Doom: The Dark Ages (2025)

Taking a step in a boldly different direction past both 2016 and Eternal, Dark Ages reinvents the shield and gets away with something that, while not a replacement for Eternal greatly improves upon and creates a bloody good time to stand on its own.

Somewhere between the lore dumps of Eternal and the minimal frills of 2016, Dark Ages settles for a simple story set during the medieval era of Doom Slayer and the Night Sentinels in their war with hell and the fearsome Prince Ahzrak, who seeks more cosmic power to control Hell and Earth. That said, the Slayer does his ripping and tearing and none shall stand in his way, but not without a helluva fight.

The main differences in combat are the heavier gameplay, the flexibility of weapons that resembles 2016, and an impressive shield that highlights defensive play, parries, and better melee options. While parry-heavy games have saturated the market plenty in 2025, Dark Ages makes sure its parries are well earned, and from its higher difficulties even has custom bits to tweak parry windows and game speed against your favor if you so wish. Guns have plenty of upgrades with resources hidden throughout levels, making traversal resemble the more exploratory stages of something like Quake. While secondary modes often trump primary modes for how good the guns are, there's a fair bit of fun and variety in seeing just how exactly the gun of your choice can mow down hoards. This is paired with plenty of challenges that test just how well you wield your weapons.

On top of the regular first-person shooter gameplay, the Slayer can pilot a giant mech (the Atlan) as well as ride a fearsome (sweet precious baby boy) dragon named Serrat. While these segments aren't nearly as designed out as the main gameplay loop they're a blast to play through and have their own difficulty tweaks to make sure the player can still give them teeth or if they just want to zoom and smash through.

While there are plenty of options for players of all types, playing through Nightmare on the first time gave me a great taste of what Dark Ages demanded. Aggressively close play, handy crowd control, and strategy that still left me surviving by the skin of my teeth near the end of the game.

Music takes the biggest departure in Dark Ages, going from Mick Gordon to Finishing Move and blending thrash metal, medieval orchestration, and plenty of snarling guitars and baselines to perfectly fit this version of the Slayer. While it's not a replacement for the supreme soundtrack of Eternal it's easily on the same level as 2016 and has some unforgettable tracks (see you in the Infernal Chasm).

While grimmer than Eternal's fiery colors the game has plenty of variety to show off, mixing ancient castles, flesh tanks, and dark fantasy with cosmic horror. Weapons look crunchy (in a very good way!) and enemies are depicted in their familiar gushy gory glory. Across 22 missions the player will siege lost cities, get lost into the depths of cosmic realms and hell and death and back and then some. It's all wonderfully metal when it comes together.

Doom: The Dark Ages feels like a bit of an outlier compared to the evolution that new Doom has been going with so far, but with this level of quality, fun, and intense difficulty I wish every entry was as bold and unique as this one.

Doom: The Dark Ages—Same DNA, Different formula, Better than I expected.

Doom: The Dark Ages is a First-person horde shooter game with elements of exploration, It emphasizes slower gameplay unlike it's predecessors. Developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks in the first half of 2025, it serves as the third entry into the modern DOOM franchise.

It gave me mixed feelings by peeling itself away from the perfected formula of Doom Eternal. At first I was stubbornly, trying to recapture the rhythm of Doom Eternal, but when I finally leaned into the slower playstyle, I was pleasantly startled with how fun it was—But on that later. As usual, the review will be split into simple categories.

Graphics and Art-style:

Off the bat, significant upgrade in fidelity. Higher quality meshes, textures and a level of detailing that wasn't available in the last two games. Models look phenomenal as expected, demons have more fleshed out biology. The environments received the most significant upgrade—Everything simply looks better.

The characters look gorgeous and not at all everyday people. The environments look magnificent, everything is darker, more moody. The set-pieces are jaw-dropping, the damn magnitude of these things—how epic they are blew my mind away. The City of Ry'uul with it's Lovecraftian aesthetic looks so alien. The Abyssal forest, very unlike "DOOM" but one of my favorite maps as it looks gorgeous. And many others. Whatever "wonder-drug" the artists used—give 'em more just so I get to experience even more of these maps.

Even The Slayer got a glow up, far more badass. He has a damn cape for the love of VEGA, what else is there to say? The demons look far more feral, much more detailed in their anatomy, more visceral even. They're far less "cartoony", less "arcade-y", they look threatening. All in all, not disappointed at all though I do miss the goofy designs slightly.

