The final thing I anticipated Doom: The Dark Ages to remind me of was Halo 3. And but, half method by means of a current hands-on demo with id Software program’s gothic prequel, I used to be mounted on the again of a cyborg dragon and unleashing a salvo of machinegun fireplace throughout the aspect of a demonic battle barge. With the vessel’s defensive turrets destroyed, I landed my beast atop the ship and proceeded to cost by means of its decrease decks, turning your entire crew into a couple of gallons of crimson slop. Seconds later, the warmachine was toast and I burst by means of its hull, leaping onto my dragon to proceed my campaign towards the machines of Hell.
These conversant in Bungie’s landmark Xbox 360 shooter will immediately recognise the form of Grasp Chief’s assault on the Covenant’s scarab tanks. The helicopter-like Hornet could have been swapped for a holographic-winged dragon and the large laser-firing mech for an occult flying boat, however the core of the expertise is all right here: an aerial assault that transitions right into a devastating boarding motion. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the one second within the demo that jogged my memory of Halo. Whereas the fight core of The Dark Ages is unmistakably and singularly Doom, the marketing campaign’s design appears to have a really “late-2000s shooter” spin due to its love of elaborate cutscenes and a better push for gameplay novelty.
Throughout two and a half hours I performed 4 ranges of Doom: The Dark Ages. Solely the primary of them, the marketing campaign’s opener, resembled the tightly paced, immaculately mapped design of Doom (2016) and its sequel. The others noticed me piloting a colossal mech, flying the aforementioned dragon, and exploring a wide-open battlefield dotted with secrets and techniques and highly effective minibosses. It’s a giant departure from Doom’s traditional pursuit of mechanical purity, as an alternative feeling akin to the likes of Halo, Name of Obligation, and – weirdly – previous James Bond video games like Nightfire, all of which thrive on scripted setpieces and novelty mechanics that visitor star for a mission or two.
It is a fascinating route for Doom to move in, as a result of as soon as upon a time the collection made one thing of a U-turn away from this. The cancelled Doom 4 was set to resemble Name of Obligation, not solely resulting from its fashionable army aesthetic but additionally due to an elevated emphasis on characters, cinematic storytelling, and scripted occasions. After years of labor id Software program concluded that such concepts merely weren’t a very good match for the collection, scrapping them in favour of the rather more targeted Doom (2016). And but, in 2025, right here they’re in The Dark Ages.
My demo opened on a protracted and elaborate cutscene, (re)introducing the realm of Argent D’Nur, the opulent Maykrs, and the Night time Sentinels – the knightly brothers-in-arms of the Doom Slayer. The massive man himself is depicted as a terrifying legend; a nuclear-level risk on two legs. Whereas all of this lore will likely be acquainted to Doom obsessives who poured over the prior video games’ codex entries, the deeply cinematic method with which it’s now introduced feels very new. Very totally different. Very Halo. That continues into the degrees themselves, with NPC Night time Sentinels scattered concerning the surroundings akin to UNSC Marines. Whereas they don’t struggle alongside you (at the very least not within the ranges I demoed) there’s definitely a better sense that you simply’re a part of a military – like Grasp Chief, you’re the invincible spearhead of a big pressure.
There’s a variety of character work within the introductory cutscene and it stays to be seen if that is one thing Doom actually wants. I’m a giant fan of the prior video games’ slight method to story, and a part of me would quite The Dark Ages continued to inform the Slayer’s story by means of surroundings design and codex entries, reserving cinematics just for the large reveals à la Everlasting. However whereas I’ve my reservations, the cutscenes fortunately know their place: they tee up a mission and are by no means seen once more, refusing to interrupt Doom’s signature intense circulate.
There are interruptions in different kinds, although. After that opening mission, which begins with pure shotgun slaughter and ends with you parrying Hell Knights utilizing the Slayer’s unbelievable new protect, I used to be thrown into the cockpit of a Pacific Rim-like Atlan mech and requested to wrestle demonic kaiju. After that, I used to be hovering by means of the skies on that cybernetic dragon, taking down battle barges and choosing off gun emplacements. These tightly scripted ranges create a major gear shift, punctuating the marketing campaign’s fast tempo with new gameplay concepts which can be harking back to Name of Obligation’s largest novelties, similar to Fashionable Warfare’s AC-130 gunship sequence or Infinite Warfare’s dogfighting missions. The Atlan is gradual and heavy, and the skyscraper-high perspective makes Hell’s armies appear like Warhammer miniatures. The dragon, in the meantime, is quick and agile, and the shift to a wide-angle third-person digicam ends in a really totally different expertise that feels a dimension away from basic Doom.
