Doom: The Dark Ages Does The Impossible And Gives The Slayer A Heart

The Doom Slayer isn’t meant to have a conscience. He’s an unstoppable killing ma🅠chine in a legendar🎃y suit of armour with an arsenal of weapons so huge it’d make the US military blush.

But when you break down his origins, beneath all the blood, guts, and bravado sits a human being who has been forced into a neverending cycle of saving the world over and over. This is no different in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dark Ages, where the Slayer fights alongside the Sentinels to prevent what appears to be an incredible s🌳ource 🌼of power from falling into the wrong hands.

Like Wolfenstein Before It, Doom Now Has A Heart

Putting aside all the killing the Slayer is required to partake in during the campaign, it is made clear throughout that he’s overcoming such adversity not only thanks to the sacred duty he has 🐼to defend the world from demonkind, but because he genuinely cares for the species he has been tasked with protecting. We don’t know the specifics of where he came from or what experiences put him on this eternal path of destruction, but from the look on his face it’s clear the Slayer isn’t just in this for himself.

Slayer’s development throughout the rebooted Doom trilogy reminds me of how MachineGames turned 🏅Wolfenstein protagonist B.J, Blazkowicz into a leading man to rival the medium’s very best. What began as a faceless blonde figure at the bottom of each screen designed to represent your health was now a living, breathing human being with an honest life worth fighting for.

The fantastic sen💯se of place in New Order and New Colossus certainly helped, making it feel like the Nazis had taken over the globe, and it would take a miracle to loosen their stranglehold of power. Blazkowic♉z was the perfect killing machine to do just that, but he also had loved ones and a home he wanted to fight for.

He murdered countless fascists out in the field, only to return to a cramped hideout in which his allies tried to build a home out of nothing and find tenderness in the smallest or most unexpected of places. You could talk to, befriend, and build a rapport with eachꦑ new person that went far beyond mandatory cutscenes. The way Blazkowicz narrated his own surroundings and the events that took place in a whispered drawl helped cement how dire his situation was, but so lon𓂃g as there was something left to hope for, they’d keep on fighting.

Considering the Doom Slayer doesn’t speak - he has a single word of dialogue in the Dark Ages - expressing this level of emotion and nuance is a bit harder. But considering his adventures don’t take place in a grounded version of our own reality, id can stretch the parameters of𒀰 his emotions that much further.

Doom (2016) shied away from ever showing what🍸 lies beneath the Slayer’s helmet, only ever showing us brief reflections of his eyes aꦺnd the relentless brutality contained within them. He was a spectre for players to inhabit, positioned as a Christ-like, but destructive, figure who is brought back to life when and if humanity needs his help. When demons come knocking, he is never that far behind.

Even Without A Voice, Doom Slayer’s Emotions Go A Long Way

The slayer's dragon in Doom: The Dark Ages.

🌸When fighting alongside the Sentinels and taking the evils in his world to task, the Slayer is never outspoken about his goals or who he is fighting for, but his allies can read enough by his body language alone that they have nothing to fear. They know the Slayer is willing to be a human battering ram to break enemy lines and step into territory that no mortal human can possibly hope to survive, and it’s this framing that drives forward so much of the campaign.

Slayer also begins the campaign under the direct control of the Maykrs, expressing anger that his agency has been taken away, and he might be forced to hurt those he once promised to pro⛎tect. 🍎He never screams in anger or cries out in sadness, because that’d be too much as equal impact can be made with a single glance, a confident stride, or a dismissive shrug of the shoulders. Everything the Slayer does is lined with purposeful intent, and that gives him more personality than most modern protagonists combined.

Spoilers for Doom: The Dark Ages aheadThere is one speci🐠fic moment I want to talk about, and it happens during the penultimate chapter. After doing battle with Prince Ahzrak in a ferocious boss encounter, the Slayer starts to learn that he isn’t powerful enough to defeat him.

Then, his dragon, who has been by your side for most of the campaign, flies in to help, only to be slau♌ghtere♔d in seconds. He is gone, and doesn’t come back. This is enough for the Slayer to fight back, only to watch his prey retreat at the last possible second.

The slayer's dragon dies in doom: the dark ages.

I felt my heart sink at this moment, watching helplessly as the Slayer walked past his fallen comrade, placed a hand on his lifeless body, and realized that he🔯 needed to move on. Sitting around grieving was only going to hold him back, while the best thing he could do to avenge his fallen comrades was to keep on fighting.

And he does just that, but this tin♍y little moment of emotion is enough to ground the 𒁃Slayer as a man with heart, empathy, and understanding.