DOOM: The Dark Ages

Dark ages is awesome but I'd still wait for a sale, given that it's around 20 hours of playtime the price is too much. That doesn't mean I don't like it or I think it's bad at all, but the price is not justifiable. You'll need a high end PC to get the most out of it because it has mandatory ray traced lighting which will kill your performance on low tier RTX cards. The recommended specs are very optimistic I'd say. I happened to upgrade my GPU mid playthrough, the first card (4070ti non-super) struggled to maintain a smooth framerate at medium settings, didn't try low settings. My 9070 XT was able to get 200fps consistently at max settings, using FSR at native & frame gen. Without frame gen it was pretty choppy. I would definitely look at benchmarks for your GPU before choosing to play this to see if it's a framerate you'd be okay with. I loved all the mechanics with the shield, both in and out of combat. Blocking attacks from massive enemies is peak satisfaction. The newest Doom trilogy's peak is always during the chaotic fights with dozens of enemies and the defensive mechanics with the shield lend themselves well to them, the feeling of intensity is the strongest I personally get from any game during the most challenging hordes. The sections where you pilot a mech or dragon are fun but very simple, which is fine as they don't overstay their welcome. The music is good, but unremarkable. Dark ages doesn't have any standout or memorable tracks really, you can tell they were trying to replicate what Mick Gordon did in the previous games but it's just not the same. Overall it's a great game that fits in well with 2016 and Eternal. I'd honestly struggle to pick a favourite between this and Eternal.

The third game in the Doom renaissance, much like the third game of the original trilogy, is technically quite impressive, but overall disappointing in its highest moments, and downright frustrating in the lowest. I'll get this out of the way immediately: The game is far too easy, and though that's a problem I find myself having with a lot of games, it's the reasons [i]why[/i] Dark Ages is so easy that really drag it down when compared to prior entries in the series, and make it kind of dull even if it was its own entirely new IP. From the start of the game you have access to a shield bash attack - It has about a second's worth of cooldown between uses, and it launches you full speed into whatever enemy you have targeted while rendering you seemingly invincible for the duration. Upon impact, you explode with enough force to kill 20 of the random fodder demons around you, and they all drop health. You can also toss the shield as a boomerang that pierces through fodder demons and kills them instantly, and you don't even need to wait for it to return to use it as a regular shield again, it just teleports back if you press the button. Sometimes the fodder demons have shields, but if you shoot them a couple of times (or once with the Super Shotgun, even at range - Or hell, sometimes you don't even have to shoot them) they get "Superheated" and a single toss of your own shield will not only destroy the superheated shield, but will explode and kill all the fodder demons nearby, making them all drop armor. You can turn the game up to a higher speed, you can increase enemy health and damage, you can play on Nightmare with all the sliders turned up and it doesn't make a bit of difference - The fodder demons pose no threat, they die immediately and drop so many resources that it's difficult to actually die in any encounter that includes them (which is most of them.) Heavier demons aren't quite so weak, but the number of them that get instantly killed (or put into an execution state) from a single shield bash into their face (which stuns them) with a follow-up blast from the super shotgun is frankly ridiculous. Hell knights, Revenants, Mancubi and Arachnotrons spawn in just to get bonked on the head and shot once constantly. Sometimes the heavier demons are armored, which means you might need to bonkshoot a second time with a shield toss thrown in the middle, but every now and then I find myself shooting off the demons' armor plating anyway. The shield also allows you to tank damage while it's up (as expected) but there's rarely a reason to do this outside of the few enemies that have a hitscan-ish attack that don't die in one hit. It also has a parry that completely obliterates everything in the game- -To clarify, the parry is unbelievably easy to pull off (even with the parry window turned down to its shortest) and as soon as you get a shield rune that gives you an attack on parry, doing it to an oncoming projectile is almost guaranteed to kill everything around you, and stun/maim even heavy demons. Parrying melee attacks will stagger bigger demons too, which would be sensible if they didn't all die in two seconds immediately after. It introduces different melee weapons but each one renders the previous one completely pointless. The third weapon is a big hammer that refills ALL of your ammo for ALL of your guns when it hits anything, and does absolutely absurd damage to the target and even hurts things around it. The downside is that it has a longer cooldown but since you can recharge melee cooldowns by parrying things and melee pickups are everywhere, you're never really hurting for it. There's waaaay more guns than in previous entries, but you swap so slowly between them that you're almost disincentivised to use them. Each gun seems to have a different purpose but the majority of them are outclassed by the shield: [i]The enemy has an energy shield that will explode if you shoot it with a plasma weapon?[/i] Too bad, the shield toss (after a couple of cheap upgrades) will bounce between targets if it hits an enemy shield, killing them all much faster. [i]There are lots of enemies and you need crowd control?[/i] The shield explode whenever you use one of its infinite dashes. [i]Single big targets?[/i] The shield toss can stun bigger demons in place for a while. [i]HUGE enemies?[/i] Just parry their attacks - Some of them you never even have to shoot. I started out trying to use a lot of weapons on my Nightmare run, and it eventually devolved into a Super Shotgun-fest, since I was never running out of ammo and it does absurd damage to anything it hits. It's almost the only weapon worth using since you can close the distance to enemies in an instant at any time. The rocket launcher was also pretty useful for two reasons: Parrying an attack makes it so splash damage from the rocket launch heals you for a short while, which makes most encounters trivial on its own - But much [i]worse[/i] than this is all down to the enemies' [b]awful, awful, awful[/b] AI. Doom 2016 and Eternal used the roster of demons so well that I genuinely can not find any fun within the senselessness of Dark Ages: Demons will spawn into the arena 50 metres away from you, far enough that they can't actually shoot you, and then just STAND STILL. You can lob rockets at them all day until they die and they won't move, and I cannot understand how this enemy behaviour made it into the game. I cannot defend Dark Ages on novelty alone. Yes, it is very [i]different[/i] from all previous entries in the series, but its differences are not what makes it bad. The terrible design choices and compromises made to the level, enemy and player design are what make it bad. You are too strong at all times but only need to use 10% of the tools you are given. Maps and enemy counts are bigger than ever, but they're mostly just open wastelands with hordes of fodder demons that provide no meaningful challenge nor cathartic satisfaction when defeated. The game has no idea which of its enemies are actually threatening and which aren't, so it will repeatedly throw you into cramped arenas with lots of Hell Knights and expect you to have trouble these trash mobs that die immediately, or put Arachnotrons and Mancubi in places where they are very easy to shield bash. The dev team seems to have no confidence in their ability to balance all this crap so they didn't even bother to try, hence the addition of fine-tuning difficulty sliders - You can call it player choice, but I'm calling it a cop-out. The only way you can make the game slightly challenging is by playing it at 150% speed. This is to say nothing of the writing, which is about as stock as you can get. The game's universe has interesting ideas to explore, but there's no overarching themes, none of the characters actually develop in any meaningful way, the [b]one[/b] entire female character they have is the most Mary Sue thing in Doom history and she spends most of the game either doing nothing, getting kidnapped and needing to be rescued, or being so overly powerful that she could probably fight Doomguy, all whilst having no emotive reaction or growth to anything that happens in the plot - Nobody does. Doomguy himself is a moron throughout most of the game. The mech sections were fun - Once. The dragon sections were fun - Once. The less said about them the better because they show you everything they have to offer within the first 5 minutes of either. All the secrets are displayed clearly on the map and aren't at all secret. There are wide open underwater areas with invisible walls. There's a weird amount of backtracking that was fixed by Eternal's fast travel but isn't included here. Keys are marked clearly on the map, but locked doors aren't?? It has around 5 bosses, by which I mean it has 2 bosses but the second one is reused a bunch of times for the last two missions. I could keep going, but I've ran out of space. Don't buy this garbage.

