Doomed by the Dark Ages of Optimization ⭐☆☆☆☆ (Note: I have about 2 hours in but steam is showing a lot less because I switched to offline mode due to crashing) AAA gaming in 2025 has officially gone to Hell, and not in the fun, shotgun-in-each-hand kind of way. I'm so tired of fighting the game before I can even fight in the game. Trying to play DOOM: The Dark Ages feels less like ripping and tearing and more like begging and praying that the game doesn't turn my PC into molten slag. Look, I just want to enjoy a video game. I shouldn’t have to run tech support for an hour just to squeeze out a stuttery 45fps. I have good hardware. Like, stupidly good hardware. Most people would assume a 4090 and a 7900X would tear through a DOOM title considering that it's the original universal game that runs on everything. But nope. What used to be "plug and play" is now "tweak and pray." Owning high-end hardware doesn’t mean much when every new release tries to turn your rig into a sacrificial offering. That said, if you've ever wanted to watch your GPU burst into flames while rendering a torch-lit corridor at 17fps, DOOM: The Dark Ages has you covered. Forget demons, your real enemy is the graphics settings menu, which might as well be the final boss. Every AAA game now needs DLSS and Frame Gen just to hit a desired framerate that's even close to what my monitor supports. It’s absurd—especially when the last two DOOM games were optimized so well. So who at id thought baking ray tracing into the engine permanently was a good idea? Whoever it was, they deserve to be trapped in a mirrored lava room where every surface reflects their mistakes. I booted it up on “Ultra Nightmare” thinking it was a challenge mode—not realizing it was describing the optimization. There’s literally a preset called that. Bold choice. You can’t turn off ray tracing either. Even on “Low” settings I'm barely hitting 60fps natively, which also changes almost nothing visually, you’re stuck with ray tracing so aggressive it might as well be tracing your soul. The whole game looks like a demonic funhouse with RTX on cocaine. It’s like they cooked ray tracing into the engine with a Hellforge and now it’s fused at the molecular level. It’s almost poetic. A game set in the Dark Ages ends up representing them in terms of modern tech. What’s next? A $70 "Performance Pass" that lets you turn off bloom? But besides that how's the game actually play? Well, yes, the game is metal as hell. But look, we need to talk about the elephant in the blood-soaked throne room: they removed Glory Kills. Gone. Axed. The very mechanic that made DOOM 2016 and Eternal feel so visceral, so kinetic, so alive—ripped out like a Revenant’s spine. Glory Kills weren’t just for flair; they were the heart of the loop. The brutal ballet of staggering a demon, charging in with a spine-shattering finisher, and getting a reward for your aggression? That was pure game play genius. It kept the tempo fast, rewarded skill, and let you control the chaos. Now? You just charge and parry like you're playing some weird version of first person Sekiro. It sucks the fun of getting to see all of those gory and bloody finishers right out of the combat. For a game all about ripping and tearing, it’s wild how much less satisfying it feels to, well... rip and tear. It's also missing a fundamental that made the first two Doom reentries an amazing audio experience. Mick Gordan. Let's not forget the real hellish saga behind the scenes. Remember the Mick Gordon debacle during DOOM Eternal? The man who gave us the iconic, pulse-pounding soundtrack was subjected to a development process that was, frankly, infernal. Gordon worked for months without pay, was excluded from key decisions, and was blindsided by the announcement of the official soundtrack before he even had a contract. When he finally did get to work on the OST, he was given a mere 29 days to complete it, only to find out that id Software had been working on an alternative version for six months without his knowledge. The final product included a mix of his tracks and poorly edited versions of his in-game music, leading to a public fallout that saw Gordon distancing himself from the project entirely. It's a stark reminder that the demons aren't just in the game—they're in the boardrooms too. But wait! There's more! DRM: Kernel-level anti-cheat in a single-player game. Fantastic. Just what I needed! An angry daemon scanning my background processes while I try to rip and tear. Apparently, RGB lighting software is more dangerous than a baron of Hell now. My BIOS hasn’t been this insulted since I let Windows auto-update during a firmware flash. I miss when you could just... buy a game from a respected company and expect it to be pretty good. We had that era. Now it's rolling dice with the odds against you while everyone points and laughs at you for pre-ordering a game in 2025. Well I'm glad I did, because now I can warn some of you reading this to please stay away from this game. At least until they fix it 8 months from now when it's 75% off (Gotta love that) At the end of the day, DOOM: The Dark Ages probably a genuinely fun game buried alive under the smoldering rubble of modern PC gaming sins. It doesn’t feel like I’m playing a shooter—it feels like I’m participating in an interpretive dance about the death of optimization. If you listen closely while your PC wheezes, you can hear Carmack somewhere in the distance… screaming in binary. Final Verdict: DRM+RTX/10 They promised Rip and Tear — Instead I got Lag and Despair.