Story and Writing:

This game serves as a prequel, exploring the Slayers past, how he served the Makyrs and fought alongside the Sentinels. Didn't expect much but it's serviceable. Featuring more cutscenes and an attempt to push other characters into the spotlight, which, personally I didn't care for. Less cutscenes would've been preferred as they made the game feel generic, like every other AAA game and not "DOOM" if that makes sense.

The main antagonist—Prince Ahzrak—was interesting enough albeit somewhat single tone? The main thing, as always, is the glaze for the Slayer and this game dials it to a hundred—Expanding upon the lore of him and the universe, making The Slayers story even more batshit crazy, you love to see it.

Music and Sound design:

Sad to see Mick Gordon still not return to the franchise as he is the poster child for Doom's iconic music style but still, even without him the soundtrack blessed my ears. I don't remember the names of the tracks unfortunately, though I can describe them being slower than the established tracks in the franchise, complimenting the new methodical edge of the gameplay.

Sound effects are bassy, thumpy, like femurs breaking rather than wrists snapping. The guns sound as they look, they sound heavy, you can feel the recoil through the sounds. A standout was the parrying sound effect, even after hearing it a hundred times I didn't tired of it. The Slayer sounds heavy, footsteps feel massive, the ground roars when he lands from height, the sound effects give his actions weight. Simply put? I'm pleased with the sound design.

Gameplay and Combat:

Unlike the high octane, fast reflex, movement based gameplay in Doom Eternal and to a lesser extent Doom 2016—Doom: The Dark Ages is far slower, methodical even. The Slayer is akin to a tank, further reinforced by the new shield, which led to evasion being replaced by parrying. Weak points have been scrapped, instead you get to stagger demons by parrying and break them down into gore with the eleven or so included guns. I was disappointed with how you didn't need to switch guns, you could finish the entire game with a single gun easily—I really do wish the weak points were still in the gameplay loop, but that's a minor nitpick.

When I finally wrapped my head around parrying, I was addicted. The melee weapons and the glory kills on the other hand? Didn't really impress me, dialed down to just simply hitting an enemy to explode them, really took away some of the soul. The runes were a fun addition but EXTREMELY overpowered with my favorite being the Holy swarm.

The Atlan levels were fine but some more "Hell Yeah" moments would've been appreciated, in the same spirit, the dragon levels had some beautiful scenery but weren't memorable. Both could've used some more carnage and less copy-paste. The highlight? Surprisingly the Boss-fights. Usually the bosses are a pain in the ass in this franchise. But the parrying mechanic made everything just work—A good example would be Azhrak, exhilarating to say the least, actually had to sit down and learn his moves.

The game is slower in general cause of the semi-open world route it takes, the maps are bigger and there's far more exploration.

All in all—Definitely different, fun in its own unique way, not many FPS games with a proper parry mechanic.

Doom: The Dark Ages—Slower, heavier, grittier, double barrel shotgun rather than automatic—A different Beast—8.5/10

Doom: The Dark Ages is AAA gaming at its best, with huge set pieces and memorable moments around every corner of the beautiful environments that only add to the highly-polished and heavily-addicting gameplay. Id Software hasn't held back any punches in creating one of the most grandiose and large-scale games in recent memory, utilizing their big-budget funding to create a 100% user-focused experience that makes the player feel immensely powerful without forgoing a sense of challenge or difficulty.

The classic Doom formula has been deconstructed and reformed into a techno-medieval bloodbath, with gaming's original one-man army going on an unbridled rampage of demon-slaying destruction that somehow tops the scale of the iconic franchise yet again. Once again, Doom delivers one of the most frenetic and satisfying FPS experiences around.

Hi all! If you thought I was on a hiatus again, you thought WRONG! Sort of. Not voluntarily, at least. The truth is, I haven't had a stable internet connection in over a month now, with the best explanation I've got being that renting can be a pain sometimes. It hasn't been that bad, though—I have a bit of data in case I need it, and plus my home is a veritable intranet of my sordid interests, so I haven't been short of stuff to do. One of the things I did was play Doom: The Dark Ages, luckily downloaded mere hours before the internet went kaput. I played it in a total bubble of isolation: I have no idea what anyone thinks about Doom: The Dark Ages. The only thing I know is what I think about it, and I think it kind of stunk, but I'm having trouble with quantifying the distinct odor.