We are in fact in the dark ages, if modern gaming price points begin at $70. Kidding aside, DOOM: The Dark Ages is a phenomenal, but a different entry in the DOOM franchise. I was leaning towards not recommending this game due to how expensive it is for a 25 hour campaign with no additional content, but I genuinely enjoyed this game, and the game play alone is still DOOM in its core but this time, with a different flavor that I didn't realized I needed after playing 2016 and Eternal. The Dark Ages features the origin of the DOOM Slayer - still the same killing machine, but this time you'll feel like an M1 Abrams tank ready to cause havoc. Newly added weapons to the Slayer's arsenal include a shield, a flail, and a mace which enhances the ways you can kill hordes of demons. There's also a lot of parrying which I grew to love, and newly added sections that feature a giant robot mech and a dragon made the game more interesting. The combat loop is refreshing, and just like the previous entries, fluid and satisfying. The game theme and level design which features a medieval and at times, a Lovecraftian theme are amazingly integrated. Overall, the Dark Ages will feel different from its predecessors - id Software did not stick with what works and instead provided a new experience to the beloved DOOM franchise with the Dark Ages. While I had a blast playing this game, I'd say wait for a sale.

The game play is way different from 2016/Eternal in a way that is not fun for me. The mech battles does nothing for your progression and feels clunky. For me I just didn't find any enjoyment. Eternal is by far the best game play I've experienced in a Doom game. Game enjoyment is subjective to individuals and for me it's just not fun.

