Outrageous and over the top, Doom: The Dark Ages invites players to, once again, paint the walls with demon blood and gibs. But this time, id Software have turned it all the way up to eleven.
With a legacy that goes back to the very beginning of the genre it helped establish, first-person shooter Doom is video gaming royalty. Even the few iterations that were not so well received eventually found an audience and today are just as revered as the early entries.
Doom: The Dark Ages is the third game in the rebooted series that started with the 2016 Doom and its 2020 follow-up, Doom: Eternal. It's a single-player game that serves as a prequel to 2016's Doom, giving players an insight into the origin of the Doom Slayer.
Whilst Doom: Eternal builds upon the frantic gameplay of the 2016 Doom reboot, Doom: The Dark Ages opens things up. The larger level gives players more opportunity to stand their ground and engage in melee combat as well as projectile weapons.
The Doom Slayer's shield can not only deflect attacks, but also be thrown, Captain America style, slicing groups of opponents to pieces or stunning them with its chainsaw edge. A brutal swipe of the gauntlet, flail or mace will see heads pummelled. This is first-person melee done well.
Of course, the Doom Slayer is furnished with an ever-increasing arsenal of ridiculously overpowered projectile weapons with which to blow opponents away. Flesh is torn from bodies with each shot, leaving dismembered demons staggering towards you until properly dispatched. Doom: The Dark Ages doesn't mess around with the gore, earning its mature age rating.
The game tries to be a little more cinematic, with a bit of drama between the humans that the Doom Slayer is assisting and the hellish demon overlords. The cut scenes are extremely well done, matching the general polish of the game. Doom works best when you are dispatching the bad guys, but the plot's there if you want it.
The open panoramic levels are full to the brim with spawning demons. It's a far cry from the corridors of the original. Each level slowly opens up as you progress, some areas turning into huge arenas for frantic battles.
The level design is fantastic, breathtaking, even. The awe-inspiring vistas are packed with details, with no two areas looking alike. Even though you may find yourself backtracking, it never feels like that, as new routes and areas open up or more demons spawn to block your path.
The game has a vast collection of demon types, many of which will be very familiar to fans of the series. Each demon has its unique attack style and weaknesses. Some areas have leader demons with added armour that require the accompanying demons to be wiped out before they can be successfully engaged.
Battles are breathtaking. The areas are dotted with armour shards, ammo and health to keep the Doom Slayer going. Finishing moves release health and are worth carrying out at every opportunity. Defeating leaders and other special enemies will often result in an attribute upgrade, improving max health or armour. All this is, of course, done to a hardcore metal soundtrack.
With secret areas and collectables, the game offers plenty of replay value. You'll want to return to your favourite levels to mop up anything that you missed the first time around. There's plenty of hidden hordes of gold and precious stones, which you'll need for essential upgrades to your weapons, shield and armour. The game has six difficulty settings, from "aspiring slayer" to "ultra-nightmare", to suit any skill level.
As well as blasting and hacking at demons at the usual one-man army, the Doom Slayer also gets to operate huge mechs fighting massive kaiju-style demons. This gives a different perspective on the game as you crash through buildings, like they are miniatures, whilst punching and shooting at huge enemy creatures.
There's also an aerial component with the Doom Slayer astride a dragon. It's a welcome addition, but more for spectacle than anything else. The shooting mechanic is a bit underwhelming. Players must dodge incoming attacks to charge their firepower and destroy targets. The optional aerial pursuit of enemy aircraft for a reward in gold is a fun distraction at best. It is a novel way to have the Doom slayer get about and shows off some of the game's stunning scenery from a different perspective.
There are a few puzzle elements that need to be solved to progress or unlock secret areas. This breaks things up a bit, pacing the action and giving players a bit of a breather. The large levels add to the challenge. Sometimes you can see hidden areas, but the vertical nature of the level design means that sometimes the way forward can be elusive.
The incredible gameplay is all wrapped up in an extremely polished package with superb visuals. The PC version has plenty of graphics options, allowing players to tune the game to their hardware.
The game supports GPU upscaling via Nvidia's DLSS, AMD's FSR and Intel's XeSS. Even the most modest system should be able to get the game running butter smooth. Saying that, I had no luck playing Doom on the ROG Ally handheld PC, but a driver update may change that. The graphics settings scale beyond the capabilities of today's hardware. I found the highest settings starting to push the Nvidia RTX 4090 to its limits, even with DLSS.
Doom: The Dark Ages delivers the sort of frantic splatterfest that has long been a hallmark of the series. In taking a chance with some new gameplay elements and a more open-world design, developer id Software has kept the flavour of the Doom series but delivered it in a fresh and exciting new way. Huge levels, absurdly powerful weapons, over-the-top melee moves, and polished presentation make this one of the best Doom games yet.
Verdict: 9.5/10
