DOOM: The Dark Ages

Doom is one of my favorite franchises. Doom and Doom II were a formative part of my childhood, and a huge part of my introduction into the world of gaming. To say that I was extremely excited for this new entry is an understatement. I feel incredibly lucky to be a Doom fan. While other franchises rise and fall, Doom has remained a constant throughout my life. It still stands strong and proud, and for one simple reason; ID Software has never been afraid of taking risks. Each new entry brings something new to the table, and dramatically changes up the gameplay and atmosphere while still retaining the DNA of it's origins. This is incredibly rare, especially in this modern gaming landscape. My expectations were sky high, and as expected, ID Software delivers the goods yet again. This time the gameplay revolves around parrying and countering while avoiding bullet-hell projectiles, and it's an absolute blast! The new combat sandbox is incredibly fun and satisfying to master. The team has truly gone all-out and delivered some of the coolest looking weapon and enemy designs in the entire series. The Super Shotgun is a beast (even though I kinda miss the meathook), the Cycler is everything I've wanted out of a plasma rifle, the Ravager is the coolest concept for a weapon I've seen in the last decade, and the Chainshot is a work of art. The mecha, turret and dragon sections are fine. I enjoyed them as fun (if somewhat mindless) power fantasy segments, but found myself wishing they had a little more complexity. And now for the least impressive aspect of the game, which is kind of a big deal for a Doom game, the soundtrack. ID Soft's perplexing and unfair treatment of Mick Gordon has left a stain on the franchise that's proving difficult to wash away. Mick's work for Doom 2016 and Eternal, a fusion of electronic/metal that's practically oozing with creativity and originality, is a core part of modern Doom's identity, and his absence is very noticable. Filling Mick's shoes is a gargantuan task, and I sadly have to conclude that ID picked the wrong band for this task. I stuggle to recall a single memorable piece of music, no particular melodies or moments stand out as having elevated the gameplay experience, but rather just sitting there in the backgroud with it's generic compositions and flat mixing. For a series known and beloved for it's music, this just doesn't cut it. I'm not even going to mention the story, because despite ID doubling down on these elements, I never have and never will play a Doom game for the story elements, it just doesn't interest me. Overall, Doom: The Dark ages is another fantastic entry into a legendary series that's bogged down by a few questionable choices like the $80 pricetag, mandatory raytracing and inclusion of Denuvo. If you can get past these issues, the game is easily the best FPS to come out this year, and definitely my personal GOTY. 9/10

Cannonball simulator. You're the cannonball. Mayhem on a grand scale, fun guns, satisfying shield application. Fixes the worst flaws of Eternal and generally does its own thing.

Okay DOOM game, not as good as eternal, can't justify the 80€ pricepoint. Too much cinematics, dragon and robot maps are boring and combat is WAY too shield focused, they even made weapon switching slower to emphasize the shield play. Combat is fun but every enemy has crazy tracking to further emphasize the shieldplay so you get hit in the back a LOT, also encounters feel too short and a bit too far between to really get to enjoy the flow. Upgrading weapons in the begininning is frustrating because you basically get a better weapon for each slot later, also keybinding 2 different weapons in each bind sucks ass, especially with the slower weapon swapping. TLDR; just go play eternal if this isn't on sale for 30€ or lower

I personally do not recommend Doom the Dark Ages, because I think it is a downgrade from eternal and Doom 2016. Is Doom the Dark Ages a good game? Yes, but the game just feels low effort. An analogy would be that Doom Eternal was a lavish dinner, Doom The Dark Ages is a good steak, and that's about it, it's got no seasoning and no other courses to the meal, just a big juicy steak. To start off with the good, yes the combat is still Doom, in that you can still feel like a badass mowing down hordes of demons. However, they dumbed down glory kills significantly. Since it's been a few years, you should remind yourself how good we had it in Eternal, before you see what this game has to offer. The new "executions" are just no where near as cool. That leads into my next point, this game lacks seasoning, it lacks flair, it sort of feels like "We know you like Doom, so let's skip all the fluff and keep it to the basics" that being combat. The progression system feels a lot less interesting, you just pick up gold bars and gemstones to spend in stores. That is far less interesting than what we had before, and the upgrades for the weapons feel a lot less impactful, especially since you can end up saving a ton of gold and get all the upgrades for the new gun you got immediately, since you have to wait tell you reach a store, whereas before the upgrade happened right then and there. The game just lacks so much flair throughout the experience. Except for, ironically, in the story department. Doom the Dark Ages places where more emphasis on showing you cutscenes, which feel very out of place in a doom game. I much preferred the story being told in-world, in-game, like Doom 2016 and Eternal do. The cutscenes just cheapen the story. And yet, it seems like either there were bugs or cut content, because the transitions between levels can be abrupt and immersion breaking, like more than a few times I thought "Wait, why am I here now?" wheras in the last two doom games, the objectives really added to the experience. Doom the Dark Ages, you don't really even know what you are accomplishing in half of the missions. That gets to my last aspect. The music is just not the same without Mick Gordon. Id software did Mick Gordon dirty. The music in the Dark Ages is generic forgettable metal music, nothing like the music in eternal, the music in eternal was iconic and amazing. I had to listen to some Mick Gordon music to get Doom the Dark Ages lame music out of my system. So in summary, don't play Doom the Dark Ages, just play 2016 or Eternal. But if you really want to give it a try, wait for a sale, or just play it on gamepass, you'll thank yourself later.

This is different from D2016 or D:Eternal. Yes, it has its cons: - music is kinda generic, nothing special. It is not bad, it just exists. - Giant robot and dragon sections are excess. I hope, it will be skippable. Ok once though - it takes longer to speed up than eternal. The real fun begins only in the last third of the game. - it has more plot but it’s all feel kinda useless. Expensive cutscenes tell no story, characters lack character. I still have to go to the codex to make all this mess clear. But, it is really fun game to play. It's different fun but it is fun. It’s not slow (yes, you have to play on nightmare, turn on “sprint” in settings), it’s not simplification or something (may be a bit, compared to Eternal). Zero regrets, will play again.

Another fantastic DOOM game, thanks for keeping the formula fresh and interesting Hugo!

Really fucking BORING. So much so that I even struggle to force myself to even play or finish it. You can really tell that somebody at ID wanted to make a modern version of the original Quake and that somebody in the higher ups said "Nah, that won't sell, just put Cthulhu and castles in Doom" I for one, would have preferred a modern take on the original Quake but I have to remember that we live in bizzaro clown world where nothing logical is ever done and nothing good is ever made. I never thought I'd play a Doom game and feel so ambivalent about it. I look forward to five years from now when instead of a Hexen/Heretic reboot, we just get DOOM SLAYA with a wizard's staff. I paid $100 for this and I don't even want to PLAY IT. Jesus Christ...