A painfully mediocre sequel to a Masterpiece that was Eternal. I went on a social media hiatus when it dropped to evade spoilers, but it turns out that there are no spoilers to be had since 99% of stuff that happens here was in the Eternal codex entries. One interesting thing happens throughout the entire story and that thing jumps the shark and is run into the ground within 4 levels. The gameplay seems like a sad casualized parody of Eternal+2016 with gamepad being the controller in mind for a franchise that created PC gaming. The game has TURRET SECTIONS. I thought we figured out how painfully boring that is by 2009, but I was unfortunately wrong. Same goes for unnecessary vehicle sections. Controlling Doomguy feels like controlling a large vehicle already, but then he gets into an even larger vehicle and things slow down even more. Not worth the full price and upgrading to an RTX GPU.

When I first played Eternal, I was like -- whoa, this feels weird and way different than the first instalment. But, as I got used to playing Eternal, it actually became better than the first one in many ways. With Dark Ages, I got the same feeling at first, so I knew I had to give it a chance. But as the levels went on, I just couldn't have as much fun or interest... I couldn't understand why. I just think that the emphasis on the shield mechanic is what defeats the game for me. DOOM shouldn't be a tactical and defence-focus game. It's a "kill or be killed" intense and offence-focused game. But I found myself blocking and parrying way too many freaking projectiles that visually take half my screen. Everything (skills/fights) revolves around parrying and blocking. The weird "reflect-green-projectiles-and-not-the-red-ones" minigames just felt out of place. And it's part of the core mechanics of the game. - Ambience/graphics are great, but something also feels less compelling compared to previous 2 games. I think it's the washed-out colour palette that gives that vibe. - Lots of weird unexpected collision boxes with the world. Places you'd expect that you can go that you can't - I got stuck on at least 2 (if not 3) occasions because world events or fights would not trigger because of a bug. Had to restart from checkpoint to fix. - Music is alright, but as other reviews pointed out, it's a lot more generic and less intense - The dragon levels are "meh" at best... I don't want to play a Starfox game. Good idea but doesn't add value IMO. Even near the end as the dragon appeared I was like "oh no, not again" lol. - Mob placement is also questionable. You keep encountering groups of shield solders pefectly aligned and you one-shot them with 1 shield attack. Also, fodder demons are a joke. They are always placed in groups that you can one-shot with 1 AoE shield attacks. No challenge there. - I never run out of ammo or health. I think some more balancing could have been done. - You keep coming back to the same 2-3 guns. Again compared to the other 2 games, some guns seem sub-par or not satisfying to use. Even switching between guns is slow so you tend to want to keep using the same gun since it's very hard to run out of ammo - Barely any glory kills. Unsatisfying demon deaths, except a few here and there. The only glory kills that trigger are done with the shield. Because the shield is everything. - Way too many unnecessary cut-scenes. We like the DOOM lore, but it shouldn't be story focused. I don't know man. I loved the other games and completed them several times each (hell, even the older DOOM games). Of course I will finish this one because I paid the full price and it's "ok" overall.. but I just can't get myself to recommend it -- or at least, just be wary of this as a buyer.

The price is unacceptable it's basically pushing you into paying for Game Pass. Enjoy not owning your games in the near future. Fuck you, Microsoft.

This game made me realize just how much of a masterpiece Eternal is. They really tried to introduce new things and some of them work pretty well. The parry and shield mechanics are really fun to use. The soundtrack is still banging , i do not agree with the haters, i know we lost Mick but it dosent means Finishing Move didnt delivered well , it holds up in my opinion. I liked the way they tried to focus more on the lore compared to the past entries , it made the final boss fights more meaningful even tho the game felt like an episode. But the vast size of the levels make up for it , they reeally improved the exploration system. Now , talking about the bad stuff... they replaced the dash with the sprint which isnt any greater. They almost got rid of the glory kills entirely , its not that bad since glory kills are still in the game , except you have to jump in order to trigger them and theyre not many. Probably its biggest two problems for me are the arsenal and the power ups.. First off , Were they influenced by the controversial Under the Mayo ultrakill review ? because i finished the game with almost only using the super shotgun ... something i never thought would be possible in a doom game.. it feels like its too easy when the game gives you so many overpowered abilities and weapons , I do not like the fact that even after you get the BFG , you dont really feel the need to use it during combat because the enemies are just that easy to defeat with your usual weapons. Id say this entry is ten times easier than eternal when it comes to the combat loop. Combat aside , I cannot ignore the ugly crime they commited. They added the Berserk power up into the game.. but its LITERALLY the quad damage multiplier... YOU DONT EVEN USE YOUR FISTS , you just get a big damage boost for your shots , thats all , i dont understand why did they chose to use berserk for that. But yeah .. all in all .. its a DooM game and even tho its not as good as the previous entry , its still not bad at all and enjoyable as it is. Buy it whenver you feel like it , sale or not , its your wallet and your choice , No matter how good a game is on steam , nobody will ever tell you to buy it at full price.