I remember the first time I played Doom. It was December 25th, 2016. I was a ten-year-old kid living with a condition known as MD. I couldn’t walk. My world was a bed, a ceiling, and the slow crawl of time. To escape, I sketched heroes battling devils in a notebook which was my only outcry against the stillness. That morning, my mother gave me a Christmas gift. A single blue game disc case and a PS4 console. It was the first game she ever bought for me. But it wasn’t just a game. It was the beginning of something much bigger, and I played until my hands ached. For once, the pain didn’t come from my muscles failing. It came from living that moment fully. That game didn’t just save me from boredom. It reminded me I could still be strong. Doom 2016 became my lifeline. Suddenly, the world around me changed. The pain. The stillness. The silence. They all vanished like smoke on the wind. The music thundered like it came from the core of the Earth. The title screen roared with fury. And in that moment, I was no longer a fragile kid in a broken body. I was the Doom Slayer. I tore through Hell like I belonged there. Chainsaw in hand, my movements felt like instinct. I didn't just kill them, I lived it. The rhythm of destruction was its own kind of healing. In this world full of fire, demons, and rage, I somehow found peace. Time slipped away. Hours felt like seconds. I memorised every level, every rune trials, every secret wall. I had no guide. No YouTube. My slow 2G GPRS internet was no good, all I had was huge patience and luck. And I reached 100% completion. Every achievement, all challenges, on my own. Back then, that game was everything to me. And even now, I see it with the same wonder I saw at ten. Every now and then, my mother would sit beside me. She'd watch the screen, quiet and wide-eyed. She came from the days of Ludos and Tetris. To her, this world of demons and metal was like looking into the future. I still remember the day I handed her the controller. She stepped into the arena, tried to fight a Hell Knight. She lost. She laughed. I laughed. She wasn’t made for Hell. But she liked being there with me. She liked seeing me strong. Unstoppable. Free. It was my refuge. It became our bridge. And now, nine years later, it returns with The Dark Ages. The world has changed. I have changed. I’m 19 now. And she… well, she is no longer here. She passed away from COVID in 2021. I missed Doom Eternal, things were rough then, money was tight, and life became very challenging over here. But that storm has passed, since I earn now. I can finally buy what I want. This new Doom looks different, but the heart is still there, at least for me. As I stare once more into the red skies of Hell, I hear echoes of a younger me. And somewhere inside it, I hear her laugh again. That same laugh when she lost to the Hell Guards. That same warmth of her hands on mine. This game is a window now. A way back to a time when she was still here. Sometimes a tear slips out. I don’t know if it’s sorrow or gratitude. Maybe both. Maybe it’s love that never found enough room in words. All I know is that I miss her. More than I can ever say. And Doom is the bridge. Wherever she is now, I know she’s happy, free from pain, wrapped in light, at peace. Thank you for everything, Ma. Love you Forever ❤️

One step forward, two steps back.