I've played the original doom, doom 2, doom 64, doom 2016 and doom eternal. I'd like to say I'm a pretty big doom fan, and I've gotta say, I do not enjoy this instalment. Visually, this game is absolutely beautiful. Incredible design and just visually amazing, but that doesn't mean shit when the game play is stale. I do not enjoy the parrying in this game, i feel it slows the game down so so much and is way too repetitive and makes doom guy feel like a little bitch for needing to "hide" behind a shield. The need for "ammo" to melee is dumb. It feels out of place, for doom guy as being this super bad ass, but needs ammo to punch or use the melee weapons. Something that i feel like that shouldn't have been removed, are the glory kills. The reason they removed it was because it was a "repetitive" animation, and yet they replace it with the most boring kick... and call it an execution. That feels so very lazy and an even worse as a repetitive animation. Its the same kick for every demon and the same kick for the mech that you can use on some levels. The mech.... is so boring. Punch, Punch, dodge. that was it. Thumbs up id software. Same thing goes for the dragon. very boring. Level design, was poor. Getting rid of the double jump made the levels very flat and copy paste in a way. Maps also to me felt like there was no meaning to them. What was the story for the planet, or land area that we were running around in To me I feel doom 2016 and doom eternal had meaning to why we were going to places and a story behind them. Where as dark ages was just, go here, then go here and then there. Secrete areas are not secrete areas. With the maps being very flat, it limits what they can do with the secrete areas by also getting rid of the double jump and dash. For the story I can't say much as I have only made it a third of the way, and so far I'm disappointed it in. There are way to many characters that i feel don't need to be in it as they don't add anything to the story. Doom 2016 had an amazing story with only 3 characters. doom eternal had an ok story but in my opinion was way better than what dark ages offers. I could keep going on things that i don't like but i feel it would too long of a review. If you like this game, awesome, but for me I don't enjoy dark ages.

Just a very solid game. Fun gameplay loop and great enemy variety. I don't think it's better than Doom Eternal, but honestly still a banger.

It would have been easy to just repeat what 2016 and Eternal did, add some modifications and slap a $70 price tag. In a way, their effort to change the dynamic of gameplay is respectable, but at some point you have to say "If it isn't broken, don't touch it" There's several new additions, but the most important is the Shield, which you'll use to parry green attacks and block red ones. This is the main problem of Dark Ages. Every enemy has a attack pattern Once you play one or two hours, you learn it all. There's little to no variation in their attacks so you'll always know how to approach an enemy. After a couple of encounters, the game just becomes repetitive. A chore. Worst of all? Each time you parry a green attack, you activate a slow-mo. Read that again: Each time you parry. You're going to be doing a lot of that and it just slows the game. There's no way to deactivate this. For a game that takes pride in how much customization you can implement into your game with many difficulty sliders and options, the fact there's no way to deactivate something so annoying as slow-mo is just shocking. The only way to achieve this is by using a cheat engine configuration but this will set your game speed to normal. If you played this game on normal (100%) speed opposed to 150%, i'm sorry but you've basically ruined your experience in Dark Ages. You need to play this in 150%. No Ifs and Buts. 150% is the definitive way. But that also means you can't use the cheat engine mod so I guess we're just out of luck. Regarding the story: I don't know. I skipped all cutscenes from chapter 10 to the end. The main protagonists of Doom are Doomguy and the demons. Everyone else is secondary. I genuinely couldn't care any less about Generic Soldier, Generic General Woman, Mister "Look At Me I Got Evil Horns and a Deep Voice I'm a Really Menacing Demon" guy. And don't lie to yourself: You don't care either. This is a franchise about gameplay over story. We don't need nor want your snoozefest epic lore about how Doomguy is this really special person in a secret order of whatever fighting a eternal war of whatever reasons against demons. Overall: 6/10 game. The bad outweighs the good. There's still a fun experience to have here but it's definitely not worth the price. I would recommend just buying Gamepass and trying it there.

This is a generally positive review for DOOM: The Dark Ages (hereafter called TDA), with some negative points against it. TDA has been released in a complete and fully playable state with no major bugs, no crashes, and no microtransactions. While that is a sad indictment on the state of AAA games, it is worth mentioning. id Software have done a stellar job to design, develop, and optimise this game. I also have nothing but respect for Hugo Martin and the team at id Software for taking risks, refusing to stand still and regurgitate the same formula time after time. DOOM Eternal was radically different to DOOM 2016, and TDA is radically different to DOOM Eternal. Each game will have people who prefer it over the others. For me, however, TDA is the weakest of the trio. But first: what's good about TDA? • The weapons feel punchy and powerful. • The very light sprinkling of Souls-esque blocking, parrying, and dodging is surprisingly well integrated into the combat loop. • Level design and enemy design has never been more interesting and more creative, helped in large part by the introduction of the Lovecraftian "Cosmic Realm" to the game. • Graphics and visuals are second to none. • Putting together combos of parry, melee bash, shotgun blast, block, shield saw, shotgun blast, and so on, is fun and never gets boring. • The boss fights are some of the best they've ever been in a modern DOOM title. Fair, fun, and engaging. Never a tiresome slog, with minimal use of boss fight tropes like having to wait and being unable to attack until a moment of vulnerability appears. It's all aggression all the time. • The slider settings that impact movement speed, projectile speed, enemy aggression, projectile damage, and so on, allow for a nearly infinitely customisable experience. • The game has a good recipe of tough arena fights broken up by exploration and DOOM 1993 style secret hunting. So what's not good about TDA? • Most of the weapon upgrades feel fairly irrelevant. With the exception of the rocket launcher's extremely cool upgrades, many of the weapon upgrades essentially say "this weapon becomes stronger if you hold 'shoot' down" and didn't offer anything unique or interesting to the gameplay loop. • And while every weapon felt good to use, there was little mechanical reason to use them. DOOM Eternal forced players to alternate between weapons for a given combat situation after the developers noticed players were completing DOOM 2016 with just one or two weapons being used. This game returns to that core DOOM 2016 "problem" where you can finish the game using just one weapon. I had to force myself to use other weapons to experience a bit of variety (the weapon challenges help in this regard) because it was very easy to lean on the super shotgun to melt everything. • There are too many "points of no return" embedded into each map which is, in my opinion, a cardinal sin of level design if you're asking the player to explore and look for secrets. Either remove the "points of no return" (like in DOOM 1993) or allow the player to go back through the level before it ends to collect any remaining secrets (like in DOOM Eternal). • Maybe I'm in the minority but I really missed the platforming of DOOM Eternal. • The mech and dragon sections were fairly repetitive even on first playthrough. I am not looking forward to those sections on my second playthrough. • A lot of the cutscenes felt fairly unnecessary (the Slayer was just "aura farming" half the time) and seem to fly in the face of the "gameplay first, story last" ethos of modern DOOM games. In DOOM 2016, the Doom Slayer literally punched screens that were giving lore dumps. In DOOM Eternal, there were pages and pages of lore locked behind the pause menu. Many people would have played those games without knowing much more of the story than "demons bad, kill demons" and yet now the story is front and centre in cinematic cutscenes. It feels decidedly un-DOOM-like. • The music was a major step down from DOOM 2016 and Eternal. I barely noticed it throughout the game. Too subdued, too ambient. To be clear, being the weakest modern DOOM game still puts it head and shoulders above most AAA games. I would play TDA over any other AAA game released in the last 15 years. I just wouldn't play it over DOOM Eternal.