Doom: The Dark Ages (2025)

I love DOOM. In fact, The Dark Ages isn't the only DOOM I DOOM'ed while I've been off the grid. I also played through both OG DOOM games, as well as Sigil and Sigil 2 (I liked the first Sigil more). I read John Romero's book Doom Guy. I needed to figure out what was meaningful to me about the DOOM duology that has been obfuscated by how tired the modern Doom trilogy left me. Where I landed with it is those old games, simply enough, have character. I'll mention that a bit more later.

I liked Doom (the 2016 one). It felt like a meaningful reinvention of that classic twitch-or-miss-it arena shooter sub-genre that was falling on the wayside, with an honestly funny take on the "silent protagonist" archetype. Then came Eternal which was kind of just a more pedantic and bombastic version of the first one which, fine, cool I guess. Doesn't land with nearly the impact, but kinda aligns with DOOM II in taking the concept as far as it can go.

Then, there is Doom: the Dark Ages. In comparison to everything that came before it, it just exists. It's there. I know, I played it! But none of it meant anything to me. there were things in this game that were happening, action things that should have felt awesome to take part in... that made me feel nothing. Is the gameplay good? Yeah, I guess—its nu-Doom again. It's more of that and you can parry with a Captain America shield now. See, you get it; if you played either of the last ones, for all intents and purposes you have also played Doom: The Dark Ages. Is the story good? No. It's like Army of Darkness without all the flavour that made that good. Okay, then why do they spend so much time on it? Why is there so much lore? What's the point of this? Is this even a trilogy? I have so many questions, but the game maintains its brooding, self-serious silence, happily running down its laundry list of "shit to include in the game to make the game a game". To quote a famous philosopher regarding trilogies:

"Shake it once, that's fine

Shake it twice, that's okay

Shake it three times

You're playing with yourself again"

Doom: The Dark Ages, as the finale of a trilogy, might as well be fondling itself before me. I don't like that.

Doom: The Dark Ages (2025)

Say what you will about the OG DOOMs, but the special thing for me about those games is that the level design feels like a dialogue between the mapper and the player. No words are shared, but communication is shared: there are obtuse hidden passages, trap-door monster closets that are specifically made to get to you. In these maps, there are genuine surprises, tense, tight bullet ballets across interdimensional hellscapes. Right when you need it, a chaingun on the floor. Even when you're looking for a stupid keycard, those minutes backtracking trawling every nook and cranny, they too feel like an exchange between the designer and you: even if they might just be a "whoops, sorry for the trouble!" from them. I don't mind it, even if it can be cruel, or maddening, even cheap. But at least it felt like the game was trying to defeat you, in some form. On replays, I make it a game to identify which designer made which map, as they each have their own quirks that identify them and give them a sense of character. I can sniff out a Sandy Petersen level from 1000 miles away. I see you, Sandy. I know what you're all about. You and your skull buttons.

What were we talking about?

Oh yeah. Doom: The Dark Ages. Yeah it's got none of that. There is nothing truly inventive or surprising, here: even when you think the game is throwing a curveball at you, something different, really it's the same thing with a different skin and a different skybox. Each level feels equally ironed out of any real distinguishing traits to make sure you don't think that this game is made by corporeal beings, instead steel, soulless machines. It makes me sad, because I'm sure there are talented people in the wings here: but I can't hear any of their voices.

To summarise my feelings on the nu-Doom trilogy, I would prefer to not summarise and instead leave you with a walkthrough of my favourite DOOM level E4M1: Hell Beneath, by American McGee.

That's it!

THE END...?

I hope I was able to justify my feelings for this one. Or at the very least, I hope you enjoyed reading it! My phone is about to die, so I'll be offline for the rest of the night, but here's hoping the net will be back proper before this week is up. Aside from this Doom business, I've been playing lots of Type-Moon games for the first time and enjoying them a lot. really enjoying visual novel games lately, looking forward to more now that I got my thoughts out on these shootey games.

Well, until next time!