(Hour= Steam offline mode, did %100 completion in 21 hours.) Doom Eternal built on the solid foundation laid by the series’ 2016 reboot, evolving the classic, fast-paced first-person action by adding a complex layer of strategy and quick decision-making. While this shift was well-received, it did alienate some players who preferred the more straightforward gameplay of its predecessor—focused on constant movement, juggling resources, and frequently swapping weapons—all of which could sometimes detract from the pure joy of nonstop demon slaying. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3482099750 Doom: The Dark Ages doesn’t step back, though. Instead, it finds a middle ground by bringing back a thrilling power fantasy with simpler, yet satisfying mechanics that push the combat into fresh, new territory for the series. The game puts a big focus on standing your ground in combat, rather than constantly moving around. To help with that, you’re permanently equipped with a shield that lets you parry enemy attacks and block incoming damage. It’s a versatile tool—you can soak up hits or redirect damage with well-timed blocks and parries—allowing you to face down more enemies at once than ever before. But true to Doom’s style, the best defense often comes with a heavy dose of offense. Your shield is more than just protection—it’s a deadly weapon. When you’re not slicing demon heads off with its chainsaw edges, you can bounce it between enemies or use it to shatter armor that’s been superheated by your bullets. It’s also great for closing distance, replacing Eternal’s air dash with a powerful shield bash that can reach far across the sprawling battlefields. The shield locks onto distant enemies, and with a quick button press, the Slayer lunges forward to obliterate them in a devastating attack. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488133150 For a series that’s so focused on its arsenal of weapons, it’s interesting that the biggest change comes from adding a defensive tool. But with all the variety and depth the shield brings to the gameplay, it’s an upgrade that’s hard to imagine playing without. You still need to manage health and ammo by taking down demons, but less so than in Doom Eternal. The focus here is on a rhythm of balancing parries and melee attacks. You have powerful moves on cooldowns that shorten with successful parries. Charging a demon with a shield bash, parrying strikes, then counter-attacking feels satisfying and gives each fight a tactile, impactful rhythm. The weight behind your hits is amplified by just how physically imposing the Doom Slayer feels this time around. He’s always been an unstoppable force of destruction, but The Dark Ages really drives home his battlefield presence. Every jump down from a ledge ends with an earth-shaking thud, smashing nearby enemies to bits like a classic superhero landing. It’s insanely satisfying to make that entrance before a big fight, with the enemy hordes visibly trembling in fear. That said, movement feels different too. You no longer have a double jump or air dash, encouraging you to carefully pick your fights and stand your ground until you’re done. But don’t mistake that for slow gameplay—Doom has always been about quick, brutal kills and snapping your aim to the next target, and The Dark Ages keeps that frantic energy alive. It’s just noticeably slower than Eternal, which might take some getting used to, but it fits perfectly with the new combat tools you have at your disposal. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3489156760 All these changes take a bit of time to click, making the first hour or so feel a bit uneven. The early chapters do a solid job of slowly introducing new mechanics, but the pacing takes a hit when you’re frequently interrupted by tutorial pop-ups. Plus, your new abilities only really start to mesh once you’ve upgraded your weapons and found some devastating synergies. But the payoff is worth it—once everything comes together, Doom: The Dark Ages nails that power fantasy, letting you mow down enemies that gave you trouble just hours before, and revel in how your skills and gear have leveled up with every fight. Doom: The Dark Ages doesn’t throw away the series’ legacy just because it’s diving deep into melee combat. The weapon lineup brings back classic favorites, while cleverly tweaking some to fit the medieval setting. It’s still a blast to blast demons up close with the Super Shotgun — which feels right at home in a game all about getting up in your enemies’ faces — but it’s the newer weapons that kept me hooked, offering a perfect mix of fun and usefulness. One standout is a railgun-like rifle that fires a cannonball attached to a chain, smashing armored foes with a shockwave. Another weapon literally chomps on skulls and fires the shattered bits like bullets — basically a rapid-fire gatling gun that’s perfect for crowd control. These weapons are clearly inspired by the medieval vibe of the game’s world, changing familiar designs just enough to feel fresh and exciting. The Dark Ages also pulls you into its setting with much larger, open-ended levels to explore. These hubs are packed with multiple objectives, secrets, and challenges — and you get to decide the order and pace you tackle them. It’s like an expanded version of the secret-filled, linear levels from the 2016 reboot and Eternal, but with way more to discover and more creative hiding spots. The standout is the Cosmic Realm, a completely new area inspired by Lovecraftian horror, offering some memorable side quests. None of these hubs ever feel empty or oversized; they’re filled with demon battalions that keep the fights messy and intense. Plus, the mix of more linear sections balances things out nicely, keeping the 22-chapter campaign feeling fresh and varied. However, The Dark Ages stumbles a bit when it steps outside these tight core mechanics. Scattered through the campaign are moments where you pilot a giant mech in epic kaiju-style battles or ride a heavily armored dragon with glowing energy wings across huge battlefields. While these sequences are introduced in cool ways, their gameplay feels shallow. Whether you’re in the mech or on the dragon’s back, it basically boils down to finding enemies and wading through slow, drawn-out fights focused on timing dodges and trading hits. These sections feel like they belong in a completely different game compared to the crisp, well-balanced foot combat, and honestly, they just make you eager to get back on solid ground and fight demons the Doom way. The focus on melee combat fits seamlessly with the classic Doom pace, making every parry and counter-attack just as thrilling as the first. It’s a carefully crafted experience that delivers the raw power fantasy of tearing through hordes of demons, without losing the complexity that keeps every fight exciting. Although it occasionally stumbles when it strays too far from what made the series great, Doom: The Dark Ages proves there’s still plenty of untapped potential here. Sometimes, smart and measured tweaks can push the franchise into new territory and deliver some of its finest moments yet. +The shield and parry system is well integrated into the game +Still plenty of great Doomguy moments +Supports all current technologies and runs very smoothly -The overall theme and atmosphere can’t even come close to Doom Eternal. -The exploration aspect kills the action vibe -Boring cutscenes, tedious dragon and mech sections, and weapon swapping is too slow. -When Mick Gordon left, the music turned into something that sounds like TV demo tracks.

Review Score: 77/100

DOOM 2016 Review DOOM Eternal Review

It’s not just a game. It’s a pilgrimage. A brutal, blood-soaked, 120-FPS pilgrimage where your only god is a spiked flail that turns skulls into prayer beads.

I don't think DOOM: The Dark Ages is a *bad* game, but I really can't say that I would recommend it. Too much of the gameplay has been boiled down to "stand around and press the parry button when the game tells you to" and it's missing a lot of what I liked about Eternal, which was on the fly thinking and using smart movement, positioning, and enemy prioritization to win fights. Encounter design in this game is especially lackluster - almost every single arena is just in a boring, kind of flat way too big area with maybe a few rocks or walls around in places, and enemy usage isn't very interesting or threatening either. Mech/dragon segments are cool in concept, but in execution are incredibly boring. Both of them are mainly "hold down fire button, dodge when the game tells you to dodge." You don't ever have to dodge or weave multiple attacks at once in these sections, or make sure to position yourself well to avoid certain attacks. Hold fire, press dodge when you see green on the one enemy attacking you, that's it. The weapon upgrade system relies too heavily on secret hunting in boring, empty levels where for some reason even though they already fixed this problem in Eternal it is once again possible to get locked out of areas so you have to replay the entire level if you missed a secret too early on - which is a shame because I really like the new weapon upgrades! It feels significantly better than the mod system of 2016/Eternal where you were ONLY using the mods most of the time, but if you want to upgrade everything you're going to need to constantly open your map to make sure that you're not missing out on any important resources. (also... why even bother calling them secrets if now they're just visible on your map by DEFAULT? lmao) The game is a huge mixed bag. For every genuinely good change from Eternal or fun idea, there's something else that feels bad or at the least confusingly designed. I didn't hate my time with it but I'd have a really hard time saying it's worth picking up over other games - especially at this price point.

