If there is a series that can be saved by vibes alone, it is destiny. Especially since the reinvention in 2016, it cannot spell fate without a “mood.” And for the Mars-to-Hell series, Doom: The Dark Age is perhaps the most moody franchise ever. This first part deals with the legendary Doom Slayer in the Middle Ages. This, of course, means lords, trimmed armor of sublime fur, and mechanized dragon shit.
This was the worst fate ever, and as soon as I knew what the keyboard was, I cut the milk teeth of the series in the first game.
Fortunately for fate, it was not useful to invade the mainstream. The purple brand of first-person photography has effectively placed the genre on the map, launching what will become the “attitude era” of the medium. A major reboot has reestablished Doom as a great powerhouse in Arena Cobat, with a significantly higher pace and flow. It was the ultimate power fantasy, and the other games didn’t make him feel like the worst nightmare of hell like Doom did. Its sequel, Doom Etern, which introduced grappling hooks, shifted its focus to mobility and verticality through its platform.
DOOM: Dark Ages destroys the army of hell, arming him with absolute eyes, while still keeping Doom Slayer’s boots firmly on the ground despite his share of new gimmicks. Frankly, he’s on his knees with shit.
Doom: The Dark Ages, to give us a wide range of experience, our practice has been difficult to get a measure of what we’re doing narratively, as we trimmed a lot of fat and context from the levels we sampled, but what’s exciting is that we’re putting our resources into making this campaign like a big action femme that actually focuses on the plot. It’s not that it’s not listed in a reboot, but it’s often hidden in codex entries and lore dumps. Here are some nice and very expensive cinemas to earn points.
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The first part, the Dark Ages, known as “Outlander,” appears to explore a period in which Doom Slayer invaded himself with the Night Sentinel, the world’s noble militia forces, and then invaded Argent Doul, and then took weapons against the legions of Hell. What’s interesting is that the game’s slayers framble as hunting dogs. Hunting dogs are covered in short leashes. It’s about torn and rip when it fits the powerful. The lore runs deep, but the Dark Ages are considered a good jump-off point when it comes to stories, so if you’ve never really paid attention, don’t worry.
Straight from the rift, I found Doom: The Dark Ages particularly interesting to introduce an open world territory for you to explore and destroy chaos. Eternity maintains a moment of constructing itself to some extent in these big, yet relatively non-linear sections, considering what many thought was a little too harsh to merciless about everything that was thrown at you. But first we plunged into the first 1.5 missions of the game. As the village of Khalim is under attack, Doom Slayer is deployed to fuck shit. After his undeniably cool superhero landing, the levels unfolded as you would expect. The skirmishes at each arena flowed into the next, with weapons introduced in reasonable clips.
Through the four vertical slices we practiced, I sampled guns from many games and I discovered that each of them has a valuable use case depending on the situation you are in. Both regular and super shotguns need not be introduced, they are short range failures that reduce most demons to pulp. Plasma rifles are also done in the same way for energy type shields, with something like automatic rifles.
Guns are the bread and butter of the game, but here are some melee fighting options that are suitable for the era, where the Dark Ages are, after all, a very enjoyable amount. Of the two, spiked gauntlets and flailed, they held three total charges, sending a devastating, powerful blow to the other side. Like ammunition, health, armor, you will chop them yourself, but you will find drops all over the world to refill your charge faster. In particular, the flail stuffs the wallop as a simple, old world design of balls spiked into a chain that tears satisfyingly from the bones.
But the coolest new addition to Arsenal should be a shield saw. That’s exactly what you hear, and a deadly combination of attack and defense that also supplies part of the game’s platform and problem-solving. Although most often used to activate gate mechanics, the application on the battlefield is even more exciting, as evidenced by their red hot glow to buy precious seconds to think to themselves or deal with shattered blows on an already weakened shield. To further emphasize Doom Slayer’s thirst for bloodlasting and unjust destruction, he is armed with a charge attack. It can also be used with enormous efficiency as a dive bomb that echoes from the ground as if the tank had fallen from the sky.