Let me tell you the last word right now, this game is amazing in every way. After experiencing the latest version of this great franchise, I have to say that I enjoyed it very much. The action, shooting, and weapon design are at their best, the sound, physics, and animations have also improved a lot compared to the previous version. I also liked the previous version very much and it became one of the best shooting games I have ever played. The game is such that it maintains its greatness and diversity until the end and gets better after each level. I am currently waiting to continue playing in its expansion. New mechanisms such as the shield and mace are great. The super shotgun weapon is back, stronger and more epic than ever, as an integral part of the game. Don't hesitate for a moment to experience this game, it is one of the best in its genre.

if you were good at eternal, you're not going to like this game the elimination of quick switching is a double edged sword. On one side, its good for a certain demographic of players,namely people who enjoy a slower gameplay, with less quick reaction time and switching. counter-intuitively, it makes the game very dull and boring at times for people who were good at eternal or just liked eternals quicker gameplay. I recommend this game to people who enjoyed the gameplay of 2016, if you liked eternal a lot, then i'd wait for a discount

Cannot recommend this game to anyone looking for a Doom experience. After completing maybe half of the game, I have realized this game is at BEST a 5/10. It's a complete exercise in tedium. Parrying has entirely ruined the experience. Depending on how sweaty you get with the parrying, the game is actually markedly too easy, even on Nightmare difficulty. If you focus on parrying over actual gunplay, it makes the encounters far too easy. When you combine this with how frequently you can slow time (weapon wheel and shield throw) you can slow each encounter down to a crawl almost the entire time, making for way too many ways to cheese the game but it also just ruins the run and gun flow that with a Doom game is suppose to be an adrenaline rush. No adrenaline rush when you can slow time much of most of the fights and strategize every move you are going to make. The game is too long, and it isn't a good thing. With an exciting fun-to-play game you almost don't want it to end. This game, you just want it to end so you can check off a box and move on to a game that is actually fun, perhaps even revisiting Doom Eternal or Doom 2016. This game is a slow paced pile of crap that just beats you over the head with one boring uninspired fight after another. In addition to this, the designers found it to be necessary to add the Mech and Dragon levels, which are the most boring un-intuitive experiences I have ever had in a Doom game. Why? Why even add these to the game? Did they think that adding neccessary fat to the mix would convince people that they are getting their monies worth? The auto save areas are just terrible. There's only a few encounters that caused me to have to reload a dozen times because they were long and drawn out to the point where they last like 10 minutes. It is always these area's where the auto save saves you like 3 miles from where the encounter is, forcing you to spend a couple of minutes running back to the encounter only to die again and have to run a f'n marathon to get back to an encounter that lasts way too long. Why? You know you are creating an encounter that has about 49 bosses in it and you couldn't have designed the auto save to engage shortly before entering it? Terrible. The music sucks. The ambient music that you listen to while not in enemy encounters it's like this eerie build up music, which would be cool to hear a few times where you were expecting a jump scare or a new terrifying enemy to pop out from a hell portal, but instead it plays this constantly throughout ever single level often times when you are searching for keys or a secret area. I realize you lost Mick Gordon but for the love of God you couldn't find anyone to make a few tracks that were badass? You have one single fight encounter that's just a 30 second guitar riff you play on loop EVERY SINGLE fight in the game and it gets old after the first level or two. Outside of the graphics and the gunplay this game is just a major letdown. Hopefully the next Doom game (assuming there is one) just go back to the roots and stick to it. Also, the fact that multiplayer is completely omitted is just inexcusable. Delay the game and have multiplayer. It doesn't have to be earth shattering just something. You complete this game at max difficulty and there is literally NO reason to return to it. Period. It's a one and done game. I would never imagine wanting to revisit this boring stinker of a game ever in my entire life.

i think both doom dark age and doom eternal are excellent overall but both felt different to me. while the story line is not great in doom series overall but its satisfying , doom is known for its fast paced chaotic game play combined with suitable soundtracks. for me doom eternal was a bit more challenging and more fast paced however dark age was better in some aspects, i enjoyed both equally. it would be much better if doom dark age had more innovation in mech and dragon part too.

I like that they tried something new, but it didn't really work for me. I really didn't like the gimmick levels. (Flying on the Wyvern thing and running around in the mech.) Music was mid, Mick Gordon is sorely missed. Final verdict is that if I could go back in time, I'd probably tell myself to pass on this.

Settings played with: Nightmare base difficulty, 250% enemy damage for like 60% of the game 500% for the rest, 50% player damage, low resources, low parry window, 130% game speed I will preface this by saying if you are looking for a game that requires very little brain power and just a stomp through playing this game on normal, walking through the game could be a fun time for maybe 15 hours or so of actual game time. I am also not some Doom Eternal truther. I liked my nightmare and ultra nightmare run on Doom Eternal and it was a great experience but its not the pinnacle of everything and I didn't expect this game to just be Eternal 2.0 I tried to have a normal experience with this game and it was so easy even on default nightmare that I quickly grew bored increasing the sliders against my favour as much as I could and I realized quickly that doing so just simply breaks the game as it was not designed for this. The sliders are a cop out for a game they didn't want to balance properly because of how strong the base mechanics are that don't require any sort user ability Now this is fine, every game should not be some ball breaking difficult sweat fest and I agree totally with that. But then dont put the sliders in when its clear you didnt put the effort in the balance the game around them at all. Its simple, stand by your default difficulties even if they are easy and have the game you wanted. Dont mistake this for a complaint that the game is too hard this way, it really wasn't it just felt like alot of the struggles I had with the sliders turned up were related to the game itself and not how hard the encounters were. I thought most encounters were fine and just dealt with the frustration of poorly balanced mechanics at the highest difficulties and the constant bugs that seemed to be related the game speed. So you say to me well moron, then why not just turn down the sliders? Well then the game becomes so easy, I barely even felt like I was playing a game and not just being walked through a badass guy simulator. I was never dying, never worried about ammo or health and all the big bad enemies were going down with little effort and I never had to engage with the mechanics in any meaningful way. It legit felt like a super shallow experience without cranking it up to insane levels. You will never convince me 50% player damage is 50%. It feels like 15-25% damage. Seriously try it, start counting your shots, it doesn't take half it takes WAY more. Then put it back to 100% and see how easy the game is on just 100% actual damage in comparison to 50. You will realize just how unengaging it feels being so easy. The parry has no punishment for spam tapping the button, you then realize parry window or timing is literally irrelvent because of this. The second you see a green colour even start showing up you just tap the parry button quickly and youll get a parry on every single attack every single time even on the lowest parry window settings. This makes most of the games enemies almost a joke because you never really have to worry about melee attacks ever again or trying to time boss moves or projectiles. Why is shield damage tied to player damage? Increasing to 250%+ enemy damage basically invalidates all blocking, removing your only defensive mechanic in the game. Every single projectile is a heat seeking missile and will follow and track you (in some cases through walls) so blocking even 1 shot breaks the shield requiring the refresh which leaves you basically dead. You have all these sliders and it never occurred to put shield damage and player damage on separate sliders and the problem is solved. Enemy projectiles all tracking like crazy on high enemy damage just leads to this constant feeling of cheapness and annoyance. I dont think the game was designed for my most feared enemy by the end of the game being the fodder soldiers because of how infuriating that thing tracks and you cant block it most of the time because of the enemy damage also being tied to shield damage. Running into so many issues with the shield that im assuming is because of higher difficulties and speed pushing actions to there limits on the design. Having the shield either just disappear entirely until a respawn or having the parry just stop working and not making noises or any visual cues or benefits being triggered caused constant restarts and failed encounters. inconsistencies also existed with the shield throw and stun, targeting enemies not in my direct vision, or being magnetized to enemy projectiles that im clearly already avoiding left me rolling my eyes alot Shield health indicator hidden in the bottom left corner is a huge pain to keep having to look down at, Having it closer to crosshair so I could focus on the you know...game in front of me would of been much better Weapon design feel so odd, some of them feel so much weaker you question why would you even use them. First doom game ive ever played where I only ever pulled out the rocket launcher by accident After spending 30 hours with like 1 robot section I have trained my brain to think...see green press right click to parry....and then you throw a robot level at the end of the game where space is parry....so now everytime I see green im going for right click and having to remember that its space instead for this one damn tiny section and then it goes right back......why not unify them and use a different button for the giant robot skills.....so the parry is the same button FOR THE ENTIRE GAME I could keep going on and on...but no one reads these anyways....so ill leave it this...its fine for a singular run but I legit hope they dont keep these mechanics going forward. Its shallow, it doesnt really work that great beyond the easier difficulties and it feels like a really hollow experience. I didn't enjoy my time and basically just finished it out of spite.