I opened the game, 100%ed it, closed the game, best 28 hours of my life

PURE TESTOSTERONE

Doom The Dark Ages is a heavy hitter. It’s not fast and twitchy like Doom Eternal. This one slows things down. You’re not dashing around, you’re stomping forward like a tank. You stand your ground. You fight. And it feels amazing. Combat is all about power. Every weapon has weight. Every hit lands with impact. You’re not just clearing rooms, you’re crushing demons with sheer force. It’s intense but not chaotic. The story is there and it adds to the atmosphere, but you don’t need it to enjoy the game. The gameplay does all the talking. You’re dropped into a brutal world, and the goal is simple: survive and destroy everything that moves. The music fits the tone. Dark, gritty, and moody. It’s not as aggressive as Mick Gordons work, and yeah, that edge is missed. But whats here still drives the action and matches the medieval hellscape vibe. Just raw, satisfying violence without the noise. If you want speed, look elsewhere. But if you want to feel like a medieval war machine stomping through hell, this Doom is for you. It’s slow, brutal, and ridiculously fun.

TLDR: Very meh. Definitely not worth full price unless you're a die hard fan, and even then that is a stretch. The "Stand and Fight" version of The Doomslayer is cool on paper, but it wasn't executed very well and paired with other poor choices, this game is a pretty big step back from previous titles. There are a few reasons for this, and I'll just quickly list off why: It is hard to overstate just how poor of a choice id made by not including glorykills. Removing glorykills for nearly everything is just a massive downgrade. In this game you'll get an enemy low, and instead of getting a chance to activate a glorykill you instead swing your melee weapon for free. It is particularly annoying that some mobs DID get glorykills, but there are only a few and they are not consistent at all. Every now and again you'll activate one and saw a Mancubus in half, or behead a Hell Knight. For a second it feels incredibly satisfying and cinematic until you realize that combat doesn't include such moments 99% of the time. The fact that there are a handful of glorykills in the game on non-boss enemies leads me to believe the content just wasn't ready in time and they shipped it anyway. This leads into the problems with combat: there is almost no pressure on the player ever. If glorykills aren't going to be in the game, the rest of the combat needs to be satisfying right? Well, sorta. The parry mechanic they added is good, but it is incredibly over used. Most of the enemies that aren't chaff are primarily defeated by parrying their attacks. This leads you to some weird circumstances where you're just sitting around waiting for them to do something so you can parry and fight back. That is, until you upgrade just one of your weapons. Once you do that you can just run through basically the entire campaign spraying everything to death with it. There is no incentive beyond personal flavor to pick different weapons, they all perform at relatively the same level (except for the Skullcrusher weapons, those things are leagues ahead of everything else DPS wise). It isn't like the other Dooms where you need to swap weapons in order to have the right tool for the right target. No, in this game you can just hold down M1 and basically get the same results across the board. Everything feels equally powerful/viable for everything and as a result none of the weapons really stand out from each other. The way you get upgraded weapons is also a big letdown. You have to run all over these very large maps collecting gold, hunting "side bosses", and solving puzzles. This ends up doing something really weird to the Doom formula: for the player to upgrade their equipment they must spend a LOT of time wandering around giant, empty maps collecting stuff all over the ground. I don't just mean the player has to take a little break from the combat to grab these things as he passes through. If you are collecting most things as you go in order to upgrade your gear you are spending *significantly* more time running around empty fields and corridors than you are fighting. Crossing the map for a key, backtracking to unlock a door and collect 25 gold, etc. It just really sucks compared to the way you got these upgrades in the past. In the previous Doom titles combat was never that far away. For many of the upgrades/secrets in those games you had to complete extremely intense encounters, where in this game you get them from wandering around and solving "puzzles" that mostly consist of checking the map to see where you are supposed to jump off a cliff to land in the secret area below. A couple of the puzzles got pretty interesting in the last 1/4 of the game, but by then you're so exhausted collecting all these trinkets that have been spread across the lands like Dragonballs that what interest you might've had is outweighed by how annoying the process has been the entire game. Then is the overall difficulty. This is a significantly easier game compared to the last two Doom titles and most of it has to do with the amount of encounters in the game paired with the overall lack of intensity. Even the "hard" encounters against mini bosses are a total breeze. There are a few gore nests that can be completed as optional objectives, they too are incredibly easy. The only standout difficult encounter comes on the last mission, where 2-3 Cyberdemon tier enemies come after you at the same time. Even still, you have access to multiple one shot mechanics and can parry most of the damage. It's like id forgot how to pair enemy types to create genuine problems for the Slayer, and there are significantly less dangerous enemies overall. It feels like you spend little time fighting and more time walking from one symbol on your map to another. It is a REALLY bad combo. I seriously cannot overstate how little of the game is combat if you plan on 100%'ing pretty much any of the missions. I've repeated it a few times in this review but it is by far the games weakest area and it is basically a requirement because upgrades are all locked behind it. For me, Doom Eternal with DLC was a 9.5, borderline 10. This game is clocking in at a mild 6-6.5, and that is being optimistic. This game took several steps backward. With the lack of variety in combat, the lack of pressure on the player, the lack of difficult combat encounters, the lack of glorykills/dynamic gameplay, lackluster weapon implementation, lame "puzzles", frustrating map design/obligatory trinket collection, a pretty underwhelming story, and a mostly forgettable soundtrack all come together to create a very "meh" experience for a Doom title. There are just too many missteps when it came to how things were put together in this game, and I say that with heavy heart as one of this franchises biggest fans. For now, hope that the DLC or some sort of update redeems these qualities and get it when its half off.