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

Thought this was going to be similar/an upgrade to DOOM Eternal, was wrong. Gameplay not as fun since it feels slower and clunkier than Eternal. My favorite aspect of Eternal, glory kills, (almost) completely gone in The Dark Ages. Not worth 80 EUR, maybe <10 EUR.

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.

Wait for it to go on sale. Its fun for a little while but the story, music, and levels just arent great. Not compared to Eternal at least.

This game tried to be too many other things and stopped being Doom. I have been playing the franchise since 1994 and this is the only one I haven't finished. Did I hate it? No, and I can respect an attempt to innovate. The game just doesn't make me care enough to complete it. It's Doom for the 'content' era.

Wow, this is an incredible step down from Doom Eternal. I can't even bring myself to finish this game I mean it just takes what is fun about doom and just ruins it with the slow placed fighting and the incredibly easy enemies. I was so fucking excited for this game but it was one of the biggest let downs in video games for me. Do not buy this game and if you do wait till it goes on sale because this shit is NOT worth the fucking 70$ price tag. If you haven't go play the infinitely better games that are Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal.

Finished it on Ultra Violence, 100% completion. That’s enough to know how I feel: this one’s a letdown. Combat can be fun but muddy and uneven. The pacing feels bloated, the enemy design is just okay, stripped down animations, and the “dark fantasy” setting just comes off as a bit joyless. $70 for something that feels this stitched-together is a hard sell. Thing I had most fun doing was probably exploration. Unfortunately it is not really rewarding enough as far as what player actually gets for it. Just more padding, ultimately. Clearly, they stripped this down more to cut costs than reinvent the genre, and they cut to the bone, because this game misses what made Doom feel good. I wanted to like it—hell, I finished it—but I can’t recommend it.

SECOND UPDATE JULY 7th / FINAL UPDATE The guns are cool and the game play is fast paced and fun after you get the hang of it, but glory kills happen few and far between and the big bad enemy mini bosses are so boring I stopped playing on the last level, it wasn't fun and it made me stressed, I don't recommend this game, maybe it just wasn't for me. This game is the only game I have ever played were after the "final" boss fight they have an extra level to play to really finish the game, and I was praying it was over already. Sorry I bought this game, but now I will go back and play Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal which are both far better games this piece of shit. TLDR - Mini boss's are bland, have two attacks only / very boring and I found myself getting angry with my Doom time so I stopped playing. Hope this helps you. UPDATED - June 26th The game play is okay, the glory kills are almost gone which is a real shame, and some of these dumb mini bosses ARE NOT FUN, like at all, one guy has two moves and all you do is stand still and parry back at them ten times till they die. I HAD TIME TO VAPE MID FIGHT. This game has potential. So instead I just bought classic DOOM games on the summer sale, hope this will get better later but I doubt it. June 20th Glory kills severally restricted? Why??? I will write a more in depth review after beating the game, but glory kills have been done dirty.

Honestly dogshit. I have no interest in even completing this horrible game. Every graphical optimisation update actually makes the game WORSE. this game has been a fine line between unplayable and today it is FAR from that line now. As the final instalment of the DOOM franchise this game has officially killed off my energy to be a fan of this game. Terrible music, glitchy gameplay, GOD awful updates that kill off my FPS a little more at a time. I am just done. Fuck DOOM, Fuck ID, Fuck bethesda. All of you are rtrded fgts

So far... its pretty meh. The hit detection of enemies attacks is very hard to work out compared to Doom 2016 and Eternal, both, so far, in my opinion superior games. I'll keep trying with this one, but its so far no where near as fun as the previous titles.

Denuvo wont let me play my game, Thanks so much for making it impossible to play a $60+ game

After beating this game, I was left a little disappointed, but overall, it's still a solid game. The story and characters are pretty boring though, and for being a prequel I think that it was a little weak, especially when comparing it with the lore found in 2016 and Eternal. But the game-play loop found in Dark Ages is very fun and satisfying; the Slayer quite literally feels like a tank in this game. Still though, the story was pretty eh, and the music was also pretty average (all the tracks sound the same to me). I just think this game felt a little underwhelming compared to how good 2016 and Eternal are, mainly story and lore-wise. Although it is my least favorite of the new Doom games, it's still worth checking out. Not quite sure if it's worth the money, though.

fast paced and feels like a doom game. with they would have done more with the dragon and the mechs but it is what it is.

Good game, not as good as Eternal, making RTX on without being able to turn it off is ridiculous, not worth fucking $70, maybe buy it in a few years when price goes down and on sale, otherwise I mostly wish I kept my $70.

