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The Star
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Review: 'Doom: The Dark Ages' reinvents run-and-gun formula … again
LOS ANGELES: The rebooted Doom series has been a masterclass in reinvention. Bucking the trend of military shooters, the id Software team crafted a brilliant gameplay loop that's the spiritual successor to the run-and-gun action the developers pioneered in 1993. It relied on movement, herding enemies and creating satisfying combo-based combat while introducing exploratory elements. The sequel Doom Eternal refined that formula, emphasising vertical gameplay that made the Doom Slayer protagonist feel like a fighter jet, according to game director Hugo Martin. The third entry for the reboot goes in a different direction. A vision that works Doom: The Dark Ages is a prequel to the first two games and lets players discover the events leading up to the original reboot. It finds the Doom Slayer as a tool of the Maykrs as he's deployed to help the Sentinels in their battle against the minions of hell. Over the course of 22 levels, players will be in the heart of the Argenta Unholy Wars' politics and drama as the villain Prince Ahzrak searches for the Heart of Argent, a power capable of making him a god. He and his hell minions attack the Sentinels, who are hiding that power and trying to keep it out of his hands. The beauty of The Dark Ages is that players don't need to know much about the past games. They can jump into this chapter and enjoy the spectacle of seeing the Doom Slayer become the ultimate demon-fighting machine. When playing The Dark Ages , veterans will notice that this version of the Doom Slayer is a different beast from the past games. Developers at id Software revamped the combat to emphasise a more ground-based approach. If Doom Eternal made players feel like a jet pilot, The Dark Ages will make them think they're controlling a zippy modern tank. Most of the combat revolves around a shield that can deflect attacks and protect against projectiles while dicing fodder with a Captain America-like throw. Further in the campaign, the shield is imbued with runes that give it other ways to attack. Aside from offence, the shield also has a role in exploration, with players using it almost like a grappling hook at certain nodes. They can also crash through weakened walls or destroy pulleys that hold doors shut. It's a simple tool that's controlled by two buttons, but id Software does a remarkable job of giving it versatility, so that it can do much more, especially when combined with weapons. Weapon versatility The Dark Ages has an arsenal with enough versatility that players won't be leaning on two weapons. The fan favourite Super Shotgun can handle a wide range of encounters, but the Doom Slayer will encounter enemies that move too quickly or have attacks that take advantage of its limited range. That's when players will have to rely on other weapons and their properties, which emerge when they're powered up at the Sentinel Shrine. The team at id smartly crafted weapons to encourage players to switch them up, depending on the circumstances. If players need to stun enemies, the Cycler can shock swarming adversaries, giving players the opportunity to thin the herd. The Rocket Launcher has the ability to regain health when players parry an attack and enter the splash damage zone. Combine this with the melee weapon and shield rune upgrades, and players have several strategies to survive the demon horde onslaught. The weapons and shield forge a fascinating offshoot from the combat of the first two games. It's ground-based but manages to feel fast while satisfying players' desire to combo attacks, showing off the Doom Slayer's maneuverability. The gameplay echoes the original Doom titles that reward players who can circle strafe around attacks and dodge the shower of projectiles that flash across the screen. In The Dark Ages , series veterans do the same thing, albeit with a bigger arsenal and solid defensive moves that make dodging unnecessary. In fact, the campaign has moments where it feels as though the Doom Slayer is slugging it out with Cyber Demons, trading blows while blocking the enemy's melee attacks. At times, combat is essentially a heavyweight prize fight in mid-fisticuffs. A flow state The developers mix up the main gameplay with levels, in which players control an enormous mech called an Atlan and pilot a dragon named Serrat. The giant robot action gives players a sense of scale in these battles where they fight enormous demons mainly with melee attacks. The simple fighting mechanics work as the behemoths don't have much in terms of subtlety of movement. Meanwhile, the dragon levels are less successful but still exhilarating. Flying Serrat is more complicated than controlling the mech and requires a different set of skills. Players have to locate aircraft and shoot them down while also locking in on other adversaries, while dodging attacks, in order to blast them away. The developers do a notable job of mixing these elements of play through the campaign. For example, players fly their dragon and take down a massive enemy hell-icarrier (for lack of a better word) and they can land Serrat atop the vehicle, enter it and wipe out the enemies inside. All of this flows remarkably well, and that's the driving force behind the gameplay. Amid the whirlwind of extreme violence, The Dark Ages builds a momentum in its level design and pushes players along. And though it has secrets and rewards exploration, the team lays out these secrets in way that keeps propelling the Doom Slayer forward. In other words, it's a game that keeps the energy going forward and doesn't stop until its epic conclusion. – The Mercury News/Tribune News Service
New York Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Frenzied Franchise Takes the Fight Up Close