Forced Ray Tracing is tragic it tanks any potential performance the game might be capable.

You can chop both demon's arms and they will stare at you until death, 10/10 game

Be aware that this game forces Ray Tracing on, and will physically prevent you from booting it up if your computer can't support it. I suspect a lot of potential customers without high-end rigs will end up getting left behind because of this, myself included.

It’s incredible to see ID software put out 3 completely different combat frameworks for a FPS in the last decade. Each game is different while being distinctly DOOM. Not many publishers take that kind of risk. DOOM 2016 asked you to run and gun. DOOM Eternal asked you to jump and shoot. While DOOM The Dark Ages asks you to stand and fight. Imagine these 3 games were your kids. They are all different and You love them all equally for their unique qualities.

I requested a refund, and it has nothing to do with the gameplay, but rather with the Denuvo crap. For some reason, it invalidated my license and now says I need to wait 24 hours (this has been the case since 48 hours ago) to attempt re-verification. The early access was the sole reason I chose the Premium over the Standard edition. Furthermore, while looking for a solution to my problem, I found that there are many technical issues, such as loop crashes before reaching the title screen on certain CPU/GPU combinations. To reiterate, this isn't about the gameplay; I enjoyed the 30 minutes I was able to play. As Doom fan, probably gonna buy again when they remove the Denuvo layer of crapability