Through the forces of Hell As I shield bash my way through demons And eldritch monsters... RIP AND TEAR TILL IT'S DONE! Also my Pacific Rim dream came true in this game! Fucking awesome!

My journey though Doom the Dark Ages (Nightmare Difficulty, unmodified) Weird transparent objects flying at me: Oh no did they ruin Doom?? A few levels later after winning the end of level battle: Oh this siege level was pretty fun and the soundtrack kicks ass. Using the [spoiler]Big F***ing Crossbow[/spoiler] for the first time: Oh this game is actually pretty sick. [spoiler]Gets eaten by Cthulhu:[/spoiler] Oh this is definitely the most metal game I’ve ever played. [spoiler]Dies and goes to hell but comes back as an even angrier skeleton Slayer:[/spoiler] Oh this might be my new favorite game of all time. 10/10 My game of the year no question

It isn't DOOM Eternal. If you want to play Eternal, go play Eternal. Early levels are kind of a chore, but after the first two, the open-ish levels are great. Upgrade system with the shield and melee weapons are amazing, and then when you get the shield runes , and then the dreadmace, so much fun. Ignore the mech and dragon levels please.

I loved Doom 2016, I appreciated Eternal, but found it a bit too cerebral. Dark Ages is awesome! It balances great new mechanics and gory casual action. It's a great addition to the franchise.

16.2 hours in and I really don't have any drive to continue. The game is just so much easier than previous titles, but for lame reasons. You can so easily kill fodder demons and use no ammo doing so; and it doesn't even take that much effort killing heavier demons, all of whom drop ammo basically for free. I can get away with using only one gun (the super shotgun) despite only 13ish max ammo because the game just throws ammo at you like crazy. The shield utterly trivializes many enemies, even some that should seem more problematic on paper; which brings me to my point. Everything in DOOM: The Dark Ages seems really cool... [i]on paper.[/i] It's the execution where the game gets kinda meh. The shield simplifies so much, you get so much ammo, and some of the level design is like something out of Serious Sam; wide open spaces to just walk through in between enemies. Overall, it's kind of disappointing.

Rip and tear, until it is done part three: heavy metal medieval jubilee. You gotta give id Software props for making 3 vastly different, very good Doom games back to back. If Doom 2016 is "run and gun", Doom Eternal is "jump and shoot", Doom The Dark Ages is absolutely "stand and fight". In this one, Doomguy is a tank, slowly and methodically crushing the demonic hordes of hell. Much like Doom Eternal, I consider this a very fun sidegrade to the perfection that is Doom 2016, but in the opposite direction of Eternal. Don't want something as frantic as Eternal? Give this a try; the combat in this game is alot more methodical and weighty. I rather enjoyed the cutscenes as well. Very good graphics, very good sound design, VERY good art direction. The Dark Ages might have my favorite art direction out of the trilogy. As for the music, Finishing Move INC does give us an excellent soundtrack, but it may be a bit jarring to hear a somewhat more traditional heavy metal composition, rather than the argent metal that Mick gave us with 2016/Eternal. Highly recommend this game!

Game constantly freezes. Its way too unreliable.

This game is sick, to be quite honest. If you never liked DOOM, then skip it. It's DOOM Graphics are amazing, great cut scenes Total action, decent enemy ai The weapons are fun and original (there's still shotgun) Story is well played. If you think games are too expensive these days, just wait for a sale - worth it

Doom: The Dark Ages is not Doom Eternal. idSoftware has done it yet again. Lemme just get the shit out of the way first. "Forced" Raytracing? Nah. RT’s been around since 2018. The game runs great even on entry-level ray tracing cards. My frametimes are impeccable, not a single stutter. If you're still mad about RT, you’re either rage baiting or just salty your GTX card finally isn’t cutting it anymore. "Mid" soundtrack? Not even close. I’ve played the game for over 100 hours, and outside the game I’ve listened to the soundtrack for over 3200 minutes on Spotify. It’s hands-down my favorite Doom OST. Yeah, music’s subjective, but the hate Finishing Move is getting just because they’re not Mick Gordon? that some shallow stuff. They absolutely nailed the atmosphere, and the music stands strong on its own. Now onto the actual game. This isn’t Eternal and thats OKAYYYY. It took me a bit in my first playthrough to really click with the flow, but once it did? I was all in. My second and third runs have been even better. Combat feels heavier, more grounded. Guns sound super satisfying and punchy as fuck. From the super shotgun converting enemies into red mist, to the impaler nailing clean headshots, to the accelerator melting health bars with rapid fire. The sound design in this game is really well done. It really emphasizes every action the slayer does. This also goes well with the incredible destruction and and environment physics. Landing from above really makes you sound like a tank especially with the shockwaves and stuff in the environment moving accordingly. And let’s talk about the Shieldsaw; i think i might actually be liking it more than the Meathook. That thing’s insane: mobility, crowd control, falters, gap-closing and parrying. It’s a damn chainsaw strapped to a shield, and it makes every fight feel tactical and brutal. This game doesn’t want you to be hot-swapping constantly. You pick a loadout: couple guns, shield runes, melee and stick with it. People upset about the lack of Eternal-style juggling are missing the point. This is Doom with a different rhythm, and it still hits hard. The mech sections? Solid. Especially after the updates. Not the highlight, but they break up the pace well. The dragon segments? Visually stunning, but undercooked mechanically. More of a traversal gimmick than anything meaningful. Visually, this is the best-looking Doom yet. The journey takes you across Argent D’Nur, Hell, the Sentinel command station, and even the Cosmic Realm and each place is laced with detail. The art direction is insane. id Software’s artists are honestly some of the best in the industry, i dunno how they manage to outdo themselves. Especially with the Slayers design. Soundtrack again? Still my favorite. Finishing Move crushed it. My only real critique is the in-game implementation. Sometimes the heavy stuff takes a little too long to kick in during combat. Could be tighter. But overall? Still an absolute banger. Story? You either care or you don’t. Doom’s never been about deep storytelling. It’s there to add flavor, hype, and deliver some cool lore bits. That’s all it needs to do. 9/10