XOXOXO Jace

I didn’t get into DOOM until the 2016 game, so I don’t have much experience with the historic franchise. I, like many, really enjoyed the reimagining of the classic series. At the time, it felt like a better version of Halo in its pacing of action and bullet-sponge enemies. The glory kill mechanic was the big hit of the game. Going against the trend of hiding behind cover to regain health, 2016’s DOOM required players to keep attacking to pull off a glory kill causing enemies to spew out health drops. It doubled down on the run-and-gun first-person shooter genre by forcing the player to constantly run and gun. The follow-up, DOOM Eternal, pushed the glory kill concept even further to the point I couldn’t compare it to any other shooter. It was in completely new territory. Every weapon was required to fight with each suited for different enemy types, and different types of glory kills dropped different types of resources. This led to a juggling act of balancing resources, monitoring cooldowns, and shooting with precision. It was the most difficult game I played that year, and beating it is an achievement I carry with pride.

Even though I loved DOOM Eternal and preferred it to DOOM 2016, the game appeared to be divisive. A vocal group of fans felt the series was moving in the wrong direction after the first reboot. The marketing of the new game, DOOM: The Dark Ages, felt like they were trying to reassure players they were moving away from Eternal. The pitch for Dark Ages was “stand and fight” straying away from what they called the “fighter jet” gameplay of Eternal. They greatly reduce the player’s ability to jump in comparison to Eternal. Instead, DOOM: The Dark Ages gives the player a shield to stand their ground and block and parry incoming attacks. The team did say they want to try to make something different every time, so it may not have been the slight against Eternal haters thought it was. Having played Dark Ages, the game does not commit to the “stand and fight” idea they were selling, but it does differentiate itself from the previous games to stand on its own. With impressive scale, surprising adventure game elements, and an awesome shield, id Software delivered another great entry into the DOOM series.

The ”stand and fight” idea is thrown out the window quickly. DOOM: The Dark Ages will often drop the player into an arena filled with enemies. The shield can only block what’s in front of me, and I found myself surrounded by enemies shooting me from all directions most of the time. Even when blocking shots, the shield can only take a certain amount of damage before it becomes unusable. I then have to wait for it to cool down before I can use it again. This is a run-and-gun game still pushing it closer to feeling like DOOM 2016. Dark Ages even goes back to using one glory kill which causes enemies to drop the health and ammo a player needs. There is a little DOOM Eternal sprinkled into Dark Ages too. Plasma weapons are the best option for enemies with plasma shields as plasma weapons can overload them to cause an explosion damaging nearby enemies. But unlike DOOM Eternal, I don’t have to use plasma weapons to destroy those shields. I can use any weapon. It will take more ammo to destroy them. They won’t explode, but it’s still possible to break them and kill those enemies with any weapon. There’s also a weapon that’s good against armor, but again, any weapon will do as long as I shoot the armor enough.

The move away from DOOM Eternal isn’t a bad thing, but I did see one drawback: the guns. Since all weapons work in all situations, they don’t all matter. I found myself slowly using fewer guns the deeper I got into the game, and yet, the game kept providing me with new ones. The arsenal is big with two versions of each weapon type. There are two shotguns, plasma guns, skull guns, explosive guns, etc. There’s a weapon called the Shredder that shreds skulls to fire a wide spray of skull bits at enemies. It’s cool, but I dropped it about halfway through the game as it wasn’t the most useful weapon at hand. I went from swapping guns to try out new weapons to swapping guns to use the most advantageous weapons to swapping guns only because I ran out of ammo to not swapping guns at all. By the end of the game, I exclusively used a double-barreled, automatic plasma gun called the Cycler. All these guns get a limited upgrade tree. My Cycler overcharges enemies if I shoot them enough causing each subsequent shot to do extra damage. Once the overcharged enemy dies, electricity shoots out of the it causing all nearby enemies to be stunned. With that buff, the ability to explode plasma shields, and the 300 max ammo limit upgrade, it was the only gun I needed. This feels like a stepdown from Eternal. Even DOOM 2016 made its arsenal matter more.

In this first-person shooter, the guns aren’t the main draw. The shield is the star of the show. It can block and parry. Parrying is limited to attacks highlighted with green. Enemy tells provide enough time to react for the parry. Enemy projectiles move slower with only some having the potential for parrying. It gives me enough time to dodge projectiles I can’t parry while moving towards the ones I can. It’s an approach reminiscent of bullet hell games. The shield starts off like a typical shield before the game gives it a chainsaw upgrade. I can throw the chainsaw shield to kill smaller enemies, and for bigger enemies, it will stick in them causing them to stop moving and attacking for a limited time. Throwing the shield can also break armor that has been heated up from taking gunfire. Breaking armor does area of effect damage blowing smaller enemies to pieces. With the shield, I can target enemies to lunge a pretty long distance to slam into them with a forceful enough hit to damage nearby enemies. This move just causes fodder enemy to explode. All shield attacks land with satisfying THUNK and PING sound effects.