The game is fine. You can play it, it runs great, you'll be entertained. But if you're like me and made the mistake of playing DOOM (2016) and/or DOOM: Eternal before playing Dark Ages, you'll be left feeling underwhelmed. COMBAT tl;dr: "Another flavor of DOOM, but definitely not the best flavor." The combat now resembles a "Bullet Hell" style game. Enemies will be numerous and peppered across large areas with bigger, more elite enemies sending projectiles galore at you. Using your handy dandy shield, you'll need to parry all the "green" projectiles to stun or weaken those elite enemies. This is a major departure from the other DOOM games and while I appreciate the id Team trying something new, it's not workin for me. The dev videos will spin a tale about this relentless "push forward" combat mechanic, but in reality it's anything but. You will often spend more time scanning the arena from the back, waiting for the green projectiles to fly over so you can work on weakening the elites and in between parries, probably throw your shield at groups of "fodder enemies." This fodder mechanic basically turns a handful of enemies from the previous games which used to have interesting combat mechanics into one-hit trash mobs. Even the most painfully simple enemies from DOOM (2016) had their place; Imps were squishy, but they'd scurry around and jump on walls and columns hurling fireballs at you which could distract you from bigger threats. Possessed soldiers often were easy to manage, but if you left them alone, their charged shots could become a problem real fast. And the variant that had plasma shields could also be a nuisance, blocking shots and closing in on you while you're trying to juggle mancubus and cacodemons in a room. In Dark Ages, they now stand around in groups being virtually no threat thanks to your shield being able to chop em all in half with one shot. They do try to incorporate some DOOM: Eternal style gun-puzzles where all rail-spike weapons help break armor and plasma weapons explode plasma shields, but you'll likely not find any challenge with this. Now you might be thinking "Well, if fodder enemies are no threat, why would you just sit in the back of the arena?" The problem is pushing forward often punishes you. Glory Kills used to be this awesome visceral moment where you're rewarded for closing in on an enemy with a show and some ammo/health, but now Glory Kills are reserved for bigger enemies and only initiated when you stun them from parrying their green projectiles enough times. There's no variety to them anymore either. You'll see the same kick in the chest, the same uppercut fist to the jaw, the same rip-their-heart-out animation (that one specifically is for enemy leaders, a rare enemy designation that rewards armor upgrades). When you initiate one, often times, you'll see every other enemy big enemy pounce on you, sending you from full armor and health to dead faster than you'd think. You're almost never encouraged to be up close and personal in bullet hell games for this same reason - doing so just leaves you open to other enemy projectile fire. It's better to sit back and clear fodder, clear as many elite enemies from a distance, and only close in when you got one or two left. MUSIC tl;dr: "The lack of Mick Gordon was severely missed." I don't have a ton to say on this, but the music was underwhelming. A few tracks carried some old Mick Gordon vibes, but often the music just didn't hype me up like DOOM (2016) and DOOM: Eternal did. Mick's style of relentless riffing amplified every fight and unfortunately that was not retained in Dark Ages. There was like one or two moments where I did pause the game and was like "Yo, now THAT sounds pretty good," but the rest just left me wanting to pull up Mick Gordon's "Rip and Tear" and play it over the game. STORY tl;dr: "I'm not sure why they did this." Team id decided to try and deliver a cinematic story around the DOOM Slayer. I'll keep it brief: you will not remember any of the character names, you will not remember their faces, and half the time you'll start thinking you're actually playing a new Gears of War or Mortal Kombat story campaign rather than a DOOM game. It's incredible that after seeing all the positive buzz that came from fans appreciating the focus on gameplay over heavy-handed lore and world-building, they decide to reverse course and usher in forgettable characters to serve up a plot that honestly didn't need them. I would've welcomed an approach to story and lore like Elden Ring or even DOOM (2016) where it's mostly found-lore or smart level design that helps you infer things about the world around you without taking the controls away. Instead, Dark Ages gives you these cutscenes that do nothing but leave you scratching your head and wondering "Can I skip this and will I miss anything if I do?" (The answer to that is yes you can skip, and no you will not miss anything). LEVEL DESIGN/GRAPHICS tl;dr: "I'm sorry if you played DOOM (2016) or DOOM: Eternal right before playing Dark Ages" Now let me give some positives: I had no bugs, no issues whatsoever running DOOM: Dark Ages on Ultra settings. I loved the amount of destructible environments in the levels. Punching an enemy in the face not only knocked them back, but it often disintegrated statues, furniture, walls, and other clutter in each of these arenas and it felt amazing, really adding weight to the DOOM Slayer's movement and combat. Scale also was done really well in this game. Some of the enemies are ridiculously big, and sometimes you get very, very big, and so whether you were looking up at a mammoth titan giving a beatdown or you were looking down at miniscule imps fighting against a tiny squad of allies (who you could literally step on or obliterate by collapsing the structures they're fighting on), the changes in scale were actually pretty cool. The problem with the level design is really a problem with the combat. For the "bullet-hell" style combat to work, the designers often needed to provide massive spaces for arena-style fights to allow ample room to juggle the sheer amount of enemies and projectiles on screen. Because the combat needed to account for all the strafing and projectile parrying, what you often will see is these very uninspiring flat landscapes with a severely limited amount of verticality (since projectiles need to be able to travel for long distances, not get stopped by rocky platforms, or terraced ledges, (etc)). This will often result in uninspiring landscapes that are maybe interesting for all of five minutes before you're zooming through the level, totally forgetting where you are or what it looks like. I think this is a shame, because again, looking at back at the other games, the levels often carry such a distinct atmosphere and tone to them; Cyclopean temples and Catacombs full to bursting with skulls and bones, Martian facilities replete with dark maintenance corridors, bloodied hallways, and futuristic laboratories, decimated cityscapes with dilapidated skyscrapers and streets. Dark Ages does try to vary it up and some instance are pretty awesome, but oftentimes you'll feel uninspired to stop and look around you, preferring to quickly rush over to the next combat arena instead. CONCLUSION tl;dr: Play DOOM: Dark Ages if you played the other games and want more DOOM with a different flavor. Prioritize playing DOOM (2016) or DOOM: Eternal if you haven't played them yet. It's not a bad game. You can absolutely have fun with it. I definitely was, but I also was left thinking way too many times "I should stop and play DOOM: Eternal cause I like that better." I wish rather than a thumbs down, I could just have an emote of a guy shrugging. That's how I feel about it.

annoying awful screen effect you cant disable when sprinting, and auto sprint is disabled by default. as well as the game slows down time EVERY SINGLE MELEE HIT no wonder the developers are claiming this is the longest game theyve ever made, theyre extending the playtime by making half the combat MANDATORY SLOW MOTION. $150 down the drain. what a fucking waste i could have donated it to a palestine charity. everyone involved with the making of this game is a criminal

They should've fired Marty Stratton the moment Mick revealed the truth. The game can be fun at times, and I liked the story, but it's definitely levels below Eternal. The soundtrack is non existent. It's like me opening a random video on Youtube while I'm playing something else so that there's just a sound in the background. It literally makes you think "now it'll go hard, that's the drop" but then the music fades away. I can not express how many levels below it is compared to 2016 and Eternal and I'm not even taking what happened between Mick Gordon and Marty into account when I say it. It's made just so the game has a background music. The gameplay loop is fun but the difficulty is just straight up random. I've played on nightmare difficulty but it definitely wasn't "nightmare" difficulty. I don't want to believe that they just didn't even try to balance the difficulties because there are sliders now in the game but it feels like they tried so hard for the game to be for everyone at the same time even at higher difficulties. I wish instead of this much sliders, they'd add less sliders but more set difficulties. The game is much more slower than Doom Eternal but it still makes you feel like you're fast. It's not a complaint from me but just a heads up. There is a speed modifier but it's just goofy. It was disappointing to see that the speed modifier also affects the voice lines. If i wanted my *whole* game to be at %150 speed I could have used cheat engine. I'm not sure what else to add. Just keep in mind that this game is available in gamepass. It uses denuvo (surprisingly my PC ran it much better than I expected) and don't let it be forgotten that Marty Stratton is an evil human being.