Doom but for Parry addicts The best Pacific Rim game you could ever want, and you get Doom Quake edition on the same package. Extremely satisfying doom combat where you throw yourself at the enemies full force. My only gripe is once you use your favourite guns you're gonna stick to one gun only most of the time, probably due to complaints to how eternal worked as a styleswitching kinda game and how people just wanted to use what they wanna use, this game allows you to play what you wanna play. Probably my favourite Rocket Launcher Gameloop in any game ever, only way to make it even better was if there was Rocket jumping. The package is packed to the brim with game, to a point where it tires you out, like two full course meals worth. Frankly, I enjoy it, but you gotta dose it right, and going back to back on those final levels tired me out, but I was having a lot of fun and don't regret it. TL;DR Game that will get you to say HELL YEAH to it many times

Doom 2016, great game 9/10. Doom Eternal, legendary game, 11/10 Doom the Dark Ages 8.5/10 because the music isn't nearly as good. So let me clarify, Doom The Dark Ages isn't a 10/10 because Eternal exists and because Mick Gordon didnt do the soundtrack. This is still a damn good game, DAMN GOOD. But it's not Eternal because it needed about 3 more months in the oven.

I've been playing DooM games since it was called Wolfenstein 3D DooM 2016 despite it's flaws, felt brutal, the music, the glory kills, like a war DooM dark ages feels like airsoft by comparion, weak sauce bro

TBH I don't really want to talk about this game, in order to play this freaking game I have to upgrade my whole freaking PC just for this game. Threw more than 3100 CNY (430 USD) and 499 CNY (70 USD)for the game's premium edition. Fuck Nintendo for rising game price to 80 dollar. Fuck Microsoft for asking 70 dollar for TDA. Fuck Mandatory Ray-Tracing which is one of the biggest gaming scam of all time. The game not even look that good with ray tracing,but more than half the FPS compare to Doom Eternal. And the latest Path Tracing? Oh c'mon,this is DOOM not some fucking cinematic trash game. Enjoy your 3000+ USD GPU running 720P with Path Tracing enable, this is 2025! No fucking 2005! No fucking XBOX 360 720P era. The fact my fucking RTX3070 have to use DLSS in fucking 1080P to get acceptable FPS is fucking Ridiculous. Modern gaming create fucking trash TAA make games look fucking blurry AF. And then Nvidia offer a fucking DLSS solution to solve the blurry issue. I guess modern issue need modern solution hmm? The whole fucking gaming industry create this TAA trash then sell you the hardware solution. Fucking scam! This game has crash issue no matter what GPU you're using, no matter is AMD or Nvidia. id software can blame Nvidia's trash driver as much as they can. The thing is that if there is not Mandatory Ray-Tracing, instead its optional, we will not even have this conversation. Please fix your fucking game for the love of god. Some ppl can even run the game by using a fucking GTX 1660 which has not fucking ray tracing capability. Some modder even create a mod for 4GB VRAM GPU to run this game. Do you guys really try to optimize the game like you did in Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal? I can't even notice 99% of the ray tracing in this game. Some ppl call this game as the best doom game, oh c'mon,do you really know WTF are you talking about? The story is so fucking forgettable, characters are forgettable, 99.99% of the time Doom Guy just stand here listen to whoever is talking. There are way too many cutscenes in this game which eat up some budget of the game. Ya know why modern Triple-A game are so expensive? Cuz those fucking useless high budget cutscenes. Gameplay is even more forgettable, just spam shieldsaw throw and impaler, that's it. There is nothing to master, nothing to learn. For those doom-tubers, you can spin whatever you want to make this game look good. This game doesn't deserve at full price no matter is 70 dollar or 80 dollar in your region. I hate fucking ray tracing in this game for killing all my fucking frames, the slowmo in this game is fucking painful. They have all the slider in the game but without a button to turn off slowmo. You parry, you slowmo. You melee, you slowmo. Fuck those slowmo, I'm playing a fucking fast-pace first person shooter! It's looks cool at first! But the more you play, the more painful you get. You have NOT fucking i-frame for 99% of the time! so why the fuck always slow myself down? for what??????????? Just for demons to repositioning themself then shoot me in the back? How I died in this game? 10% of the time I got smash in the face when doing melee combo. 90% of the time I got shot from nowhere, those fucking fodders shot some fucking almost hard to see projectiles from any angle. Every death feels so cheap. All in all, even though I dislike this game so much, I still appreciate they at least try to do something new rather than to make Eternal 2. But please rethinking about fucking push-forward combat again in the next game. I pre-order Doom Eternal and this game. But I will never pre-order another id software game, unless its actually worth my hard earn money.

Nah nah this aint it. Sadly Steam does not have a "meh" category + the combat feels ok, but you must tweak the speed to your liking + story starts pretty good + cutscenes are passable + weapons and upgrades feel pretty good at start + graphics are pretty good - story ends so badly like a pg13 avengers movie (save the girl) - why did we need cthulhu here? it feels out of place - flying is awful and the mechanics are so low effort for it - the mecha suit was a let down and is just a punching simulator. like really? - puzzles are some of the most mind numbing there is - parry-system becomes pretty repetitive - no doom theme at the end? - no ship? - eternal did everything better