Within every first-person shooter, there is a little bit of Doom. That 1993 game about a space marine slaying endless swarms of demons started a franchise known for ultraviolence and a broad arsenal of weapons, and also helped usher in a generation of successors. More than three decades later, the arrival of Doom: The Dark Ages effectively reinvents the hellish shooter with a revamped movement system and deepened lore. Players couldn't jump or even look up in the original game as they navigated labyrinthine military bases and turned beasts into piles of flesh. The '3-D' space that made up the game's levels was illusory — sections of each location were staggered in height. After several sequels came a soft reboot also called Doom (2016) and its follow-up, Doom Eternal (2020), both of which rewarded players for mastering aggression, momentum and frantic movement in an entirely new way. For the first time, players could double jump. The Dark Ages takes a striking shift in tone. The celestial, sci-fi brutality of the previous two games is swapped for medieval goth, with the protagonist, Doom Slayer, sporting a fur cape, a heavily serrated shield and spiked pauldrons. Double jumping and dashing are ditched and replaced with an emphasis on raw power and slow, strategic melee combat. Doom Slayer's arsenal features a brand-new tool, the powerful Shield Saw, which Id Software made a point to showcase across its 'Stand and Fight' trailers and advertisements. Used for absorbing damage at the expense of speed, the saw also allows players to bash enemies from afar and close the gap on chasms too wide to jump across. While previous titles allowed players to quickly worm their way through bullet hell, The Dark Ages expects you to meet foes head on. 'If you were an F-22 fighter jet in Doom Eternal, this time around we wanted you to feel like an Abrams tank,' Hugo Martin, the game's creative director, has told journalists. And Doom Slayer's beefy durability and unstoppable nature does make the gameplay a refreshing experience. The badassery is somehow ratcheted to new heights with the inclusion of a fully controllable mech, which has only a handful of attacks at its disposal, and actual dragons. Flight in a Doom game is entirely surprising and fluid, and the dragons feel relatively easy to maneuver through tight spots. They can also engage in combat more deliberately with the use of dodges and mounted cannons. Id is returning to its roots with more grounded combat and movement mechanics, but the game isn't hampered by other quality-of-life changes like dodging and parrying. A feature of timed challenges returns with more opportunities to exercise Doom Slayer's brutality on unassuming imps and zombies. The Dark Ages, which comes with a deep slate of accessibility and difficulty sliders, has a 'choose-your-own adventure' feel because of its diverse collection of weapons. Like in the game's predecessors, players can find secret collectibles and gather resources to improve the depth of their arsenal. One of my favorite additions is the skullcrusher pulverizer. Equal parts heinous nutcracker and demonic woodchipper, the gun lodges skulls into a grinder and sends shards of bones flying at enemies. The animation is both goofy and satisfying. The franchise's approach to narrative has evolved since the original Doom, which told a scant back story through the environment and intermittent onscreen text. The 2016 game introduced an ancient war between hell and other realms in the game's universe. Codex entries such as fiery pieces of paper hovered in secret sections of the game, adding to the richness of a story that explored themes of corporate greed and divine wrath. Since the reboot, the composer Mick Gordon's face-melting soundtrack has been driving the dread home, and this latest entry is again flooded with industrial heavy metal sounds and punchy guitar riffs. The Dark Ages stands out for its creative reinvention. But no matter what, Doom Slayer — a stoic gladiator beset by a demon scourge — sticks to his mantra to rip and tear.
The Age
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
After 30 years of guns and gore this franchise is turning to story
Anyone who hasn't thought about the video game series Doom since the mid-1990s might be surprised to see the latest trailers for Doom: The Dark Ages, which is launching next week. id Software's seminal shooter series has maintained its guns, its gore and its blend of sci-fi and satanic vibes that helped propel it to massive success decades ago. But it also has knights, shields, a massive pilotable mech and what appears to be an epic and cinematic tech-horror-fantasy storyline. It's not the only legacy franchise to have ballooned from an all-action gameplay experience to something that – at least in part – is presented like a Hollywood blockbuster. Look at recent Tomb Raiders, Final Fantasies, Sonics, Zeldas and even Street Fighters. And especially look at the recently delayed Grand Theft Auto 6, which is shaping up to be one of the biggest and most expensive games of all time, despite the series' humble beginnings. It's not that there's no longer a market for more focused and exclusively playable experiences; those are furnished in essentially all genres by smaller-scale games generally by smaller teams, and sold at a lower price. Or players simply return to the originals; all the old Doom games are available, packaged with new maps and running in high resolution, on current platforms. But new games in these massive tent-pole franchises operate on a different level, as marquee releases for major corporations, costing many years and millions of dollars to make, and being sold for more than $100 a copy. Each one needs to be different from the last. And, importantly, bigger. The world of Doom was reset in 2016, with a new game that emphasised brutality and heavy metal music but also brought back a lot of 'video gaminess' that had been shed in the dour 2000s. Yet through that game and its sequel, 2020's Doom Eternal, director Hugo Martin has built an entire narrative framework linking the superhuman demon-fighting protagonist (referred to as The Slayer) to earlier games, and charting his path through hell and back via several dimensions and centuries of warfare. Just as in Marvel movies, progressing the plot has become almost as integral as the action and spectacle, and in The Dark Ages, Martin is embracing on-screen storytelling in a way Doom never has before. 'As much as we like [ Doom Eternal ], there's never an intention to just create the same experience but with new weapons. As a trilogy, we think that it's going to be much more satisfying for players to be able to play each game and know that each one kind of stands on its own, as its own unique experience,' Martin said.