100%ed it on nightmare with several difficulty sliders maxed and enjoyed it heavily. however, forced rtx.

This game isn't bad on it's own, I guess. There's a lot more exploration to each level with the addition of gold coins you use to purchase upgrades and what not. And there are more upgrades as well... but man... the gameplay itself is so inferior to both of the previous games. Especially Doom Eternal. In D:E, every battle required the use of a specific gun to take on specific demons, and you had to run and gun the entire time... it was FUN. Playing on the hardest difficulty meant dying a lot (Mainly in the DLC), but I didn't mind starting over 30 times in a row because it was simply fun. This game doesn't have that fun. There's no verticality to the levels when it comes to combat, you just strafe left and right and bounce slow green projectiles back at heavy demons.. and the minor demons are inconsequential.. they may as well be those fodder zombies from the past games. You don't even have to switch your gun at all. Just use the Plasma cycler gun, melee any demon to refill your ammo. Strafe and bounce projectiles back. The main source of fun in this game is simply 100% each level, searching for all the hidden items.. and easily killing stuff along the way with whatever gun you like best. That's it. They ruined the franchise to cater to the idiot masses who suck at games, it feels like. But, it's still somewhat enjoyable for exploration and story.

Great gameplay! Although Eternal's verticality is gone, it's still very fun to play

Feels like they were making a Quake reboot and slapped the DOOM assets in. Very Fun. The story is way to intrusive and makes no sense, but the gameplay is great.

I deeply appreciate that the new Doom games starting from 2016 have made the case for their existence by designing novel FPS combat systems for each entry.

Worst DOOM game in the new reboot series... - Forgettable story - Melee system sucks (glory kills were better) - Too many "slow mo" moments - Why have secrets if they're visible on the map - It's DOOM, not some sword and shield midevil franchise - Music sucks compared to 2016 and eternal - Lame boss fights - Atlan and dragon missions are the worst - Game wasn't even playable at launch due to driver issues - 80 Euros are way too much for the content you get - Worst offender of them all, WHY THE MANDATORY RAY TRACING??? Most people don't care for it and it eats up all the performance!!! + Difficulty options/sliders are actually pretty good

Honestly wait for a sale on this one. The game isn't bad. Probably around a 6.5/10. Its just a big step down from 2016 and Eternal. It feels like a hollow shell of doom. A lot of reviews will claim its more of a 'sidegrade' but imho its definitely a downgrade. The combat never feels as intense or visceral with the lack of glory kills, the new mech and dragon mechanics suck ass, encounters are too few and far between in general, secrets are not interesting, the story is god awful, and last but certainly not least the music is a major step down. The introduction of shield made the combat way too linear and 1-dimensional as every single answer to every enemy is always parry. The performance is incredible, but so was 2016 and eternal. Id pick it up for around $30 or so, or maybe go on gamepass and get it there for free.

The game ran fine on my older hardware i could get 40-50ish fps on medium but dropped alot of the settings to low to increase that just to a steady 60, then for whatever reason i go to play the game and it gives me the (Raytracing Incompatible GPU) and now i cant even play the game? ive tried work arounds, reinstalling, etc and due to owning for more than a week and playing the game for more than 6 hours i cannot get a refund...... Who ever had the bright idea to just lock players out at just a random moment really needs a hit in the head....