This game has some good aspects, but a lot of bad, and worse, boring aspects. [h3]The good: [/h3] The shield is fun! Parrying is alright, the timing is really generous and I decided to lower it. I like that that's an option! The other shield moves are great. The graphics are good. I don't like that they went all in on raytracing after how optimized and lightweight the rendering engine was in the last two doom games, but it still looks good. The sound design is mostly good. Some of the sfx are a little over the top, but everything sounds weighty and satisfying. The gameplay loop is pretty fun. Nothing crazy. The weapons are great! I used all of them a lot except for the grenade launcher and the plasma guns. [h3]The bad: [/h3] The slow motion every time you land a parry or melee attack is unbearable. It makes it incredibly hard to time the next parry when deflecting combos. Totally breaks the flow of combat. I don't mind freeze frames in most games, these ones are just like 5 times too long. Insane that there's no option to turn this off. I don't like that they removed most glory kills. They were kind of the defining feature of new doom. I'm not sure why they decided to axe them, I never found them boring. Cyberdemons weightlessly ragdolling like they're in gmod looks dumb. The dragon and mech sections are extremely bad. The controls are jerky, there's no momentum to your movements, they play like an arcade game from the 80s. They were just a chore to play. [h3]The boring[/h3] Holy shit, the story is so mind numbing. I have never cared less about a video game story. So much of the budget was spent on these cutscenes full of characters with no personality. Doomguy doesn't have any motivations and has lost all the character he had in 2016. It's been said a million times, but the plot is forgettable generic fantasy nonsense. The only character I liked a little bit was the villain, but even he was not that interesting. I think I just liked his visual design. The final boss [spoiler]is fun, but he has three very similar phases, and then there's another level and a fourth phase. What? [/spoiler] Unique bosses felt really scarce, replaced by lots of repeated minibosses. The minibosses are fun though! The level design is super boring. Most of every map is just endless flat arenas. They don't feel like real locations, and I never felt a desire to explore them. There was some fun non euclidean gimmicks in the cosmic realm, but nothing you haven't seen before. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] Despite its clearly much higher budget, this game lacks any of the charm of Doom 2016. 2016 was lean, it did a lot with a little, it had interesting characters and conflicts, actual themes and ideas to convey, and it felt fresh. It's hard to make a sequel live up, and even more so a prequel, but any amount of budget or raytracing does not make up for a lack of soul. I hate to not recommend this, because I genuinely did enjoy a bunch of the combat, but I'm bored to tears by the rest of the game it exists in. Oh, and they didn't even end the game with doomguy getting locked in the coffin where he wakes up in 2016.

It has lost its soul, this is not Doom anymore. No Mick Gordon music, what all the intense and hype in the battles made, battles feel slow and not what we are used to. So many filler content that is boring, stale and just uncreative. Dont buy this at a full price, its not worth your time and effort at that price. Dont get me wrong its a nice beautiful game, but it has lost its identity and touch with what Doom is and should feel like.

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL WORLD ARE PEOPLE TRIPPING ABOUT lmao this is the best doom without a doubt and ive played them all countless of times so

Two forced turret sections, flying dragon missions, giant mech missions. Not really much DOOM here, and I think it's a big step back from both previous games. I like the guns, and the two melee weapons Flail and Dreadmace. People are saying the skull ammo weapons aren't preferred, and they must not be using the Ravager. That thing can absolutely shred through a horde of heavies. Just shoot them till they die, don't press E when the game says you can. Some of the other guns are good, but you never need to change weapons, unless you run out of ammo. You get a lot of ammo when you melee, so if you are doing that you will probably not run out of ammo. Melee gets charged when you parry, which is the core mechanic of the game. I prefer the weapon switching and using specific weapons for taking out priority targets. Music is awful, and I can't remember as I am typing this what any levels soundtrack is. They redo the DOOM 2016 intro in a really cool way. Nightmare was fun in a lot of places, but I hate the dragon and Atlan missions. I was challenged at some points, but I would've liked a lot more heavy and Baron's instead of so many shield fodder demons. Five Barons, seven Mancubi, eight Arachnotrons all on a battlefield, and then 3 Cyberdemons spawn. Scenarios like that would be nice. $70 for a single player game is a bit nuts, and $100 for DLC and skins? I sure can't wait to play it, where they might have a reason for me to use the forgettable BFC.

Alr so maybe I was a bit harsh with my initial review, I guess I understand the combat better as a "pick a weapon and stick with it" type thing contrary to the previous two games. When I went in with that mindset, I was enjoying the combat much more, and I appreciate this game for doing something that isn't just Doom '16 again. With that said I'm still leaving my review negative because $100 for fkin Doom is nutty, especially when this is still my least favourite of the three by a long shot.

It was a solid game with no replay value/ multiplayer and not worth the $80 USD! This game made me a believer of subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass. Campaign was short and could be beat with a couple of days worth of free time. Wait for a sale and hopefully DLC patch/update can add an extra game mode/ type to make the price worth it.

После DOOM Eternal переход к The Dark Ages дался мне не сразу — первые три главы я то забывал использовать щит, то делал это крайне неуклюже. Но, хвала высшим силам, это быстро прошло. Ведь щит здесь — 66,6% всей игры, и именно он полностью меняет привычную формулу DOOM. Сначала это ошеломляет, но в этом и есть прелесть новизны. Меня не особо волнуют споры вроде "Eternal лучше" или "Игра стала медленнее" — это две разные игры, и Dark Ages предлагает свой уникальный опыт. Мне безумно понравились все механики, завязанные на щите: парирование, оглушение, рывки, система брони, которую нужно сбить, чтобы добраться до демонской плоти. Отдельный кайф — возможность выбрать 2-3 оружия, выстроить под них стратегию и пройти игру, не меняя их. А испытания оружия и вовсе открывают глаза: то, что казалось бесполезным, после прокачки бьёт не хуже остальных. Враги здесь по-настоящему опасны (особенно на "Кошмаре" и выше) — некоторые способны вызвать панику и заставить ошибиться. Отдельные демоны наносят неожиданно длинные комбо, которые нужно сначала парировать, а уже потом контратаковать. Палач остался безжалостной машиной для убийств, но стал ещё мощнее — его прыжки теперь могут снести в мясо всякую мелкатню. Антагонист не превратился в очередного гиганта вроде Иконы Греха — это [spoiler]концентрированная сила в сравнительно небольшом теле, которому, однако, требуется поддержка ведьмы.[/spoiler] Сюжет не стал главной фишкой, но не разочаровал — было интересно. А короткие переключения вроде управления Атланом, битв с титанами или полётов на драконе (кому-то они могут показаться душными) не успевают надоесть, потому что их немного, и они не мешают основному экшену. Первое прохождение на "Кошмаре" помогло мне отвыкнуть от Eternal, с его рывками и гансвапом, и полностью погрузиться в новые механики. А теперь — время для "Абсолютного Кошмара", где нужна максимальная концентрация и безупречное исполнение. DOOM: The Dark Ages — совершенно новый опыт с отличной графикой, продуманной подачей оружия и механик, интересным сюжетом и, вопреки некоторым мнениям, хорошим саундтреком (хоть и не таким запоминающимся, как в Eternal).

