend you play this on Nightmare. It's been a breeze so far despite it being so different. I really like how breezy levels 1 and 2 are. Very refreshing compared to 2016 and Eternal. 3rd level is a mech level, and it is not as bad as I was expecting. Still brief, but it is based on the core of melee and faltering. I don't feel like talking too much, but there is a lot I am liking about this game's iteration of the Fun Zone ™.

About the Shield saw, I get the block, parry, and deflect from one input, but how can you throw it with the same input?

I really love how Dark Ages is adding even more emphasis on stunning and faltering.

Something akin to the Blood Punch is back with the electrified gauntlet. Blood Punch was always one of my favorite moves in Eternal.

The thing I am curious about is how will the three melee systems stand out from each other? Can you switch between them like the grenade and ice grenades?

I saw the turret of the Arachnotron glow so it might seem that weaknesses are back. They give you more resources rather than just making them weaker as you can see when you throw the shield at a shielded enemy.

I like that it still feels like a game of moment-to-moment resource management. You are just rewarded more for doing something that feel much more emphasized in the combat loop than the flame belch.

ULTRAKILL still has a better parry.

Of course I'm getting the Premium edition for that DLC in particular, but that 2-day bonus is a sin yet a bonus.