So I feel like it's time to write a review, I've officially hundred percented the achievements and finished my first complete playthrough. I took my time with it a lot and I have to say, this may be my favorite Doom of the modern trilogy after it's all said and done. Doom Eternal will always have a special place in my heart, it was and is an incredible game. But here's my attempt to say why Dark Ages lands better for me. To start off, above everything else; Aesthetic. The Dark Ages has the coolest most over the top blending of visuals in any modern Doom. The Ancient Demon designs are fantastic, every model is a unique and interesting spin on the enemies we've grown to love. They all give off the vibe that the horde really did change and evolve over the years due to the slayers actions. Revenant being an ancient grim reaper hooded figure, Pinky being a fucking war horse, and the insanely cool and much more visually interesting pre-evolution of the Doom Hunter; the Aggadon. It feels like what the Marauder should have been. The new enemies are also stellar. Komodo may very well be my favorite in the franchise now design wise. Besides the enemies the map aesthetic is stellar, it really gives such an incredible sense of scale and overall is hard to describe as anything other than epic. The environments are incredibly varied compared to 2016 especially. It really feels like the game is trying hard to be an homage to the original Quake as well as Doom. Which works perfectly in my opinion, bringing Lovecraftian aesthetics into Doom was an A+ move in my book. Weapons are all varied and interesting as well, I think each one is satisfying in it's own way. While you aren't forced to swap as heavily as in Eternal, there are absolutely best use cases for each weapon and I found myself willingly swapping just for fun and to complete the masteries, which previously in Eternal felt like a chore to me. The standouts for me are the Impaler and the most obvious Quake homage, the Nailgun, both variants of that tree are so cool and fit the aesthetic of the medieval metal perfectly. The Ravager is probably one of the most over the top insane designs in any game I've ever seen? And obviously the Super Shotgun is incredible as always. Not to mention that the base variant shotgun fully upgraded is something I often chose to switch too. Which was surprising because once weapons are upgraded I did not expect to be able to produce resources out of different upgrade paths. The normal shotguns three shot fire mode being able to produce armor made it so incredibly useful. I actually felt the need to explore to find all the upgrades and get my arsenal to full power. The shield and parry mechanics are controversial, but they definitely work for me. It becomes so fine tuned that once you get into the groove you know what you did wrong if you die. But overall it just feels so incredibly fluid. There's nothing more satisfying than throwing your shield around to chainsaw enemies in half or have it ricochet off energy fields to bounce between 10 soldiers and return to you. It truly makes you feel like an epic way cooler and more deadly Captain America. The parrying feels good and on standard difficulties definitely allows room for mistakes, but you can choose to notch that parry window down if it feels too forgiving. I'm personally not a souls fan so I don't play a lot of games with parry mechanics, so I was genuinely surprised with how much I enjoy it. I'd say overall the flow between guns and shield is perfectly balanced. The story itself is good, there's a lot of people basically boiling it down to who cares. Which I get it, it's Doom. It's never been heavy on story. But I like the attempt they made to take it in a more cinematic direction. I'll never forget that when I played Doom Eternal for the first time, I genuinely had no clue what the fuck was even vaguely happening. So much of that games story is communicated through codexes, which I did not hunt in my first playthrough. Later I got invested after my second playthrough and eventually dug deep into the story. But having the story conveyed primarily through badass cutscenes feels much more welcoming and easier to keep up with for any new fans of the franchise. It's clearly working because people have been posting the "run" scene to phonk all over tiktok and instagram. It's all appealing and even if it's not deep, it's epic and just pure fun. I'll make a short note because it's talked about a lot. The Atlans and the Dragon. While I don't think they're the best thing ever and I'm here much more for the ground combat, I did thoroughly enjoy those missions and felt like they added a good break between long stretches of standard levels. Neither mode is perfect, but it's hard to say they're not polished and fun. Also Serrat? Greatest animal character in the franchise and it's an incredible idea to have a dragon so deadly and intense that it will only answer to the Doom slayer, leading him to be the lynchpin of the Sentinels air reinforcements. Serrat is also another example of a sick design. Obviously there are some downsides objectively. There is nothing else beyond the story, so not much room for fucking around like in previous modern entries. It's sad, but I do believe ID most likely has plans to add horde or some other sort of mode presumably before the first DLC. I never did multiplayer in this franchise but I understand why some people are sad it's gone. And I do agree that the soundtrack, while not bad, is nowhere near as memorable as other modern Dooms. We live in an age where people are so polarized about gaming. Especially if a game is not a brand new IP. It feels like it's at this point impossible to make a franchises audience entirely happy. If it stays the same with little to no new features, you keep the people who loved the previous game and open criticism to the army of people disappointed at a lack of attempt to innovate. You change it and make it unique? Too different and not the heart of what (Enter Franchise) is supposed to be. Part of this is just the polarization of the internet, part fan expectations becoming more prevalent than the early days of gaming. But don't let people warn you off from this game, even when I was skeptical after initial critic reviews, I still chose to buy it and even though it won't win a GOTY. It's so far the most fun I've had gaming in 2025.