Parrying adds an extra slow-motion effect for a few seconds after knocking back an attack for impact while allowing time to prepare for a follow-up attack. Melee attacks have a similar effect with the Slayer unlocking three different melee weapons with varying degree of damage. Melee is limited requiring recharging or a specific item pickup after use to hit enemies again. Parrying recharges the melee attack with more powerful weapons requiring more successful parries to charge. This system became more crucial as the game got more difficult because those melee weapons really pack a punch. Everything about the Slayer’s movements and attacks feel heavy and powerful in this game. Jumping from great heights lands with an impact that generates enough force to obliterate small enemies in the area. Shooting and punching enemies tears chunks off their bodies. It feels good to be the Slayer.

The shield isn’t the only new inclusion as the game has dragon-riding and giant mech levels. These mostly function as a novelty to break up the normal first-person shooter gameplay. They don’t last too long and lack the depth of the traditional combat. I do feel they could’ve been done better. The dragon-riding levels are at their best during moments of chasing enemy aircrafts around the level to shoot them down as they try to get away. The high speed and maneuvering through spaces between buildings and tunnels made for intense encounters. But most of the time, the game has me locked in place to dodge projectiles from ships as I shoot down their turrets. I’m riding a dragon. Why are they having me sit still?

The issue with the giant mech levels is I can’t feel the scale. I’m fighting other monsters the same size instead of focusing on crushing smaller enemies. The game has me walking slow to give a sense of the size of this machine, but the combat feels like a shallow version of Punch-Out: dodge with one button, punch until I fill up a meter, and then unleash a special attack. There’s no challenge to it. They are trying to create cool moments with these, but they fall flat.

There was a piece of the conversation around DOOM 2016 that struck me as odd. People liked the story. I had no idea what the story to DOOM was throughout my playthrough, so I didn’t know what people were talking about. Apparently, some players were reading the codex. I never do this for any game. I always find taking the time to read codex, newspapers, books, and letters in games takes me away from actually playing them for too long. I didn’t read any of them in DOOM: The Dark Ages. This game decided to make the story more of a focus with cutscenes. I didn’t pay attention to those either. It appears to involve Kings and princesses, aliens, and demons. The problem with the story is it involves many characters who don’t have a relationship with the Slayer, and the plot feels so disconnected from the action. The Slayer is a weapon to be unleashed with little agency in the narrative. The only moments that hooked me were when I realized the dragon Slayer rides is his pet. He feeds it and gives it pats on the head. It’s surprisingly cute behavior for this unstoppable killing machine.

Even though I didn’t care about the story, this game does go places. Levels taking place on Earth and in Hell are expected, but this game takes Slayer to alien planets and what appeared to be the River Styx. This level variety was even more alarming since I had no idea why any of this was happening. I never thought much about the level design in DOOM games. I feel like it’s mostly just funneling me to the next battle arena. The level design in DOOM: The Dark Ages is amazing. There are still linear levels like in previous games, but there are also new open levels with objectives that can be tackled in any order. Some enemy encounters can be skipped entirely. It’s reminiscent of Halo levels. The developers added adventure game elements to this new DOOM: exploration, puzzles, and collectibles. And a map to keep track of it all. The puzzles in particular are impressive. They eventually reach the level of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild shrines. The alien levels get to play around with gravity and water in mind-bending ways to create puzzles for the player to solve. I was not expecting any of this from a DOOM game.

DOOM: The Dark Ages feels like it was marketed wrong. “Stand and fight” is not at all how I would describe this experience. It’s more like run-and-gun-and-slam. So much of my experience as the Slayer showed off his heavy weight and power while still maintaining speed. This is the selling point. Dark Ages might be the best it’s ever felt to be the Slayer which makes the dragon-riding and mech fights disappointing in comparison. At least the adventure game elements were a pleasant surprise giving the game a new structure to separate itself from the past, and the team excels in this new approach evoking the greats of the genre. Id Software continues to impress as one of the best first-person shooter developers.

It's really tough for me to choose between the 3 modern Dooms; they all feel different from each other and while each of them have their annoying quirks, they're all an absolute blast.

