'DOOM: The Dark Ages' Review: A Slower, Smarter, Old-School Romp

The Dark Ages’ medieval-inspired experience offers a more grounded combat style with slower projectiles, demanding a tactical approach — far from the seat-of-your-pants, parkour-infused sprintfests of 2020’s superb DOOM Eternal — and in doing so, carves itself a distinct, self-contained, and fresh identity as part of the canon, even if it’s not without its drawbacks.

Streets of beige

As someone who loved DOOM Eternal, it took me a long time to appreciate The Dark Ages for what it is. Between its change of pace, countless tutorials, barrage of new ideas, an underused soundtrack, and a surprisingly dreary art style, your heart rate stays pretty relaxed for the first few hours. It’s far from what you expect after a five-year wait.

From its opening cinematic, DOOM: The Dark Ages tells a story it seemingly expects you to forget, which is fine — bring me someone who can remember, or cares about, the other DOOM narratives — but it focuses on central villain Prince Ahzrak, who looks like the unloved brother of Lilith from Diablo IV; the Slayer conveys more with his iconic scowl than Ahzrak and the wider cast of undeveloped characters combined. While DOOM: TDA’s 15-to-20-hour campaign mode eventually finds its footing in the final third, this lackluster story only adds drabness to the relatively uninspiring art direction and set dressing.

On a technical level, The Dark Ages is one of the smoothest and effortlessly accessible action-FPS games to land on the Xbox Series X, especially given Bethesda’s reputation for day-one performance. It opts for motion blur as standard, but doesn’t need it — it’s sharper and much less stomach-churning to play without it, and you’ll probably want to widen your field of vision while you’re there.

Despite this excellent framerate, the palette is overwhelmingly brown, reminiscent of Fallout 4 or Gears of War. It also lacks blockbuster scenery — those jaw-dropping vistas that made Eternal so breathtaking. Much like the OG DOOM games, The Dark Ages is incredibly utilitarian, focusing on substance over style.

Admittedly, it nails enemy designs, blending the feudal aesthetic with its most recognizable monsters in a way reminiscent of DOOM 3. Between series favorites and newcomers, it surprises you with new approaches to stalwart demons, particularly the Revenant and Pinky.

Defense is the best offense

Across the first four of its 22 chapters, DOOM: The Dark Ages gradually builds its challenge, allowing you to adjust difficulty as you see fit with a class-leading accessibility suite that gives you every tool you need to scale it to your terms. It’s just as well, because while TDA runs at a more pedestrian pace when compared to Eternal, timing is everything.

The heavily promoted Shield Saw isn’t a gimmick — The Dark Ages is built around it, and all the better for it. From the very start, your shield serves plenty of crucial purposes: simple defense; clearing out fodder; holding bigger baddies in place and interrupting their attacks; helping you close enemy gaps as a fast-travel device; interacting with puzzles and switches; and battering the occasional enemy to death.

Top of the pile is parrying. Any green projectiles that come your way can be returned to sender, stunning or hurting enemies in customizable ways, thanks to upgrades and unlock runes. It’s the most satisfying thing in the game, particularly when you deflect an attack from a hyper-aggressive and hulking baddie on the front foot, rewarded with a satisfying THONNNGGGG sound. You remain steadfast, making you feel like an immovable, unstoppable machine. Even at its most unforgiving setting, the parry timing is never as demanding as Metal Hellsinger’s beat-based shooting, quickly becoming second nature.

Learning the game’s flow is key to success and genuine enjoyment, and more or less dictated by green attacks. Between slower projectiles and grouped enemies, you learn to analyze each battle area and pick your targets. You might have to avoid one for a while (“morale” challenges), or prioritize another (as it’s supercharging its compadres), but the rest more or less hinges on what feels most satisfying. You have time to plan your weapons; chaining shield and weapon attacks together delivers some truly gratifying moments as you effectively tear a major brute limb from limb without so much as a threat of retaliation.

