I’m old. How old? I remember when Wolfenstein and Doom launched. The first ran very well on my 486 computer, while the other couldn’t reach its potential until the Intel Pentium II arrived. Regardless of hardware, they were a sight to behold. Controlling a first-person shooter in a 3D environment was such an exciting bit of gameplay. With Wolfenstein, taking out nazis with insanely built weaponry, such as the BFG, the game was a major step forward in battle experiences.
When Doom was launched, it brought a complete 360 point of view (even looking upward to the sky), a bevy of secrets, larger landscapes, and multiplayer possibilities. All of this and frightful enemies that would find you and at times jump scare you. Oh, and the weaponry became even bigger and better in comparison to Wolfenstein. Doom set a structured standard for FPS games to feed from and use as a blueprint. For lack of a better term, it was groundbreaking.
Both titles laid the groundwork for future games to help build the genre and would change the way players go into a gun-toting battle landscape for decades. And here we are now in 2025. The industry has generations of FPS games and no reason to let up on the genre, especially in the United States. And why should they slow? One FPS game in the Microsoft family makes billions of dollars. It’s a good genre that hasn’t hit its ceiling.
Why all this pomp and circumstance introduction? Well, we were privy to a preview of the next game in id Software’s Doom series. We sat down at a hands-off event for Doom: The Dark Ages. It’s a prequel to their hit Doom: Eternal and brings a bigger world with interesting ways to survive.
So, sit back, relax, and make sure you check your surroundings because we’re about to get into some chaos.
Bigger world, simple story
The Slayer is imprisoned. He must fight his way to freedom and start protecting his medieval land filled full of demonic baddies and horrible nightmares. This is where heroes are made. And that is all we were told.
The story of the Slayer is simple within Doom: The Dark Ages but also connected to Doom: Eternal. The devs wanted to explore how Doom: Eternal came to pass, so they went backward to give more context to the Slayer. While laying out the story, they also felt like they wanted to harken back to what made the original Doom such a treat. By making Doom: The Dark Ages’ world bigger, less linear, and encouraging exploration (outside of blowing the shit out of everything), it allowed them to expand beyond just point and shoot.
During the preview, the devs talked and boasted about how Doom: The Dark Ages is the biggest Doom game in the series. What we saw during the gameplay demonstration was a huge landscape where you could run, hide, or go after mobs of baddies coming from every direction. Is it Skyrim? No, but it’s not the normal Doom landscape and it’s certainly far less linear than one would imagine this series being. For example, there was gameplay where the Slayer went out into a scorched landscape filled full of nasty elements and enemies firing from every direction. Running away from the action seemed to be an option while strafing and taking out multiple targets as far as the eye could see was another.
In all honesty, watching the gameplay unfold reminded me of Destiny 2, though not as huge. There were a lot of nooks and crannies to run around and fight from without feeling claustrophobic from a narrowly built hallway. To date, Doom: Eternal and everything before it was always restrictive in space, though probably by intention to help create bigger scares and more intense battles. This one is not like that. The environments are huge, though what we saw was restrictive in variety (we only got a taste).
Exploration Encouraged
One of the bigger and repeated points during our hands-off preview was how exploration was important. While the landscape is big, the rewards and secrets within the landscape appear to be bigger. Outside of the obvious fact that lore is scattered throughout, and you should find it, exploration brings new abilities, upgrades, and goodies to uncover as you delve deeper into maps. And the devs emphasized exploration as a key to becoming a complete badass.
One interesting note about the exploration and space of the maps is how they kept bringing up the term sandbox. It appears that id did want to make this a huge adventure and take the series off its rails. I suspect that it’s far bigger than we saw in the preview and there are a lot more explorable landscapes that will hide important secrets.
Regardless, exploration was highly encouraged.
Weaponry to kill for in the game
As with every Doom game, the combat is a huge focus of the experience. While there are gobs of enemies and huge monsters to take down, the devs took things a bit further. Further can be a good thing.
Starting with weapons, since the game is a prequel and based on earlier times in the Slayer’s life, the weapons reflect this technological deficiency. One of the biggest parts of the game is a chainsaw shield. Picture a shield and then a chainsaw around the edge. You get the picture. It can be used for defense and up-close offense, and it’s throwable like you were a warped Captain America. Its diverse number of uses make it a fascinating piece of the melee picture. I can see some run/gun/fun with that shield. It looked entertaining in the preview.
Now, on the other hand (literally) there were a few mentions of an Iron Flail, an Electrified Gauntlet, and a weapon called the Skull Crusher. Nah, the latter isn’t a hammer, rather it’s a gun that allows you to take a skull, shove it into a grinding chamber, and spit a shotgun spread of skull fragments at enemies. A gun with skull-based ammo is creative as hell. It looked effective and violent. It fits right in with the series. The weapons we were shown during the preview looked like a good variety that would keep the weapon creativity of the series flowing.
While weapons in the preview seemed effective and fun, the devs talked about how the combat was built with ‘stand and fight’ in mind. The weapons are finite in their range, which means taking the fight to the enemies in close combat scenarios. If you’re a fan of melee and need to be in chaos, then Doom: The Dark Ages seems built for you. With a glory kill system intact, the players are pushed into an up-close-and-personal battle with all the baddies. It’s ridiculously chaotic as it is beautifully violent.
If all this wasn’t enough, then how about getting into a 30-story robot to fight bigger enemies or flying around on a cybernetic dragon? While we only saw glimpses of these two scenarios, the possibilities seem intriguing. I’m not sure if these are a regular option or just part of a level scheme, but their inclusion means more variety to the combat and gameplay. They are additional weapons in the Doom arsenal.
More to come
While we only saw a small glimpse of the gameplay, which was strictly campaign with no multiplayer (no MP in this title), I’m sure there is more to come. They did mention DLC down the road, so more gameplay is in the works beyond the initial release.
Doom: The Dark Ages releases on May 15th, 2025, and will launch on the PC, Xbox, and PS5. We’ll keep you updated as the launch date moves closer.