I'm not sure what snorting cocaine in the center of a tornado feels like, but I'm assuming it's something like Doom: The Dark Age's combat. Absolutely thrilling, all the weapons are great, the shield is a fantastic edition and I never got tired of the large encounters.

Even the light puzzle, dragon and mech sections were a nice break from the regular levels. The open area ones were my favorite by a mile.

RIP AND TEAR. Or, in this case, ...STOMP AND SMASH?

I admire Id's experimental attitude, even if the results this time are mixed. The shield is a good wrinkle to the combat rhythm. However, I do miss the more involved enemy weaknesses of Eternal that incentivised utilising the whole weapon set. There's little, beyond personal choice, to make one switch weapons. The bigger, flatter play spaces don't quite work for me either. Too often, I felt like I needed to close space so I could do one the melee attacks that's replaced glory kills. The bigger levels are an example of a more general problem: bloat. Too many and too long levels.

If all that sounds a bit negative, those issues don't stop the core game from being very fun. The shooting is great, the parrying, shield throwing, and shield dashing are all very fun, and hunting 'secrets' (they just show em on the map) is satisfying. It's lacking the rawness of the 2016, and the mechanical depth of Eternal, but, particularly in the first half, it's still really playful, polished and gratifying to turn demons into mulch.

Oh, and the story is bobbins. Daft Ages, more like.

If people played most or all of this game and didn't like it, I get it. But if you're someone who dropped off after the first 3-4 levels, I am begging you to KEEP GOING.

My brother jumped into this before I did as I was finishing up my Doom Eternal replay and he told me he wasn't really feeling it after those first few levels. Basically he said it "didn't really feel like Doom". I thought he must just be being dramatic but nope. Right around the third or fourth level I thought to myself "this isn't what I wanted"...

Thankfully, I stuck with it because by the end I absolutely LOVED it. The easiest thing to do is get my gripes out of the way first and you already know the first one, being levels 1-4. Once that first dragon level hits, this game really SOARS. My other issues are that the game was very obviously missing Mick Gordon, who I believe to be one of the best video game composers of the last couple of decades, and the levelling system wasn't all that compelling.

On the soundtrack, it's fine. It's not bad but it's not very memorable either. There's a few tracks that started to get the adrenaline pumping when paired with a big boss fight or massive enemy encounter, but Mick Gordon just delivered something so damn special with 2016 and Eternal. As for the levelling, it was just pretty dull. Doom 2016 kept things simple and then Doom Eternal really blew it all out, giving us so much to work through. This one dumbs it back down a little too much, making it the weakest of the bunch.

The cinematic cut scenes were actually pretty great and I really enjoyed the story which surprised me. Again, the first few didn't hook me, but as we got deeper and things got way crazier and even more epic, I was locked and loaded. Sure, it's generic, but I was entertained and ready to go again after each chapter concluded.

Just like Doom Eternal, we have some new weapons and enemy types. It plays it pretty safe in these areas, mostly keeping things familiar but adjusting them to the time period/setting...EXCEPT for the shield.

Each one of these rebooted Doom sequels has a gimmick. 2016 was Doom but modern, Eternal was Doom but a platformer and more weapons than you'd ever need, Doom The Dark Ages is a full-story with cinematics and a Captain America-styled with a buzz saw around it. The parrying, the dashing, the throwing, it was all so damn satisfying.

The game starts off MUCH slower in terms of the gameplay itself. This is in line with the game's tagline and the developers North Star "stand and fight". You are a TANK. The double dashes and double jumps are gone. Instead, you are a walking one-man army. An absolute BEAST if you will. Before you get any upgrades it is noticeably slower, especially if you're like me coming fresh of Eternal.

But dude...once you start to piece together how to combo properly and combine attacks based on the enemies and your growing arsenal, you'll find yourself deep in an IMMACULATE game flow that I couldn't get enough of.

This one also has by far the biggest and most open play spaces of any Doom game. Again, those first few missions felt empty and I was left thinking "why?". But again, as you get new abilities, more weapons, more enemies and begin to understand the way this game moves, you'll want to explore every nook and cranny of these wide open vistas, packed with dungeons and tight corridors that are filled with collectibles, secret encounters and the in-game currency. I often found myself still exploring the areas long after the objective marker was telling me to gtfo.

