Doom: The Dark Ages (2025) is the third installment of id Software's contemporary revival of the legendary first-person shooter. It is also another reminder of how unafraid this developer is to innovate on well-established series norms. Gone are the tight Martian corridors of Doom (2016) and the high-flying Escherian arenas of Doom: Eternal (2020). In their place stands a medieval-themed semi-open world that feels equal parts Dark Souls (2011) gloom and Rammstein music video, but still remain unmistakably Doom, even if the demons bleed just a little easier than before.

Doom: The Dark Ages is leaner, friendlier, and engineered for a wider audience. On default settings, the new game is noticeably more forgiving than its predecessors. The combat puzzle that once demanded flawless bunny hops and 6,000 APM weapon swapping strategies has been replaced with gentler cooldowns, forgiving parry windows, and a fully featured difficulty slider suite that lets players tailor the experience to their liking.

While series veterans will bemoan the changes to the default difficulty settings, specifically the Nightmare setting—which has previously acted as a sort of gut check for fans wanting to prove themselves—the difficulty sliders actually make Doom: The Dark Ages the most difficult Doom ever. Players have options to increase the game speed up to 150%, shorten the parry window to sheer milliseconds, speed up enemy projectiles, or even increase enemy damage. This allows for more creative ways to play the game than ever before, and there's a version of Doom here that might actually be impossible for even the most skilled humans to complete.

My only criticism of the slider system is that the graduations are not granular enough. There is a big difference between doing 50% and 75% damage to enemies. The game would be better served if there were more intermediate options to hone the experience, especially since the upper limits may actually be beyond human capability. This system also makes me want more options, like limiting certain ammo types or modifying specific behaviors of enemies or weapons. Overall, it is a great addition that allows for more replayability than what we normally find on offer for games like this.

Of course, the difficulty changes don't come at the expense of the game's technical execution. Id Software continues to reign supreme as the technical gods of the FPS genre. Doom: The Dark Ages is a coming-out party for Tech 8, Id's in-house game engine. The engine renders the frantic action at frame rates other shooters can only dream of. Texture detail is absurd. Ray-traced puddles faithfully reflect severed limbs as you hack them off enemies. And the game holds 180 fps on my 4090 with little effort. Id bragged they rebuilt the renderer to push more on-screen demons than Doom Eternal ever managed, and this has proven to be true.

Sound, always Doom's secret weapon, hits as hard and makes every shield-bash super shotgun combo drip with satisfaction. While Mick Gordon's genius is sadly absent this time due to infamous conflicts surrounding Doom Eternal's production, Finishing Move Inc does no harm filling the gap. I don't envy the task of trying to follow the work of the man that gave us bangers like BFG Division and Rip and Tear, songs that had had far-reaching influence beyond video games and into the metal genre itself. The score for Doom: The Dark Ages feels like Doom, but sadly there are few tracks that stand out. This won't be a soundtrack you will be blasting in your car while waiting at the drive-thru.

The Doom's combat loop remains the core attraction in Doom: The Dark Ages, and the new guns feel both fresh yet familiar. Among them, the Impaler, a high damage drop shot bullet time sniper stand-in is exceedingly rewarding. The chain shot, which fires a wrecking ball that does massive damage to small groups, will be your go-to weapon for standing toe to toe with the game's toughest enemies. And of course, the BFG makes a return with its medieval version, the BFC, a massive one-shot crossbow.

There are several weapon synergies that will help you unlock the gold Conqueror skins for each weapon mastery, and there are more customization options than there were in Doom Eternal. Doom: The Dark Ages features upgrades for three different melee weapons, weapon mods and runes to give your shield more offensive power. Like in the previous games, there is not a lot of depth as one would expect in something like an ARPG, but there is enough to allow players to adapt to their preferred play style.

The most important weapon in your arsenal is going to be the shield. The Slayer does his best Captain America impression without all the, "We're the good guys" morality to hold them back, of course. The shield serves many functions beyond just protecting the Slayer from incoming damage. Locking on with the shield bash allows the Slayer to fly towards enemies, creating opportunities to initiate encounters by getting up close and personal with weapons like the Super Shotgun or locking on to distant enemies to escape a no-win fight. The shield can also be thrown to take out rows of demons or destroy enemy armor. Most importantly, you can parry incoming green projectiles back at enemies, but more on this mechanic in a moment.

Here's how to do the Shield/Super Shotgun Combo.

Given the movement opportunities that the shield provides, it's surprising that the main criticism of Doom: The Dark Ages has been the game's movement. While it is true that there is no double jump in Doom: The Dark Ages, it is also true that the Slayer's base movement speed is actually faster in this game than the others. The double dash has been replaced with a sprint button, making transitioning from fight to fight faster than it was before.

There is definitely less verticality in Doom: The Dark Ages than there was in Doom Eternal. There are no yellow bars to fling the Slayer up in the air to headshot that imp that has been annoying you all fight. I actually welcome this return to the horizontal plane, as the high-flying acrobatics of Doom Eternal felt more like a departure from the original series than this game does.

As the movement during combat has been reined in from what we played in Doom Eternal, by far the biggest change to combat in this game is the addition of the aforementioned shield parry. Parrying forms the basis for most of the combat in Doom: The Dark Ages. This mechanic is so heavily relied on that there are boss encounters where parrying is the only thing you need to do to win. Several times, I found myself standing motionless before certain bosses, focused solely on hitting parries to quickly counter with the weapon that synergized from the parry.

Yes, mastering parrying was a rewarding boost of confidence and certainly felt engaging when fighting certain bosses. However, it also felt very one-note at times. I certainly don't mind using this technique to win a fight once, twice, or even seven times during a playthrough. But for the number of times a fight was either decided or lost by parrying alone, there were times it felt exceedingly tedious. I am torn over whether this is a step back or an improvement in gameplay. I very much enjoyed the parry mechanic, but I think more variation in the enemy attack patterns could have made instances where this mechanic was needed more rewarding.

Overall, the combat in Doom: The Dark Ages is no less compelling and empowering than what came before, even if it relies too heavily at times on the parry mechanics. Id has opted for a more traditional style of play centered on giving players more choice when engaging most enemies and less on avoidance and resource management. As a result, the fights feel smoother than Doom (2016), yet also less like you're spinning plates as in Doom Eternal.

Like the game's combat, the campaign's structure is also more open-ended. There are twenty two chapters that will take you roughly twenty hours to complete if you forego obtaining all the secrets hidden in some rather huge levels. The level design is straightforward enough to not be confusing while being open enough to give the player a sense of exploration, exploring for the collectible toys and power-ups hidden in secret areas.

Unlike some, I enjoyed the dragon flying missions. (Serrat is a good boy and should be treated as such.) They were nice interludes and set up the game's engine to show some spectacular vistas before landing to fight the real fight. They were much better than the giant mech fighting levels, which were pretty, but really lacked any depth to make me want to replay them.

After spending over 40 hours with the game, I can confidently say that Doom: The Dark Ages delivers truck loads of medieval demon-smashing catharsis. The game's mechanics are a solid bedrock for id to give us even more. Doom: The Dark Ages has already shattered Doom Eternal's numbers, with Bethesda calling it "Id Software's biggest launch ever." I can't wait to see what they do with the coming expansions.

While the community appears to be less unified than before on the merits of Doom: The Dark Ages's place in the wider Doom pantheon, I appreciate Id's emphasis on innovation over iteration. I highly recommend picking it up.

See you on the other side.