The game is okay but the price is not - I refunded it since I just don't see $70 in here. I'll purchase it once it's half price at least.

Avoid this garbage. As if the miserably poor performance wasn't bad enough. The gameplay design team at id have lost the thread. Combat in this game is atrociously bad. They've completely walked away from the run and gun, pulse pounding pleasure of DOOM. Instead, they've decided on a ludicrously involved, stupidly unfun shield and parry mechanic. You're actually penalized for running the field and attempting to play fast and dodge. Shots home in at ridiculous angles, the parry mechanic is a joke, and the slayer is a weakling. Melees are promoted as a key aspect of gameplay, then gated behind stupidly low 'ammo' count. Why in the hell does the slayer need ammo to punch a demon in the face? That's not a rhetorical question, I'd legitimately love to know why the slayer can't just punch demons in the face as much as he'd like. Why does his bare fist have a cooldown and max use limit? Furthermore, you get punished for closing in to perform a melee combo because 90% of the time it leaves you locked into an animation set while everything around you lights you up, and the demon you're supposedly pounding on wakes up immediately after the combo. Controls are just as whacked out as having ammo for fists. Movement itself feels tight, but sprinting is junk (and only activates while running forward, for real). There are far too many inputs for a game that should be about slaughtering hell's army. Every little thing has a button, and- frequently - once they're established they no longer actually matter. This is most strikingly exemplified in the case of ascending and descending while riding on the dragon. The game stalls out to teach you that ascend and descend are mapped to Q and E. Shortly after, you're expected to perform directional dodges, which don't actually utilize the keys you just learned. Instead, when you need to dodge up or down you simply hold up or down and press space. Changing weapons with the mouse wheel takes forever, causing serious issues in the flow of combat, because the game forces the player to watch each gun wielding animation before proceeding, rather than letting them quickly scroll through. The weapon wheel option is unresponsive, and takes its sweet time to pop up. Subsequently attempting to select a weapon using the weapon wheel is a buggy experience that also- of course- interferes with aim. Speaking of laggy inputs, everything seems to be on some weird delay. The aforementioned melee mechanic is a highlight of this, the effect seems to happen well after the button press because of the drawn out animation sequence, and then doesn't respond quickly enough to make it feel like it's registered; simultaneously, it has a weird range that feels both too far and not far enough. Demon shots are abject garbage, with some taking a significant amount of time to actually move across the field, while others seem to hitscan out of nowhere (taking a significant chunk of armor and health with them). The projectiles have strange, counter-intuitive horizontal movement that doesn't seem correct, thanks largely to the weird homing effect they all have, and they regularly ignore walls and other cover. Field awareness is poorly telegraphed and handled at large, with demons regularly spawning out of thin air behind the slayer. In the traditional DOOM experience, this wouldn't be problematic since movement largely helps with avoiding shots. In this DOOM, movement counts for nothing, and thanks to the stupid homing nonsense you get wrecked trying to play the field. The parry windows are awkward and nonsensical. This is owing to the fact that sometimes enemies slow down dramatically, almost pausing, which screws up the entire flow of combat, while other attacks seem to proceed at lightning pace with no real clear window for the actual parry- you just have to spam and hope you hit it, which contributes to the input lag as the game does a weird slow down effect sometimes well after the fact. On top of all this, you'll frequently be locked into animations that force you to take damage as a result of the mechanics at play. It sucks across the board. This is the worst DOOM game since DOOM 3. The feel is awful, and entirely antithetical to DOOM. While it's nice to have a story, to then shackle it to this miserable combat system is a travesty. The graphics are nice, but poorly optimized to say the least (a 4090 with a 7950X3D only getting slightly over 60 FPS is g a r b a g e). Why in the hell is ray tracing a requirement for this game? The maps are massive and open, but then hamstrung by the fact that if you try and actually utilize all that space to run and gun you're punished for it. It's hard to enjoy any of the attention to detail or other things that went into making this game because the combat is just that bad. DOOM: The Dark Ages indeed, because they've gone back to the dark ages with the controls and gameplay on this one, and it's made all the worse for it. The only saving grace for all this is that I got this key from a friend, though I feel terrible that they paid money for it, because id does not deserve it. This game sucks.

A Brutal Medieval Bloodbath – In the Best Way Possible

Doom: The Dark Ages is the most metal history lesson you’ll ever get. Forget textbooks, this is a gritty, gory, and glorious trip back to a demon infested Dark Age where you're the one writing the legend... in blood. Taking everything you love about Doom and giving it a medieval twist, this game is bold, brutal, and unexpectedly fresh. You’re not just the Doom Slayer you’re a myth, a warrior, and an unstoppable force of rage with a shield saw.