Most of the greatest FPS campaigns thrive on this sort of selection. Half-Life 2 and Titanfall 2 are the gold commonplace for it. Halo has endured so lengthy partly as a result of its mixture of vehicular and on-foot sequences supplies it with a wealthy texture. However I’m not sure if it will work for Doom. As with Everlasting, The Dark Ages is as soon as once more a splendidly complicated shooter to play – each second calls for your full consideration as you weave collectively photographs, protect tosses, parries, and brutal melee combos. As compared, the mech and dragon sequences really feel anemic, stripped again, and virtually on-rails – their fight engagements so tightly managed they nearly resemble QTEs.
In Name of Obligation the change to driving a tank or firing from a circling gunship works as a result of the mechanical complexity of such scripted sequences isn’t that far faraway from the on-foot missions. However in The Dark Ages there’s a transparent gulf between gameplay kinds, a lot so it’s akin to a center faculty guitar scholar enjoying alongside Eddie Van Halen. And whereas I do know Doom’s core fight will at all times be the star, after I’m beating the snot out of an enormous demon with a rocket-powered mech punch I shouldn’t be wishing I used to be again on the bottom utilizing a “mere” double-barrelled shotgun.
My remaining hour of play noticed The Dark Ages shift into one other uncommon guise, however one constructed on what appears like a a lot sturdier basis. “Siege” is a degree that returns its focus to id’s best-in-class gunplay, nevertheless it opens up Doom’s usually claustrophobic degree design into an enormous open battlefield, its geography shifting between slim and huge to offer a myriad of pathways and fight arenas. The purpose, to destroy 5 Gore Portals, has the identical power as Name of Obligation’s multi-objective, complete-in-any-order missions, however I used to be reminded as soon as extra of Halo – the grand scale of this map versus the tighter routes of the opening degree evokes the distinction between Halo’s inside and exterior environments. And, like Halo, the novelty right here is that the superb core shooter methods are given new context in a lot bigger areas. You need to rethink the efficient vary of each single weapon in your arsenal. Your cost assault is employed to shut soccer field-length distances. And the protect is used to deflect artillery fired from outsized tank cannons.
The draw back of increasing Doom’s playspace is that issues can change into a bit unfocused – I discovered myself backtracking and looping by means of empty pathways, which actually does kill the tempo. It’s right here I’d wish to have seen The Dark Ages veer even nearer to Halo by throwing the dragon into the combination and utilizing it like a Banshee; with the ability to fly throughout this battlefield, raining down fireplace earlier than divebombing right into a miniboss battle, would have helped preserve the tempo and make the dragon really feel extra integral to the expertise. If such a degree exists past what I’ve seen, I’ll be very joyful.
Whatever the general form of the complete marketing campaign, although, I’m fascinated that a lot of what I’ve seen appears like a resurrection and reinterpretation of concepts that have been as soon as thought-about an ill-fit for the collection. Little or no of the cancelled Doom 4 was launched for the general public to see, however a Kotaku report from 2013 paints a definite image. “There have been a variety of scripted set items,” a supply instructed the publication, amongst them allegedly an “compulsory car scene.” And that’s precisely what we’ve bought within the Atlan and dragon sections – mechanically easy scripted sequences that hark again to the novelty car ranges of Xbox 360-era shooters.
Talking to Noclip in 2016, id Software program’s Marty Stratton confirmed that Doom 4 “was a lot nearer to one thing like [Call of Duty]. Much more cinematic, much more story to it. Much more characters round you that you’re with all through the course of the gameplay.” All that was scrapped, and so it’s genuinely fascinating to see a lot of it return in The Dark Ages. It is a marketing campaign set to characteristic massive boarding motion setpieces, lusciously rendered cinematics, a a lot wider solid of characters, and big lore reveals.
The query now could be: have been these concepts at all times a foul thought for Doom, or have been they only a dangerous thought once they seemed an excessive amount of like Name of Obligation? A part of me is simply as skeptical because the followers who as soon as decried “Name of Doom”, however I’m additionally excited on the thought of id Software program lastly making that method work by grafting it on to the now-proven fashionable Doom method.
The beating, gory coronary heart of The Dark Ages unquestionably stays its on-foot, gun-in-hand fight. Nothing on this demo steered that it’s going to not be centre stage, and the whole lot I performed affirms it is one other implausible reinvention of Doom’s core. I believe that alone is powerful sufficient to assist a complete marketing campaign, however id Software program clearly has different designs. I’m shocked that a few the studio’s new concepts really feel so mechanically slim, and I’m involved that they may really feel extra like contaminants than contemporary air. However there’s nonetheless much more to see, and solely in time will these fractured demo missions be contextualised. And so I eagerly await Might fifteenth, not simply to return to id’s unequalled gunplay, however to fulfill my curiosity. Is Doom: The Dark Ages a very good late-2000s FPS marketing campaign or a messy one?
Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Options Editor.