A Confused Beast with Sharp Teeth — Fun, But Far from Perfect Doom: The Dark Ages left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, the gameplay is undeniably fun—fast, brutal, and satisfying in the way only Doom can be. But beyond that, it feels like a game unsure of its own identity. The campaign is short, and unfortunately, a good chunk of the levels just feel... uninspired. It's like they tossed a bunch of random ideas into a box, pulled out ten, and ran with whatever came out—no matter how mismatched. Some moments shine, but others feel like filler, lacking the punch and intensity you'd expect from a Doom title. There’s no denying the combat is enjoyable. The core loop of tearing through hordes is still here, and it delivers that adrenaline rush that Doom is known for. If you’re just looking for something to shoot, you’ll definitely find your fun. But take a step back, and it starts to feel more like a chaotic blend of other universes than a focused experience. Stylistically, it’s all over the place. One moment you’re in what feels like medieval space Camelot, the next you’re battling aliens straight out of Predator or Gundam. There’s even a touch of Lovecraft, The Fifth Element, and Dragonriders of Pern thrown in for good measure. It’s bold, but also confusing—and not in the good way. If you're a long-time Doom fan, this might not be what you expect. It doesn’t feel much like a Doom game. Instead, it feels like a mashup of ideas trying to wear the Doom name, without the focus or tight design of its predecessors. Still, I’m giving it a thumbs up—for one reason: the gameplay. It’s good enough to carry the experience, at least for a while. But this is definitely a “wait for a sale” kind of title, unless you're just really hungry for more Doom-style action. Fun in bursts, but lacking in vision.

Mid: The Dark Ages Combat loop is subjectively worse than previous games (even Doom 3 ffs, a game where you play peekaboo with a shotgun). Parry, bash/throw, hold LMB. Titan and Dragon levels serve no purpose, they are too bland. Performance and other graphical issues (black textures with FSR/XeSS enabled, black screen with framegen enabled) are mindboggling for an id Software game. I'm just disappointed.

Very disappointed to see DOOM: The Dark Ages force ray tracing with no option to disable it. My RX 5700 XT handles modern games just fine, I try to open the game and what do I see? it's blocked entirely because my card lacks RT support so you can't even launch the game. What a shame, really — I dropped £99 on the premium edition and I was really looking forward to play it. Well I guess it can't be helped and I have to ask for a refund, I wish the circumstances were different but now the money will be going somewhere else.

Feels like Wolfenstien, grey and boring to look at. Also I don't come to Doom for lore filled exposition dump.

9.5/10 Dark ages is the best part of the Doom trilogy, brutally, fast and adrenaline action. Of course the shield along with the flail and later the runes is awesome, literally captain Slayer i enjoyed it. Surprisingly good story. Audiovisual, atmosphere excellent, technical condition too. No bugs and crashes I recommend it.

I really do respect the attempt to do something different with the formula - but this one feels a bit all over the place. There are times where everything comes together just right - and the core gameplay loop of parrying, shield bashing and shooting demons with your variety of weapons feels amazing. But then there are other times where you are spending time walking through drab open spaces in samey looking locations, sitting through story cutscenes you're not all that invested in, or playing glorified quick time events in the unfortunately dull vehicle sections. I think it's not a bad game per say, but I don't really feel all that inspired to pick it back up again. Doom Eternal really hit the mark for me in a way very few other games have, and stands out as one of my favourite games of all time. It's a rare case where I think I would have honestly been happier with just more of the same in the sequel.

I %100 the game already. I think the price point is absurd for the amount of content they gave us. I hope they give DLC for free to makeup for the other 50 hours I was hoping to get out of this one.

On its own it is a pretty awesome game and very well made, just don't go in expecting Doom eternal or D16, it plays very differently from both and it will take you a while to fully understand the combat loop ( which is great btw) It is not a Doom game review without mentioning the soundtrack, the ost is pretty good, there are some good bangers ( unchained predator, infernal chasm) however it is not as good as Mick Gordon's, this guy basically created the Nu-Doom music identity and can't be replaced. The Dark ages exclusive mechanics works pretty well, the projectile parry/reflect are very smooth and the shield throw/ bash are pretty satisfying, there is no quick swap in this one , but you don't really need to because it is not as weapon specific as Eternal was, any weapon combining melee, parry and shield can carry you through out the game. Imo it is a but pricey given there is no replayability aside from doing the campaign again, hope they add a couple of Master levels and Horde mode. What i don't like: - the new gold/gem based unlock system, feels more about inflating game time instead of being rewarding , it can impact the pace of the game and it gets really tedious when looking for them again in the next run. - An expensive game that offers no replayability on release. - Glory kills being very dumbed down, so they basically invented the glory kill 5 direction mechanic that became a staple in Doom games, just to throw it away. However if you want a Doom game with a memish and ridiculous power fantasy story that involved lots of gore , awesome gameplay and environment, this will deliver.

Way way better than Eternal, but it's spiritually a Quake game.

I'm a huge fan of Doom 2016 and Eternal. Played Eternal to death. The Ancient Gods DLC is some of my fav gaming experiences of all time. INITIAL EXPERIENCE NOT GOOD: I didn't like The Dark Ages initially. I actually left the game for 2 weeks after playing it at first. After giving it another try, I think it's probably the best Doom game yet. It's definitely between this and Eternal. I just finished the campaign last night and immediately started another play through. Then I bought the digital upgrade in anticipation for the DLC. Both Eternal and Dark Ages hit that sweet spot where you get sucked in with an incredible flow to the carnage. Once you find your rhythm, they both put you in the ultimate fun zone. Starting out in Dark Ages, I was playing with the rhythm I learned in Eternal, and I didn't have fun. It's also not as obvious find your flow in The Dark Ages. I played the first few levels and didn't get hooked. The trailers and the market response of "it's not as good" flavored my experience. And that combined with my understanding of the new parry system meant I wasn't having all that much fun. Granted, now that I've finished the game, I can see it was 100% a me problem. I didn't understand the systems, I was misusing the parry and combo systems. Once I started playing with the mechanics and finding my rhythm, it was a blast. Case in point: once I restarted my next play through on Nightmare difficulty, the first few levels were waaay more fun and flow filled because I was dancing to the right rhythm. So, the game is definitely recommended for any fans of Doom games. Just know that if your not having fun, you might be like me, and you might just need a little more time to find your rhythm. Finding your combos via the parry system, super shotgun, melee and shield bash, it's honestly more fun (at times) than Eternal. The sound of the shield ringing will be in your head all day. Another plus: the vibe of the game. The story, world, and characters are a level up from Eternal. The levels and the environments are insane. The Cosmic Realm is a huge highlight. Standout. Wish there was more of it. The scale of the levels is also insane. CONS: The game is not perfect. There are downsides. The Atlan and Dragon sections are definitely a weak point of the game. They feel shallow, bolted on, clunky and kind of pointless by comparison to the core gameplay. Lots of potential, and fun World building experiences, but once you get what they are, they just aren't up to the same quality of gameplay as the core game. Once you realize that, then they feel like they're really just getting in the way of the fun. The Atlan parts especially. Just feels like a bunch of melee smashing and the world around you feels like a bunch of toys. Not quite as epic as the scenes would have you believe them to be. I'd much have preferred just more regular Slayer missions and levels. Lack of glory kills is definitely a vibe dampener. I listened to Hugo Martin (creative director of the game) talk about why they removed them. They found that including them in the new open battlefield style of gameplay, with way higher enemy counts, just felt tedious and not fun. So they removed them to improve the battlefield flow, so you don't get pulled out of the battle rhythm and go stationary to execute demon. I get it, and I agree with him the choice to remove them does improves your flow. That said, when you compare the experience between Eternal and Dark Ages, the inclusion of glory kills just give a way more full on carnage vibe that's missing from Dark Ages. Yes, flow is improved, but with the angle of The Dark Ages, you'd expect it to be even MORE blood and guts style carnage, not less. So removing them comes with it's own cost. Just compare the Berserker mode from Eternal vs Dark Ages and it's no comparison. You literally don't Rip and Tear in the addition that I was expecting to be the most Rip and Tear. Another downside: at times I felt like the enemy roster became repetitive. At times it felt like I was just facing the same types over and over. I never felt that in Eternal. I don't know how many different enemies you face in this game versus Eternal. I wouldn't be shocked if there was the same or similar, but that was the feeling I had at times. That said: on the enemy front, I will say that the whole "take on the battlefield formations" angle is very cool. As is the way it forces you to sequence your battlefield attacks to get to the leaders and take them out. Great addition to the combat puzzle philosophy. The weapons in the game are also great. Though some of them, like the grenade launcher, I just felt were totally pointless and hardly ever used. Never felt that about any weapons in Eternal. Chainshot and Ravager (skull crusher) are my fav new weapons. Such a blast. FINAL THOUGHTS: While not perfect, it's an amazing addition to the franchise. More of a slow burner to get into. Once you find your rhythm in the fun zone, it's oodles of fun. It's every bit as good (if not better) than Eternal at times and I can't way to see what carnage the id Software dudes have lined up for the DLC