What I'm Really Digging

1) That Setting Hits Hard: Gothic castles, ash-filled skies, towering demons in armor. it's like Dark Souls and Doom had a blood-soaked baby. The atmosphere is thick with dread and badassery. 2) The New Melee Focus: The combat feels heavier, more grounded. Trading some of the speed for pure, unfiltered carnage with that Skull Crusher mace and shield-saw? Yes please. Every hit feels earned and devastating. 3) Dragons. Yes, Dragons: You ride a freaking dragon. And pilot a giant mech. Doom's never been subtle, but this? This is ridiculous in the best way. 4) Doom Lore Goes Deep: There's more story here than you’d expect, exploring the Slayer’s origins adds weight to the chaos. It still doesn’t slow things down, but it gives everything more meaning. 5) It Looks Insane: The visual design is top-tier. From glowing hell-forges to haunted villages, the art direction is relentless. Plus, it runs buttery smooth, even with all the carnage happening on screen.

Why I Recommend This Game:

If you're a fan of Doom but wanted something a little different, this is it. The game doesn’t just slap a medieval skin on an old formula. It reinvents parts of it while staying loyal to what makes Doom Doom. The new combat style, the insane set-pieces, and the expanded lore all hit just right.

Absolutely Worth Your Time and Money

This game delivers a brutal, cinematic experience with a satisfying balance of old-school carnage and new ideas. It’s confident, stylish, and unforgettable. Whether you're in it for the demon-slaying or the sheer spectacle, Doom: The Dark Ages absolutely rips and tears. Bonus: Developers honored regional pricing, making the game much more affordable for players in different regions.  🎅Would Appreciate If You Follow My Curator Page🎅 Would mean a lot if you supported me there, would help me create more quality reviews.

The worst DOOM release. Non-existent QA. Simple things like keybinds/re-mapping do not work. Currently unplayable. Not to mention early access is joke. To add insult to injury, horrible performance issues/scaling and poor design choices like mandatory RT. I hope there is a class action lawsuit. Update. After playing another six hours. keybind bugs absolutely ruin the game. Dodging on the Atlan is a hot garbage experience. I'm sure now that this was designed more with a console controller experience in mind. Hugo and Marty can get proper fucked for ruining DOOM.

I love the setting but this is by far the weakest entry of the three. Music is rather absent in a lot of places. Game is much easier compared to the others - even on the hardest difficultly this feels like a cake walk. I don't play Doom for the story but this one force feeds it the entire game and it is cliche and boring as fuck. The game relies heavily on the parry/dodge mechanic and the windows to do so are pretty large even turned to the minimum in the settings. Everything you do is in slow mo which is cool the first time then gets old fast with the same animations over and over. Lastly, optimization was one of the best things of Doom on PC. This is not even near the performance of the old Dooms at their time of release and the hardware they had to run on. One of my biggest gripes is the Mech and Dragon gameplay feels incredibly shoehorned and rushed so they could hype it up in the trailers. When you play it, instead of feeling like a badass, it feels like an old school Spyro minigame. For a Doom game. This just screams SAFE. They didn't want to do anything crazy or more controversial than just killing Demons or adding any mechanics that would actually change the game up from its predecessors too much.

Wake the fuck up Slayer, Lets get to work. Runs beautifully, no slutters, gameplay is smooth and satisfying. OST is good. RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE!

not worth $120 AUS but still fun for a Doom game (partner bought it for me coz wtf, why is it $120)

It's NOT a bad game. I took my time and completed it 100% on Nightmare mode, I enjoyed it. IMO this is still very much a Doom game despite the change in style. I just don't recommend it at the full price of $70 USD, not until there's a discount. Main reason? You're paying extra money for lower quality content than Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal on release. -As many have pointed out, no Mick Gordon so the soundtrack suffered greatly. There was nothing memorable about Dark Ages' soundtrack. -Both Doom 2016 and Eternal had campaign, multiplayer and snapmap (2016 only) on day one. Dark Ages only has campaign, nothing else. -You must be online the entire time. There's no reason at all to require a constant online connection in a single player only game. Both Doom 2016 and Eternal's campaign could be played day one, offline. Nor did the previous 2 games have intrusive Denuvo DRM. -Compared to Nightmare mode on Doom 2016 and Eternal, Nightmare mode in Dark Ages was too forgiving. Yes there's difficulty sliders but if I need to turn up the sliders to experience a challenge, what's the point in adding a Nightmare mode? It's either id Software was too lazy or had no confidence making a proper Nightmare mode or it's to pander to casuals, who aren't even going to bother playing such a high difficult mode. id Software and Bethesda are now owned by Microsoft so I don't have confidence in them addressing issues like these in any meaningful fashion. They don't need to try anymore, there's very little financial blowback if their game does not sell well. It's all about appealing to the lowest common denominator and "players reached."

ITS WOKE update: ITS SUPER WOKE