Doom: The Dark Ages does what Doom does best, forging carnage in a forge of chaos

Time of India

28-05-2025

Don't you think video games are getting too complicated? Every title coming out these days feel compelled to drop me into a 200-hour increasingly cinematic sandbox filled with fetch quests that demand dozens of hours exploring vast open worlds for what, just to kill off the bad guy for world peace? Well,
Doom: The Dark Ages
is exactly that but it's honest about it, and bluntly effective. After years of watching the franchise from the sidelines, occasionally nodding along to Mick Gordon's brutal soundtracks without context, I finally dove headfirst into it. What I discovered wasn't just my entry point into the series, but a reminder of why sometimes the most sophisticated gaming experiences come wrapped in the simplest packages.
The
Dark Ages
positions itself as a prequel to the modern Doom trilogy, casting the legendary
Slayer
in a medieval-meets-sci-fi setting where alien overlords, demonic hordes, and humanity's last defenders clash across sprawling battlefields. The premise couldn't be more straightforward: you are an unstoppable force of nature, demons exist, and your job is to make them not exist anymore. No moral complexity, no branching dialogue trees, no companion approval ratings to manage. Just pure, undiluted aggression channeled through increasingly creative methods of digital violence.
What struck me immediately was how liberating this clarity felt. In a gaming landscape increasingly obsessed with cinematic storytelling and player choice consequences, The Dark Ages presents a different philosophy entirely. The Slayer speaks exactly one word throughout the entire campaign, yet his character development through body language and environmental storytelling proves more compelling than most fully-voiced protagonists. There's something profoundly satisfying about a character who solves every problem by hitting it really, really hard with medieval weaponry.
Rip and tear, stand and fight
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Undo
The Dark Ages' isn't very good with it's storytelling but let's honest it doesn't really need to be. Instead, it is the Doom's ages old combat formula, which is subtly evolved but still maintain its frenetic DNA. The introduction of the
Shield Saw
fundamentally changes how encounters unfold, shifting from Doom Eternal's emphasis on constant movement to a "stand and fight" mentality that initially sounds counterintuitive to everything the franchise represents.
Yet somehow, it works brilliantly. While shields have mostly been known to be defensive equipment to humans, for the Slayer, it's a weapon, traversal tool, and tactical game-changer rolled into one circular buzzsaw of destruction. Parrying incoming attacks feels satisfying in a way that transcends mere mechanical feedback; there's a rhythm to combat that emerges naturally as you learn to balance aggression with precise timing. Unlike the rigid resource management that sometimes made Doom Eternal feel like solving an equation under pressure, The Dark Ages allows for more improvisational approaches to demon disposal.
The weapon roster adapts familiar tools to the medieval setting without losing their essential character. The
Super Shotgun
remains the close-quarters king, but new additions like the skull-spitting gatling gun and chain-attached railgun offer fresh approaches to crowd control and armour piercing. Each weapon feels purposeful rather than redundant, contributing to a combat system that rewards experimentation without punishing players who develop preferences.
What impressed me most was how the game manages to feel both more accessible than its predecessor while maintaining tactical depth. The shield bash's traversal capabilities replace Eternal's air dash system seamlessly, while the parry mechanics add a layer of skill expression that never feels mandatory for success. It's a delicate balance that many action games struggle with, providing systems that enhance experienced play without alienating newcomers.
Hell on earth (but make it medieval)
Beyond the moment-to-moment combat, The Dark Ages succeeds in creating environments that justify their existence beyond being demon-killing arenas. The level design strikes an excellent balance between linear progression and exploratory freedom, with larger hub areas offering multiple objectives and secrets to discover at your own pace. These aren't the overwhelming open worlds that dominate modern gaming, but focused playgrounds that reward curiosity without overwhelming players with busy work.
The medieval aesthetic could have easily felt like a gimmicky departure from the series' established visual language, but id Software wisely blends fantasy elements with the technological underpinnings that define Doom's universe. Watching massive mechs stomp across
castle battlefields