All-in-all, this is definitely the weakest of this rebooted trilogy. That being said, I still had a BLAST (after the first few chapters of course). Even though it was lacking in some areas, most noticeably the music (though it's not terrible by any means), I loved the setting, the cinematics, the shield, the new place spaces, the bosses, weapons and the game flow once you're fully kitted out.

Great game and easily recommendable to Doom fans! (Game finished June 17, 2025)

Played on Nightmare, with all the sliders at the default for that difficulty.

It’s a weird one… This was the first DOOM game I actually managed to finish. It’s good, but the scope of the game is both its biggest strength and its biggest flaw. You're constantly being attacked from every direction, and eventually, it just becomes overwhelming. You lose any sense of agency, and the game forces you to play a particular scenario in a specific way.

Around the halfway point, I stopped going for 100% completion on levels because it just got too tedious. The game has so much of everything that it sometimes feels... off. The gameplay loop stays the same starting around Chapter 7 and its not bad, but the levels and arenas start to blend together.

You can beat the game with just one weapon and there’s no real need to swap or engage in varied combat. The music is completely forgettable.I can’t recall a single track. It feels like one generic metal song being looped throughout the entire game. The medieval themes weren’t reflected in the soundtrack at all.

Visually, it’s great i have nothing to complain about there. I liked it, but I wouldn’t call it a must-play or anything particularly memorable.

I don’t know what it is, but I dislike this game. Somehow it fails to capture what I like about Doom 2016 and to a lesser extent Eternal. Playing this game isn’t fun or entertaining, it’s just spending my time doing something. It has no positive or fun value to me. Thank Kami I played it on game pass instead of bought it and wasted my money.

Edit: The shield is kinda neat though.

Pandemonium difficulty is a fun time, but it is baffling how glaringly buggy it is. I had to redo 2 levels on my last and best run. Once I lost all of my lives and died at Chapter 19, I started a new file and there are no 1-ups for me to get. id Software needs to fix this ASAP.

Edit: After this status update, I just had to start level 1 again after just beating it.

Edit 2: I have to do level 10 again

TLDR: The worst of the modern doom games but still a fun romp, not worth full price but worth playing on gamepass or on a discount.

More detail: Big downgrades in gameplay, story actually just wastes your time and is so bad i would legitimately recommend skipping all of it for better gameplay pacing. Games way too easy, even cranked up on nightmare it was a walk in the park. Secrets are trivially easy to find and completion is just a bit of a time waster tbh, puzzles are always dead simple and never made me feel clever. THE MUSIC!!! Compared to Mic Gordon's sountrack this games music feels like it was made by a vegan church group. Dragon and mech sections felt like a completely unfun waste of time. Core combat was the only redeeming factor and it is still quite a step back from 2016 and eternal's combat chess and tight encounters.

As I said at the top, fun for a few hours but nothing truly special here.

Just finished the game tonight, and I'm so happy to say this makes me want to go back and play Doom 2016 right frickin now. And not because Doom TDA sucked, but completely opposite of that. It has felt so long since Doom 2016, and I took my time with Dark Ages (a week and a half, LOL), and now I want more frickin Doom so I think I'll go back to 2016 to get more of my Doom fix on!

The game does have its problems with non existent music in places, especially while having to backtrack to explore secrets, which many I found to not even really be secrets at all. Most of the secrets, if not all, are incredibly easy to get and they're all listed on the map for you to get. These are my only complaints with the game because....

I LOVED the new shield/parry system, as well as all the guns. I made use of everything in this game and it was an absolute blast to parry things. And there are some great metal tunes here, with some falling flat, but I really enjoyed the soundtrack overall. Visuals are top notch yet again, and no complaints there. My 5070ti handled the game quite will, with about 4 crashes in total. Monsters were awesome as well, and made full use of the shield and weapon system.

I greatly enjoyed the new gameplay features of this 3rd entry and I loved the first two games just like anyone else, but I'm one of those who embraces change and I don't want a duplicate of Doom Eternal, or I'd just go back and play that game instead of this. What's the point of that?

Time to get some Doom 2016 downloaded, installed and played again, because Doom The Dark Ages is a prequel to that and even though DLC will come to the game, I'll just hop out of the casket and start kicking some ass anyway.

This game is a 5 out of 5 for me. Loved it!