DOOM: The Dark Ages’ extensive, medieval-inspired weapons are delightfully archaic — notably the time-warping Impaler, skull-fragment-spitting Pulverizer and Ravager, hilarious Chainshot, and spectacularly OP Super Shotgun. Upgrade opportunities are frequent but also customizable, with some offering two changeable options for personalized finesse.

Still, weapon damage lacks spice — the over-the-top comic sadism and gore that made DOOM Eternal a constant joy is muted. Finishing moves are pared down to stiff boots; gibs are rarely ludicrous; the gloomy color scheme dulls the gruesome elements of injured enemies. While The Dark Ages has been created to stand alone from the two modern DOOM games that preceded it, some of the silly viciousness could, and should, have stayed.

A little less complication

Earlier this year, two new additions to the DOOM mix — the Atlan Mech and Mecha Dragon — were hyped as game-changers. Sadly, they’re the most boring parts of The Dark Ages.

Like your shield, the mech and dragon are built around the parry system, but in simpler, more formulaic terms. When piloting the Atlan, you build up your special ability by dodging attacks from Titans, then deliver fatal blows. You occasionally get a big ol’ weapon to add a bit of drama, but that’s about it. These sections are low-skill side quests that don’t add anything, and even undermine the lore, as your Atlan’s deft movement contradicts the incredibly slow motion of mechs fighting elsewhere on the battlefield.

Then there’s the dragon. Flight controls are tight and responsive, but your quest to defeat Hell Ships and other creatures is repetitive and dull. You lock on to targets, awkwardly line up with them, avoid attacks in uninspired rhythm-action segments, and keep shooting them until they explode or die. Even at the highest difficulty, there’s no real risk or reward.

Between them, these new mechanics never feel exciting; you’re always waiting to jump out and start shooting. Sure, the dragon helps link huge maps together, but these massive, semi-open-world chapters can fall a bit flat.

Multi-point missions are a nice change, but the fun starts to wane when you’ve cleared out a few infestation points, especially if the final one is on the other side of the map. Collectibles are regularly unlocked via late-stage key discoveries, and you can expect long trudges across often uninspiring maps, even if the Slayer thankfully outpaces an Olympic sprinter.

Not quite a completionist’s dream

Speaking of collectibles, DOOM: The Dark Ages litters them throughout levels, and adds even more. Weapon points have been swapped for gold, which you use to buy most upgrades to your arsenal, melee weapon, and shield. There’s anywhere between 150 and 400+ gold per level, ranging from individual bars to chests containing 50. Rubies and Wraithstones, which are rarer and harder to find, unlock higher-tier abilities.

You’ll regularly miss an early pickup because you forgot to check your automap, which isn’t the clearest thing in the world, especially as you can’t set personal waypoints. Then there are mission challenges you nearly always forget to check at the start of each level. A handful are luck-based, specifically the dragon-based ones that hinge on shooting down enemy spacecraft that have a habit of disappearing into the ether when you both fly into a dead end.

As someone who 100%ed DOOM Eternal immediately after completing the main story, I don’t have the same desire to grab what I missed — the sheer size of some levels alone is enough to put me off, especially for 5/346 missing gold bars, but I’m sure die-hards will rinse it for all it’s worth.

Satisfaction guaranteed

DOOM: The Dark Ages takes its time to reach its potential, but once it sinks its fangs into you, it’s irresistible. It’s also incredibly polished; aside from an intermittent sound issue that surfaces during cinematics (which is easily fixed by jumping back to the menu), everything just works. It says a lot that one of my biggest gripes was seeing the word “acquired” spelled “aquired” for one set of collectibles.

The only way to enjoy The Dark Ages from the very start is to expect its new combat style. It might not be to everyone’s tastes, but it delivers on id’s promises, across a sliding scale that makes it one of the most playable action-FPS games for all comers. For Game Pass owners, it’s a no-brainer.

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