Sydney Morning Herald
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
After 30 years of guns and gore this franchise is turning to story
Anyone who hasn't thought about the video game series Doom since the mid-1990s might be surprised to see the latest trailers for Doom: The Dark Ages, which is launching next week. id Software's seminal shooter series has maintained its guns, its gore and its blend of sci-fi and satanic vibes that helped propel it to massive success decades ago. But it also has knights, shields, a massive pilotable mech and what appears to be an epic and cinematic tech-horror-fantasy storyline. It's not the only legacy franchise to have ballooned from an all-action gameplay experience to something that – at least in part – is presented like a Hollywood blockbuster. Look at recent Tomb Raiders, Final Fantasies, Sonics, Zeldas and even Street Fighters. And especially look at the recently delayed Grand Theft Auto 6, which is shaping up to be one of the biggest and most expensive games of all time, despite the series' humble beginnings. It's not that there's no longer a market for more focused and exclusively playable experiences; those are furnished in essentially all genres by smaller-scale games generally by smaller teams, and sold at a lower price. Or players simply return to the originals; all the old Doom games are available, packaged with new maps and running in high resolution, on current platforms. But new games in these massive tent-pole franchises operate on a different level, as marquee releases for major corporations, costing many years and millions of dollars to make, and being sold for more than $100 a copy. Each one needs to be different from the last. And, importantly, bigger. The world of Doom was reset in 2016, with a new game that emphasised brutality and heavy metal music but also brought back a lot of 'video gaminess' that had been shed in the dour 2000s. Yet through that game and its sequel, 2020's Doom Eternal, director Hugo Martin has built an entire narrative framework linking the superhuman demon-fighting protagonist (referred to as The Slayer) to earlier games, and charting his path through hell and back via several dimensions and centuries of warfare. Just as in Marvel movies, progressing the plot has become almost as integral as the action and spectacle, and in The Dark Ages, Martin is embracing on-screen storytelling in a way Doom never has before. 'As much as we like [ Doom Eternal ], there's never an intention to just create the same experience but with new weapons. As a trilogy, we think that it's going to be much more satisfying for players to be able to play each game and know that each one kind of stands on its own, as its own unique experience,' Martin said.
Metro
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Indiana Jones selling faster on PS5 as new Doom trailer targets Sony's console
Microsoft's shift to becoming a multiplatform publisher appears to be paying off, as an oddly PlayStation-specific trailer for Doom: The Dark Ages is released. Four months after it originally launched on Xbox Series X/S and PC, Indiana Jones And The Great Circle was officially released on PlayStation 5 this month. The game is the latest in a growing number of Xbox exclusives appearing on other platforms, as Microsoft shifts to becoming a multiplatform publisher which prioritises its Game Pass subscription service over Xbox consoles. What that means for the future of Xbox hardware remains to be seen, but based on the sales of Indiana Jones And The Great Circle on PlayStation 5, it seems like Microsoft is finding a considerable amount of success on Sony's platform. According to Alinea analyst Rhys Elliott, Indiana Jones And The Great Circle has sold over 117,200 copies on PlayStation 5 within a week of its launch on April 17, 2025. It is said to be selling 28% faster than on Steam, which sold 91,200 in the same timeframe in December. The analyst claims it is outpacing Xbox sales too, but there are some caveats. While there aren't any exact sales figures, it's estimated just under five million Xbox players 'checked out' Indiana Jones And The Great Circle on Microsoft's console, but 'the overwhelming majority' played it via Game Pass. As such, they didn't need to actually buy the game. The same analyst predicts the PlayStation 5 version will eventually outdo the overall Steam sales, which is estimated to be around 300,000 copies. According to Microsoft in January, Indiana Jones And The Great Circle attracted over four million players following its launch on December 9, 2024 across Xbox Series X/S and PC. While it's not exactly surprising that the PlayStation 5 version would outpace sales across Xbox, as it is a far more popular console, these results might inspire Microsoft to launch its games across all platforms simultaneously – even if that would be somewhat detrimental to Xbox hardware. More Trending As such, Microsoft might be paying close attention to the upcoming launch of Doom: The Dark Ages, which is set to release across PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S on May 15, 2025. Although the series has always been multiformat, Microsoft's subsidiary Bethesda has released a trailer for the shooter specifically aimed at PlayStation players. In the video entitled the Cosmic Realm First Reveal Trailer, uploaded to the PlayStation YouTube account (and notably not Xbox), id Software's Hugo Martin doesn't mention Xbox once, and closes out the trailer by saying the team 'wants to give Sony fans something special'. While this kind of marketing is to be expected considering PlayStation 5 is the biggest platform for a game like Doom, it is still an odd sign of the times – and one which leaves a big question hangingover Xbox's role in the console space moving forward. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: 16 Nintendo franchises missing from the Switch 2 line-up MORE: Pokémon Gen 10 on Switch 2 is an 'oceanic adventure' as leaks reveal new info MORE: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had more players on Steam than any Final Fantasy