while dragons soar overhead creates moments of genuine spectacle that feel earned rather than manufactured. These setpiece moments, while not always mechanically perfect, serve their purpose as palate cleansers between the more intense combat encounters.
The game's approach to progression also deserves mention for how it respects player time. Upgrades feel meaningful without being overwhelming, and the currency systems are straightforward enough that you're never confused about what you need or where to get it. Secrets are well-integrated into level design, offering genuine rewards for exploration without requiring exhaustive searching to find every hidden item.
When glory kills actually feel glorious
Perhaps what surprised me most about The Dark Ages was how it made me reconsider my relationship with action games in general. I've spent years gravitating toward narrative-heavy experiences, convinced that emotional investment required complex storytelling and character development. The Dark Ages demonstrates that engagement can come from perfectly tuned mechanics and clear, achievable goals just as effectively as any branching storyline.
The game's violence is cartoonish in the best possible way—so over-the-top that it transcends any concerns about real-world implications and becomes pure digital catharsis. There's an almost meditative quality to chaining together perfect parries, weapon swaps, and glory kills that creates its own form of flow state. The feedback loop is immediate and satisfying: see demon, devise elimination method, execute plan, admire results, repeat.
This isn't to say The Dark Ages completely abandons narrative ambition. The wordless characterisation of the Slayer, the environmental storytelling embedded in each level, and the broader mythology all contribute to a surprisingly coherent world. But these elements serve the gameplay rather than demanding attention in their own right, creating a more integrated experience than many games that pride themselves on their storytelling.
The campaign's 22-chapter structure maintains excellent pacing throughout its roughly 20-hour runtime, never allowing any single element to overstay its welcome. Even the occasional mech and dragon sequences, while mechanically simpler than the core combat, provide necessary variety and spectacle without derailing the overall experience.
The sound of silence (and chainsaws)
If there's one area where The Dark Ages stumbles, it's in the audio department. While I haven't really spent hours slaying on Mick Gordon's composition, yet somehow his absence is immediately noticeable, and I guess it would be even more so for someone who have been a regular of series' previous entires.
While Finishing Move's soundtrack is competent, it lacks the driving intensity that made Gordon's work such an integral part of the Doom experience. The music often fades into background noise rather than amplifying the on-screen chaos, a significant departure from how seamlessly audio and gameplay integrated in previous entries.
This isn't a fatal flaw, but it does represent a missed opportunity to elevate already excellent gameplay with equally excellent audio design. The sound effects themselves remain top-tier, every shotgun blast, demon roar, and shield clang carries appropriate weight, but the musical backing never quite matches the energy of what's happening on screen.
Until it is done (for now)
Doom: The Dark Ages succeeds as both an entry point for newcomers and a worthy addition to an established franchise by remembering that complexity and sophistication aren't synonymous. It knows exactly what it wants to be and executes that vision with laser focus.
Now I understand what I'd been missing all these years. The Dark Ages doesn't just serve as my belated introduction to the series, it's a masterclass in why Doom has endured for over three decades. What I initially dismissed as mindless violence revealed itself as carefully orchestrated chaos, where every system works in harmony to create something greater than the sum of its parts. The sophistication I'd been seeking in complex narratives and sprawling worlds was here all along, hidden beneath layers of demon viscera and shotgun shells.
This realisation feels almost embarrassing in hindsight. I'd spent years chasing elaborate gaming experiences, convinced that depth required complexity, when Doom was quietly perfecting the art of elegant simplicity. The Dark Ages strips away every unnecessary element to focus entirely on what matters: the pure joy of interactive entertainment. No padding, no filler, no respect for your time wasted on anything that doesn't contribute to the core experience.
In a year likely to be dominated by sprawling open worlds and narrative epics,
Doom
: The Dark Ages offers something increasingly rare: a game that respects your time, trusts your intelligence, and never forgets that fun should be the primary objective. Sometimes that's exactly what hell ordered.
Our rating: 4/5
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