HONG KONG – Look, I love first-person shooters, but I’ve never been big into Doom. The original from 1993 — the game credited for redefining the modern first-person genre — was before my time, while the newer games from the franchise’s revival didn’t interest me at all. Until, that is, I went hands-on with Doom: The Dark Ages in a media-exclusive preview of the game in Hong Kong. I can now confidently say that I have a newfound enthusiasm for the legendary franchise and am already counting down the days to when I can play the latest installment in full.
What draws me into The Dark Ages is how well it works as an entry point for new fans who have never played a single Doom game before. Not only is it a prequel to 2016’s Doom and 2020’s Doom Eternal, it also marks an exciting new direction for the franchise, both in gameplay and design. Developer id Software is seemingly turning Doom on its head once again, and it’s doing so without compromising its spirit and identity.
Stand and fight
That said, longtime fans of the franchise need not fear change because, fundamentally, The Dark Ages is still unmistakably Doom. The winning formula remains the same: carve your way through endless hordes of Hell’s demons while heavy metal music plays in the background. And it remains as over-the-top and ultraviolent as ever. Only this time, it’s less jump-and-shoot and more stand-and-fight. The rhythmic acrobatic combat of Eternal is gone and in its place is something weightier and more methodical.
I played a few hours of Doom and Doom Eternal ahead of the preview to acquaint myself with the gameplay and the mechanics of the modern Doom games — I’ve yet to complete them — and only a few minutes into my nearly three-hour hands-on with The Dark Ages, I already felt a difference in the ebb and flow of the new combat system.
Doom Eternal’s combat emphasizes precision, requiring more thoughtful use of the weapons in your arsenal to exploit enemy weak points. Its levels are also designed for vertical movements, where you jump from platform to platform to get the high ground advantage over your enemies.
The Dark Ages, on the other hand, opts for a more aggressive, in-your-face style of combat, where your blunt weapons are your best friends. You absorb attacks with your shield — I’ll get to that later — rush in, and make your enemies pay. Also, instead of vertical movements, combat here is more strafe-heavy, where you have to move side to side to avoid projectiles — same as how you would in a bullet hell game.
Say hello to the Shield Saw
Now, let’s go back to that shield I mentioned. Because, yes, you do get a cool shield in this game, aptly called the Shield Saw, which is essentially what you might get if you were to ever combine a chainsaw with a shield.
Of course, being a shield, you use it to block attacks and projectiles. But because this is Doom, the shield is not just a shield; it’s also a weapon. You can throw it at your enemies and have it return to you, slicing those caught in its path in half, as though you’re some alternate dimension Captain America from Hell.
Throwing it at stronger enemies, however, doesn’t instantly kill them; they’re only stunned. But once they’re stunned, they don’t attack, and you’re free to unleash hell upon them — pun intended — with the weapon of your choice.
You also use the Shield Saw to parry melee attacks or deflect incoming projectiles, another major mechanic of the game’s revamped combat system. To parry or deflect, you have to press block just as you’re about to be hit. A successful parry or deflect staggers your enemies and grants you melee charges, enabling you to go to town on them with your melee weapons.
One catch though: not everything can be parried or deflected. Attacks and projectiles in the game are either green or orange. Green ones can be parried or deflected, while orange ones are blocked or dodged. Enemies can shoot multiple projectiles at once, and they can sometimes be a mix of green and orange. That’s why you have to time your blocks properly.
Also, your melee weapons once again have limited charges, which are consumed each time you use them, so you can’t just mindlessly go up to every enemy and whack them to death. You have to consider when to use them since they can be useful in getting you out of tricky situations.
Then again, you do get a lot more opportunities to use your melee weapons in The Dark Ages than you might in both Doom and Doom Eternal thanks to successful parries and deflects granting charges for you to consume. And I love that because the melee weapons in Doom are always immensely satisfying to use; they deal a lot of damage and are oh-so impactful. And that’s true as well for the three new weapons you can wield in this game: the gauntlet, the mace, and the flail.
The new stand-and-fight philosophy to combat is also a great refresh to the high-speed, high-intensity Doom gameplay formula. And I very much prefer it over the jump-and-shoot philosophy of Eternal. Stand-and-fight encourages aggression and a willingness to get up close and personal to trade blows with demons, which, for me, is a more engaging and intuitive way to play Doom. You’re an unstoppable killing machine, and it’s only appropriate you play like one.
Slay ’em all
The Dark Ages also dramatically widens your play space — or should I say, your slay space.
Some combat sequences have you piloting an Atlan, a 30-story mech that can beat the snot out of building-sized demons with its fists; while others have you take to the skies aboard a cybernetic, fire-breathing dragon.
In terms of combat, both are rather simplistic. The core gameplay of the two mostly revolves around evading attacks and projectiles by timing your dodges perfectly. Doing so unlocks a more powerful attack mode that you’ll need to destroy your objectives and progress through the level.
Despite lacking the depth of the ground combat, I did very much enjoy these first-in-the-franchise combat sequences. They’re fun, mindless palette cleansers between the more intense bouts of demon-slaying. I mean who doesn’t want to wreck shop in a gigantic mech?
New slayers welcome
Apart from the pivot in combat, I think there are two other key changes in The Dark Ages that make it more welcoming for Doom newbies: a story-focused campaign and custom difficulty sliders.
No longer is the story tucked away in optional text logs like they are in Doom and Doom Eternal. In The Dark Ages, the story plays out in the campaign itself, both in cutscenes and gameplay. This is a nice change as it can allow those new to Doom to get into the franchise by simply playing through the campaign. And the game being a prequel, it lets them experience the franchise’s story in chronological order.
The Dark Ages also features custom difficulty sliders that you can play around with. And the options are fairly extensive. You can tweak the parry window, the enemy aggression, and the game speed, among so many other options, enabling you to personalize your Doom experience.
You of course don’t have to touch these sliders if you don’t want to; you can stick to the game’s preset difficulties. They’re just there to help newcomers adjust to the challenge of Doom’s combat. I believe this is worth mentioning to ease the worries of hardcore fans who might think id Software is taking the challenge out of Doom. Because that’s clearly not the intention of the developers.
And when taking account of all the changes in The Dark Ages, I do believe id Software has all the best intentions for making Doom better than it has ever been before. They manage to overcome that tricky sequel hump — well, prequel, in this case — by reinventing and refining the core experience, all while retaining what’s familiar to fans of the iconic franchise. It’s brutal; it’s challenging; and it’s badass. In short, it’s Doom through and through, and I can’t wait to play more.
Oh, lest I forget, the soundtrack is absolutely killer. – Rappler.com
Doom: The Dark Ages releases on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC on May 15, 2025. It will also be available on Game Pass on the same day. Publisher Bethesda sponsored the trip to Hong Kong for the media preview of the game.