Visually the game looks great, but my goodness I feel like I am playing a PG-13 version of Doom. What happened to the glory kills and crazy violence?!

It's a decent game, but not a good Doom game. Mech and dragon parts are extremely boring. Overall combat feels really shallow, wait for green light, parry and shoot. The game overall is terribly optimized. Also regular Nightmare feels waaaay too easy. GKs are gone which is great for speedrunning, but terrible for casual. It's no longer rip and tear, it's wait and parry. Go play 2016 or Eternal again, this game is not worth the price. One day when it's sub $30 get it.

---{ Graphics }--- ☑ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☑ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn ☑ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☑ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☑ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☑ Average ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ Cyberpunk 2077 ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☑ 10

I think it's incredible that even when id software makes a game around a bad idea the end product turns out to be really fucking good video game

Beautiful game, cool features, too many steps down quality-wise from Doom: Eternal. The lack of glory kills and weird sound design is just not it for me, especially for 90 Canadian dollars. The gameplay loop is *fine*, but that's it.

Really, really good game. The key thing to note is that if your only looking for, "Doom Eternal 2" then you wont find it here. Its much slower and more methodical then any of the newer doom games which may not be for everyone. Gameplay wise your a wall of death that demolishes nearly everything that tries to stop it and it feels amazing. Story is also a bit more prevalent here but only barely TL;DR: Buy the game

I'll start by saying I was very hyped for this game. It is not a bad game. It's just unfortunately a massive downgrade from the two genre defining games that came before it. The TLDR: It's definitely fun and worth play, just not at full retail price. Would wait for a sale on this one. The good: art direction remains phenomenal. Arguably the best art direction in the trilogy. It balances atmosphere and variety very well. I still think 16 has the overall best atmosphere, but I'm also just partial to horror in general. Id continues to try new things, which is commendable. I can't think of a modern AAA studio that scraps an entire combat model and rebuilds it in such a big franchise. The bad: for all of its strengths in combat and art direction, this game is ultimately all style, little substance. Take art direction. Fantastic, the skyboxes incredible. But you don't care about any of the environments or know why you are there. They made a conscious effort to have story cutscenes and a huge focus on them. But despite the story cutscenes you get no sense of narrative from the game. You have no idea why you're doing anything. Also the environmental storytelling is nonexistent (unlike Doom 16, for example). Each level in 16 felt like a lived in environment. This story issue wouldn't normally be a problem bc gameplay is obviously king in these games, but it's clear that a huge part of the budget went to the cutscenes and I think the rest of the product suffers for it. Gameplay. On a superficial level it's intense and in your face. But objectively it's very simple and frankly too easy. This game is easier than Doom 16. The shield and melee is cool, but lacks depth. This is obviously a reaction to eternal. Combat feels closer to doom 16, but I think 16 is superior in terms of combat design. And Eternal is obviously incredible. Instead of refining DA's combat system, they added dragon and mech combat. Great ideas, but they feel like an afterthought. They have less depth than an NES game. Again they aren't bad ideas, but implementation is terrible. All style, no substance. Either focus on just the slayer ground combat or flesh the mini-games out. And then finally, the elephant in the room. The music. This soundtrack is not bad, but it's not memorable. I don't envy any artist that has to follow up Mick Gordon. Mick is a generational talent. He is immensely creative, but also understands how to time/implement music to generate an emotional response from the players. I would argue that music is one of the core pillars of the franchise, up there with gameplay and art direction. This soundtrack is not it. It's just not memorable. There are no moments like in eternal when "All They Fear Is You" kicks in and you feel like a badass. Unfortunately this was expected since Marty is a POS corpo that really treated Mick unfairly. I respect Id and the creatives at the studio, but leadership really hurt this entry. All in all this is a fun game. It's the worst in a genre defining trilogy. It is better than most of the AAA trash that's put out these days. But it's held back by simplistic game design, gimmicky mini games, no narrative direction, and a score that just can't hold up to the ones that came before it.

Not that bad of a game or anything, but it's just not worth 80 euros!

