After 3 Hours With Doom: The Dark Ages I'm A Little Bit Worried

By 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Eric Switzer

Published Mar 31, 2025

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2020’s Doom Eternal might b♏e my favorite shooter of all time. Its emphasis on mobility and platforming alongside its puzzle-like approach to combat immediately resonated with me, and I haven’t played anything since then that has given me the same kind of kinetic, chaotic thrill. I love the momentum of Eternal, its feeling that the only way to survive is to be bigger and scarier than the nightmares you face. To the forces of Hell, you are the demon. That’s𒀰 the fantasy Doom Eternal sets out to create, and it delivers in spade𓆏s.

Doom: The Dark Ages Has An Enemy That's Close To Eternal's Hated Marauder

Don't get those pitchforks out just yet, though.

Posts 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: 𒁃

In 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:my review of The Ancient Gods DLC, I suggested that the only way to move forward for the series would be to take it through yet another total reinvention - and that’s exactly what id Software has done with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Doom: The Dark Ages. The techno-medieval prequel to 2016’s Doom may not look like that much of a departure, but it has a fundamentally different approach to combat that will come as a shock to some fans. The frenzied rip-and-tear act🐈ion Doom is known for has been replaced by a slower and more defensive stand-and-fight philosophy, and after a few hours with the game, I’m not convinced this is the path I wanted the Doom Slayer to take.

Slow Down, Doom Guy

At a press 🦄preview for Doom: The Dark Ages earlier this month, I played through four distinct sections of the game. I started with the first two missions, which represented the more linear Doom levels we’re used to. Then I played a section of a mech battle, where the Doom Slayer goes full Pacific Rim to slug it out with some towering titan demons. Next, I played through one of the dragon-riding sequences, and finally, I explored one of the more open zone lev🌄els where you get to choose the order in which you tackle each objective.

If you’re a fan of t🐼he series, you’ll probably notice right away how different The Dark Ages feels compared to its predecessors - and that’s not just because of the castles and dragons. It turns out our Doom Slayer used to have a much ܫtankier fighting style, which means you’re going to be spending a lot more time with your feet planted on the ground, facing your enemies head on. I hope you like parrying, because you’re going to be doing a lot of it.

While there are new 🌸weapons, abilities, and upgrades to explore, the Slayer’s most important new tool is undoubtedly his shield saw. The chainsaw-laden buckler is exactly as cool as it looks. It can block projectiles 🌳or send them back, you can use it to rush into enemies and stun them with a shield bash, and you can throw it Captain America-style to slice a bunch of dudes in half - okay, maybe not that Captain America-style.

It’s a very cool weapon indeed, but I didn’t expect how much giving the Doom Slayer a shield would warp the pace of Doom’s combat. There is far less emphasis on mobility; the Slayer cannot double jump or dash, and most shocking of all, there’s a sprint button. Rather than dodging and weaving your way around the battlefield like a shotgun-wielding acrobat, The Da൲rk Ages demands a slower, more intentional forward push. You are an unstoppable force and you demonstrate it by parrying each incoming attack and unloading your chosen weapon point-blank into every demon foolish enough to stand in your way. The bigger the demon, the more perfect parries you’ll need to perform before you can prove who the bigger monster is.

After playing for a couple of hours, I never really got a handle on this style of combat. Whenever the demons started to swarm, my muscle memory kicked iꦺn and I started trying to dodge left and right to avoid attacks or jump to higher ground to rain dꦓown fire from above. I can expertly dismantle every demon type in Doom Eternal with my eyes closed, but take away my dash and hand me a shield, and it’s an entirely different game - one I’m not sure feels as fun or exciting to play.

Demon Boxing And Dragon Riding

While I’m ambivalent a🅷bout The Dark Ages new take on combat, I have more firm opinions about the 𒉰new mech and dragon riding levels: they’re not very good. I only spent a few minutes mecha-boxing with the big boys, but that’s all I needed because it doesn’t seem like there’s much to it. I enjoyed the scale of piloting the mech and the destruction you can cause by walking through buildings and other structures, but the titan slugfests are far too simple for a series known for its sophisticated combat. The first fight is pretty cool, but once I realized every fight was the same, I just wanted to get back to the real Doom gameplay.

The map is used frequently, but on mouse and keyboard, tab opens the map but doesn’t close it. It ☂sounds minor, but it gets really frustrating after a whiꦗle. Hopefully this is changed before launch.

The same goes for Dragon Riding, which lost all of its nove🌸lty real quick. Flying is awkward and clunky, you have variable speed that resets when you ascend or descend (which have their own buttons to activate) so you’re constantly having to make weird muti-button inputs 🎀just to maintain your speed.

For combat, the dragon switches to hover mode, which lets you lock onto enemies. Doing perfect dodges amplifies your damage, which helps you kill things faster. This mechanic is even more awkward than flying. While hovering you're stuck in an 🅷invisible box, so if you dodge too far up, down, to the left, or to the right, you’ll run into that wall - even though you’re just hovering in the open air. In order to perform perfect dodges, I frequently had to move the dragon into the line of incoming fire and then dodge out of it, taking care not to dodge too far towards a border I could not see. I did not enjoy riding the Doom dragon, which is not something I ever expected to say.

Variety For The Sake Of It

The final section I played was in a more free-roaming level where various demon camps needed to be dispatched, and it was up to me to choose in what order I dealt with them. I’ve never thought any of the modern Doom levels were too small or limiting, so I wasn’t quite sure what the appeal of more 𝔉open and explorable levels would be, and after playing one of them, I’m still𝓀 not.

The camps were mostly all the same, with copy-paste arenas to fight through - albeit with different mini-bosses in each one. After clearing one camp, I’d then walk to the next one, with nothing to fight an༺d nothing particularly interesting to do or see in between. This level felt like an attempt to inject some variety without a clear vision of why this kind of level design fits Dꦡoom - especially a Doom with a lot less emphasis on mobility. If there were some cool platforming sections between each camp it would be one thing, but all I got was a bit of a jog, followed by another battle in an identical camp.

Note: During the dragon level the Doom Slayer was tasked with taking down a series of floating fortresses. Once ඣyou took down their defenses you’d leap off the dragon and fight your way to the control room. A cool scenario, but the interior of every ship had identical layouts.

I really enjoy the world-building in🍒 the Doom reboot series and I was impressed with the depth of the lore in Doom Eternal, so I’m excited to see how The Dark Ages expands the legend of the Doom Slayer by taking us back to Argent D’Nur to follow the events that lead to 2016’s Doom. I expect I will eventually get a handle on Stand and Fight, and maybe even learn to appreciate how the new style of combat can benefit the Doom formula. I came into this preview excited to find out how id Software had managed to outdo Doom Eternal, but now I’m not sure that it has.