Doom: The Dark Ages is more of the modern Doom goodness. While it kinda positioned itself to be a slower and more sprawling experience as opposed to the crazy pace of Eternal, it's not that different.

Sure, it's got larger levels, higher enemy count and heavy emphasis on using the Slayer's Captain-America-esque shield. It also has two new occasional playstyles: the other lets you control a huge mech and use a limited moveset to punch the hell out of demons and the other is free-roaming flying sections with a Dragon. Both are half-baked. Other than that, though, it's still the familiar super fast and flashy FPS action with glory kills and crazy weapons. And that's a very good thing. You'll be mowing and pummeling down demons like never before. In some ways, it feels a bit messier and the bigger enemy hordes result in a ton of cheap deaths but it's mostly still good fun. Be ready to fight the same enemies a lot, though.

Like it's predecessors, it's also a really good looking game and has a kick-ass heavy metal soundtrack. The soundtrack might not be as unique or insanely heavy and industrial-sounding as the Mick Gordon ones, but it sounds slightly more like a modern spin on the old Doom tunes. Moody, droning soundscapes in the quieter parts, heavy metal riffage with great guitar and bass tones in the more fiery ones.

And once again, like Doom Eternal before it, Id Software tried to include a serious story with new lore. It's really hard to care for it since the game has incredibly bland characters, and the whole lore with the Sentinels, Maykrs and whatever just feels odd and misplaced. At least the cutscenes can be pretty entertaining since they often try to make the Slayer look as badass as possible without caring about corniness (which, I feel, would be a better tone for the whole story). And the story in the Dark Ages takes places in really interesting new locations once you get past the boring Sentinel cities and forts.

In the first half of the game, I was thinking Doom: The Dark Ages is a fun game but not as impressive and fine-tuned as its predecessors. The game luckily kicks up a gear near the end, and I ended up appreciating the new mechanics and milieus more as the game went on. Now I can't really call the game is a weaker link in the series. Sure, the dragon and mech missions are pretty boring, the story is bland and the combat has some slight hiccups but the game is just too much fun.

When I was thinking of big games that were coming out in the Year of Our Doom Slayer 2025, the one I kept thinking of was Doom! Doom (2016), and Doom Eternal were both my favorite games of their respective years. I took time off from work for Eternal, cuz I was so goddamn excited for it. And then the pandemic really hit the very same day. Not important, just a funny thought.

Anyway.

I think The Dark Ages is probably my least favorite of the newer Doom games, but...I still love it.

First I'll go over the stuff I didn't like so much. The story is not exactly great. The cutscenes are so well produced and acted, but the characters are a bit too somber for my liking. Especially the Doom Slayer himself. Part of what makes him a fun character is how he can be inserted into an otherwise serious story, and just run wild. That's what made him so awesome in 2016. In Dark Ages, he's a bit too...involved? This is set before those games, though. So I guess he's not as over this demon shit as he would eventually become.

I can't believe I'm saying this: The parts where you fly around on a supersonic jet dragon are the most boring parts of this game. I guess it's hard to make aerial dogfighting super interesting in this intense FPS, but like...it could've been a bit more than dodge, shoot, dodge, shoot. Chasing down the quick hell ships was fun, though.

I think that's about it for legit complaints.

The positives. This game is so fun. When it starts to click, this game sings like a chainsaw in a demon's rib cage. Run, shoot, parry, melee, back off, rocket, charge, kill. This game is intense. I played on normal difficulty, and it was pretty challenging. If you liked the other games, you'll like this one. I had did have a few crashes on my PC, but this game looks INCREDIBLE. Massive beautiful areas, just jam packed with demons to kill. That said, it did warn me to update by motherboard bios before playing it, which I did. Everything seemed to run better afterward, though. So maybe just do that anyway?

I didn't grow up with Doom, but these new games get me excited every time. I hope we get a bazillion more.

This is the first DOOM game I ever finished! I have tried all of them since the original but always just bounce off. The old ones are just too long and the new ones just never felt good.

For whatever reason, this one stuck. Maybe it was because I was curious about the weird story elements?

Anyway, once I figured out the balance of run and gun, stop and pop (melee to regain ammo), and which gun for which type I was having a lot of fun.

The only problem is that the minute loop of gameplay is stretched for most of the 11-hour playtime! I was really enjoying playing and if the campaign ended around 5 hours in this would have gotten a fourth star from me but instead I began to resent it for dragging on. A me issue to be sure.