just beat the game on ultra violence; its a better game than doom eternal and 2016 and i'd go so far to say they've released an actual doom game now, but its not worth 70 dollars so wait until it goes on sale or buy from another site. in terms of difficulty it's a lot easier than doom eternal for the reasons below. the music is a lot heavier and actually sounds brutal, very little to no "techno" chainsaw mick gordon mish mash of dog shit. yea he made "some good tracks" but all the good music from doom eternal came from the DLCs which he wasnt a part of lmfao. in comparison to the last 2 nu-doom games, this one is the closest to matching the original gameplay, whereas the former 2 felt more like movement shooter quake nonsense with no end. this is also why you will see a lot of people crying about the gameplay, because it really is COMPLETELY different from eternal. old doom was moderately paced eliminating hordes of creatures in averagely wide open areas while finding secrets. it's the same thing here just a little bit bigger. the levels are all good to look at and a lot more "open" due to the massive shift from the movement shooter trash gameplay, so if you're sick and tired of the fucking monkey bar floating platform tower climbing slop don't worry about it here. there are no dashes, double jumps or any other retarded movement based abilities. there is only sprint, charging with the shield and that's it LOLOLOL get fucked zoomies. all the guns are great, they are all useful and actually do good damage and become very strong with upgrades and the best part is NO CONSTANT WEAPON SWAPPING COMBO HELL WOOOOOOOOOOOO tired of your wrists constantly fucking aching? well guess what, you can run through this entire fucking game with just one weapon, AND STILL CLEAR ENTIRE HORDES VERY QUICKLY WHAAAAT? so if you're a really big fan of that disaster joke that was called a fucking game mechanic just don't even bother with this one lol because you swap weapons in this game SLOOOOOWLY LOOOL. to all those morons that spent months if not years perfecting their ability to do that, well sorry lol get fucked nerd there doesn't seem to be any ranking system or nearly as much customization as the last game which is sad to see considering its priced at standard edition for SEVENTY FUCKING DOLLARS but hey that's just me. I ran the game at low quality the entire time and it looked fine, game ran smoothly for the most part with little to no glitches bugs or errors at around a solid 60 fps with occasional dips who cares really. update your drivers and u should be fine unless your computer is old, which unfortunately is a lot of people. the cringy verbal cock riding of the "doom guy" is toned down, a lot, thank god. it's only really visible at the beginning so if you thought that shit was fucking atrocious like I did you'll like this one a lot more. the doom guy isn't treated like the patron fucking saint captain america elon musk is literally tony stark is literally jesus christ mary mother of reddit god le heckin science rules marvel movie character in this like the last game, more just like an actual killing machine. this game makes you feel like the unstoppable apocalypse the other games "tried" and failed to do and not just hopping around the same boring ass arena platform for 40 minutes straight while weapon swapping 6 different guns to take down one fucking baron. you're not some trigger happy monkey flying around the place with some goofy fucking hammer that makes cartoon noises before the enemy stands there stunned with birds chirping over his head all while pressing like 8 different buttons just to stay alive, wtf were they even thinking. you're actually mowing down hordes of enemies, there's even a fucking morale system where you have to kill enough demons in order to break the leaders shield and kill him. you kill more enemies in one level than ever before. the only thing that really bugs me out is all the fucking "tips" that pause your game and force you to read, especially for the guns like can I just fucking learn it myself? there's also this flying portion of the game which is just not good at all. it feels clunky and very last minute addition, it really didn't need to exist at all and it's without a doubt the worst part of the game lmao. you could have cut that development out and restored the customization and ranking the last game had instead but hey that's just my opinion. the game isn't nearly as difficult at ultra-violence as the last one, particularly because it's an actual doom game now and not some retarded quake clone like ultrakill. as a result, the forsaken ADHD addled ipad children that played eternal during covid will find this game "boring" in comparison, sorry there's no 50 minute chained weapon swapping arena garbage in this lmfao. the goofiest it gets is the red light green light shit but I honestly don't care anymore after the first level. nooooo le heckin awesome glory kills are gone tho oh nooo..... so sad..... i'm gonna miss interrupting the combat flow every 3 seconds to witness the totaly awosome animation of doom guy fingering a crab to death for 5 seconds straight..... so sad. they are still actually there though but they only work for the last enemy of a morale encounter, IE they realized how fucking tedious glory kills were and delegated them to the appropriate spot, the END of the encounter. don't buy this game at standard price though, it's not worth it, most tragic part of this because it's the most fun out of the three nu-dooms. absolutely retarded and whoever thought it was a good idea needs to be shot and pissed on, sorry not sorry. an actual doom game and bethesda needs to stick with this line of gameplay, because it's actually fun to play whereas the last 2 felt like cutting grass with a dull push mower in summer heat on very uneven ground, a fucking chore. (last note) I've noticed something very peculiar with their design of difficulties. so you know how there's several difficulties, with the last one being some insta death super hard aggression thing that's insane? well yea that's still there, you can beat the entire game on the last difficulty and get these cool skins like hey wow ur so good at the game right? well, when you start a game you choose your "difficulty" then right after that it gives you multiple sliders for enemy health enemy damage enemy aggression player damage (up to 1000% what the fuck lol) ammo drops stuns etc etc but the weird thing is, if you change them all to the EASIEST setting, you will still get the same rewards you would if you put them all to the HARDEST setting. very fucking weird decision there, kind of invalidates the whole point of the difficulty system and lowers the value of those skins but whatever right? I only realized this after I beat the game once on ultra-violence, but still this kind of killed any desire I had to play this again. lmao what a joke (end of note)

TLDR: Overall 7/10 game Longer Read: I've been a fan of the DOOM franchise since I first played DOOM 2016. With the releases of DOOM Eternal, DOOM Eternal DLC, and DOOM the Dark Ages, I've been finding that they are straying away from what really makes DOOM such an amazing game. (SPOILERS from here on) --------------------------------------------------- First let's talk about why it was still good: Fights: 9/10 Amazing, I loved parrying projectiles and attacks and smashing demons. Atlas robot fights: 6.5/10 Pretty good. I think they could have sold the feeling of being in a big robot more if they had us looking through the DOOM slayer's eyes that then looked out of the atlas and having the atlas shake more. Still pretty solid because the game didn't heavily depend on this part of the game. Graphics: 10/10 I liked the looks and textures that were given to everything. The world (at least hell and what appears to be earth) felt and looked great. No frame rate drops. Very good. Dragon fights: 7/10 Pretty basic on the surface but the controls on flying around felt pretty good. Didn't over complicate things. However, the dodging of attacks was pretty repetitive and didn't keep it very interesting. Movement, tools, and weapons: 8/10 They re-simplified a lot of movement and tools between DOOM Eternal and this game which I really appreciate (Doom Eternal's system was bonkers to learn). Couple problems: The weapons felt inconsistent at times with dealing damage, and when you get the equivalent of the BFG it's a Ballistic Force Crossbow. Honestly, that was the biggest mistake. GIVE ME BIG GUN. Secrets: 6/10 They practically went back to Ultimate DOOM secret hunting with it being so basic. The only things to really look out for were the wolf statues because they didn't show up on the map. --------------------------------------------------- Now to say where they are slowly going wrong: Cut scenes. REALLY DAWG. You know where DOOM 2016 really pulled through? NO cut scenes. The story and characters are all told through the Slayer's eyes and it was AMAZING. Let me rip and tear until it is done. 1/10 They removed the silent protagonist part from DOOM Guy. And people are going to be like "Oh it was just like one cut scene and one line" Like... the whole point is he is mysterious and powered by friggin anger towards hell. You throw that out the window when you give him a voice that sounds like he is supposed to be caring about any other characters. 0/10 Some people might find this part interesting but I don't like the fact that they mixed DOOM's hell and Lovecraft Hell. They feel like completely different worlds and the combining of them... awkward. The added gameplay around it was cool, but should've worked on fitting it to the DOOM world better. 3/10 GLORY KILLS WHERE ARE THEY?!? 1/10 Like at least there are a couple of kills you see throughout the playthrough that are fun. But... I WANT TO RIP AND TEAR --------------------------------------------------- Conclusion: DOOM 2016 was a 10/10 game and you should play that first. With DOOM Eternal, you were equipped with SO MANY pieces of equipment the entire game is spent learning how to manage all of them. Still, had a fun time with it. 9/10 With DOOM Eternal DLC, I became so lost in the game trying to force a story down my throat that I honestly lost so much interest. 7.5/10 DOOM the Dark Ages mostly struggled with the same problem as the DOOM Eternal DLC. It was trying way to hard to force a story with characters I DONT CARE ABOUT. A character that just so happens to have a wraith inside her the whole time? Don't care. A king who is failing to protect his kingdom? Boo, boring, seen it. WITH ALL THAT SAID, I still played through the game and beat it recently. It felt like a much more casual Doom game and I had enough fun with that. But I don't think it really fits with the other games. 7/10

A good game but not a good DOOM game. If you're looking for a classic shooter, with a focus on gunplay, look elsewhere. Also, can this studio move away from this trend of pushing more and more story into this series? These games are at their best when we dont have a ton of plot