Doom became a rather rhythmic shooter when the reboot introduced something that Glory would kill into that big arena battle. With a certain modest beat that moved each fight, and being a fleet of feet was key to survival. The Dark Ages doubles this design philosophy through its shield pallies. Incoming attacks are read by the player as either orange or green, whether they are projectiles or not. The timing trigger behaves to return the green one to the sender, sending back potential damage in the devil’s way. It’s yet another plate that spins for players, but I can’t help but love how it turns defense into attacks so quickly. Under proper circumstances, it is a tide changer.
DOOM: The Dark Ages have set pieces that induce “holy shit.” This includes beachfront defense against the waves of the Devil and the waves after the Titans, but sitting unstable on top of the turret, larger than piloting Atlan. Imagine a huge pilot mech, just like what you’ll find on Pacific Rims. That’s exactly what you get here. Armed with a scale minigun, you run through Titans and infrastructure, dealing so much damage that sells your sense of scale. It was not on my bingo sheet that ID software offers the generation’s silliest rock Msok experience.
The only other feature that might be cooler is riding a dragon. After the release of the original game last year, all I wondered was how these winged monsters feel in-game. Certainly, I’m not completely on sale because I want to keep my pets still. They’re a bit painful to pilot some of the tighter caves I leaked, but I think their handling made a smart decision in “assault mode.” In short, pulling the left trigger will steadily hover into the air and lock it to the nearest target. This allows you to focus on both shooting and avoiding incoming attacks. If I had been forced to juggle these while dragging the dragons freely, I think it would have been a nightmare. However, I think there were some exceptional aspects to Dragon Level, but it includes systematic fragments of several enemy airships that have destroyed the defenses on the ship, explored the inner workings, and wiped out the cores before boarding. It gave me a clear memory of taking out the scarab with Hello, and like those games it’s exciting while playing the enormous nature of conflict.
The aforementioned open world section is where I spent most of my time. If you’re wondering whether it’s possible to even maintain a sense of destiny by trading corridors for a huge battlefield, or even packing portals to snatch and close the demons, or even taking anti-air guns to dismantle, the answer is the most surprising. It retains much of the Doom-level design sensibility, such as secret territory and key card doors, and guides you through huge spaces that are objectively intended. Despite its openness, I was given the impression that it was still somewhat linear as it was constantly directing me towards the next purpose like a guide star. I don’t think this is connecting the water to see how a completely open world fate works, but I’m curious as to how many areas the final product will deliver.
Of course, the computer we played was totally scared in terms of output, so the dark ages ran looking amazing. The game may have a clear tone, but what you see on the screen changes surprisingly well. The first siege, held under the night cover, is filled with shadows of darkness and a cast of flames, but the Dragon Ride took place in a huge airborne sunscreen view between the clouds. Whether for ID Tech 8, the team’s in-house engine can unleash us on these larger scoped playgrounds, although it was born after Doom Eternal, but I’m grateful for the Pivot.
This time I love the look of the Doom Slayer. The furry suit and saw shield look tough like a $2 steak. Like other games in the series, wet gore and model damage can be seen, although you can see pounds of meat torn from pieces of Deecera, Pulp and Demon’s frame, but I’m very pleased. Dismantling the hellish knight’s limbs from his limbs, constantly stopping his advance, or blowing the cannons from his mancubus makes him totally vulnerable.
On one side of the game’s Sonic Spectrum is the original soundtrack. This follows Mick Gordon’s dropped tuning and open string chug blueprints, which is so dirty that everyone feels disgusting. It was an absolute bang that I almost threw away the mosh as I watched the dragon light up Titan’s throat. On the other side is an incredibly meaty sound design that can be felt through every movement.
From my time, Doom: The Dark Ages is an inevitable game of destiny and is becoming one of the best candidates of the year. Eternity was nothing but disappointment, but some of its design philosophy was questionable, and certain parts of the game didn’t speak to what I wanted from Doom. Not only is the Dark Age bigger, bolder and worse than ever, it’s even more ambitious than I expected.