[h1]A solid successor to DOOM and DOOM Eternal[/h1] This is a solid game, I loved playing it start-to-finish. There were some things about DOOM Eternal that I disliked compared to DOOM. If you enjoyed DOOM but not DOOM Eternal, this game alleviates some of those problems you may have had. I still [i]liked[/i] DOOM Eternal, but it didn’t hit quite the same. I liked this game a lot, and I liked it more than DOOM Eternal. It's about 12-15 hours probably, which is par with the other two. If you liked DOOM, pick this up at a price that makes sense for you. [h2]Nightmare feels closer to DOOM, and difficulty is customizable[/h2] I was able to get through the game pretty fairly on Nightmare like I was able to in DOOM, vs DOOM Eternal felt a lot harder on Nightmare due to its mechanics and resource management, where I eventually got sick of playing on Nightmare and bumped it down one. I played through this game on Nightmare and it felt nice. The difficulty settings are like graphics settings where there’s presets but then you can tweak individual things like enemy aggression, resource drops, damage, parry timing, etc if you feel like there’s stuff that would [i]slightly[/i] make things feel better while keeping things interesting. [h2]The shield is very fun, parrying is fun.[/h2] I think when you initially see a shield and parry mechanic, you think it’s going to slow the combat way down and disrupt pacing. This is not the case, they both flow pretty well. The shield offers different options in combat. You can throw it like Captain America and have it ping-pong around enemies, or you can stunlock a particular enemy. You can use it for mobility where you just charge at an enemy like the Vanguard from Mass Effect 2 and 3, headbutt them at 80 mph and then blast them in the face with a shotgun and bop them with your melee. It’s used in puzzles for secrets. It’s really fun to play around with, and I recommend getting it upgraded ASAP, it’ll be your best friend. The game also accordingly has the classic parry mechanic with the shield of “this attack is green and can be parried” vs orange/red cannot. I never felt like I slowed down to parry, quite the contrary, I felt compelled to run at an attack to spike it back at them or get up in their face to parry so I can riposte and blast them with a shotgun. It’s fun and feels satisfying when you get the timing right. [h2]Fewer mobility options[/h2] It is weird that the shield is the only mobility tool in the game. It's fine I guess? You still move fast and there's a sprint button. [h2]Less rock-paper-scissors, puzzle combat, and resource management than DOOM Eternal[/h2] I felt pretty free to do whatever the heck I wanted and try out my new toys as I unlocked upgrades and found new guns. I never felt explicitly “forced” to use a particular weapon, though there are still circumstances where some weapons are better at breaking armor and shields, but there are plenty of options in each fight. Contrast it with DOOM Eternal, where I always felt compelled to use the exact tools for its corresponding demon and I didn’t feel like I was playing a shooter where my skills mattered as much as my holding Q to switch to the correct weapon for that particular enemy. Sure, there’s more efficient ways to break shields or armors with specific guns, but if you want to just run around with the shotgun, rocket launcher, and machine gun the entire game, it didn’t ever feel like it was going to stop you from using your favorite guns. That can be a positive or a negative, depending on if you want to feel forced to use your entire arsenal or if you just want to use the guns you think are fun. Let's call it a neutral point. [h2]Less tutorial spam than DOOM Eternal[/h2] The modern DOOM games all have freeze frame tutorial screens, but DOOM Eternal had it the worst due to the exact rock-paper-scissors and puzzly nature of combat. This has significantly fewer tutorials. New enemies would show up and I’d just figure out how to shoot them, contrasting with DOOM Eternal where it’d overexplain everything every time because there is exactly one correct way to shoot a particular enemy. [h2]There is no Marauder enemy[/h2] Fuck that guy. You know that guy from DOOM Eternal who was boring and annoying as fuck to fight. Fuck him. He’s not here, and that’s good. There are no enemies that grind the gameplay to a halt, everything flows pretty well. [h2]The story was about all I wanted[/h2] It’s silly but less stupid than DOOM Eternal’s story where they try to hype up and give the lore background about “The Slayer” with the whole Sentinels and Maykrs and yadda yadda blah blah blah. Nobody tries to explain the lore of Doomguy, you’re just there getting airdropped in to kill demons and that’s about it. There are demons. There are a few big bad guys. You kill the demons, then kill the bad guys. It sets the stage for me to shoot things, that's all I wanted from a DOOM game. [h2]Some Open World-ish Maps?[/h2] There are a mix of regular linear Doom levels and then there's these open world levels. The level design for the linear Doom corridors were solid. The open worlds were a mixed bag, they seem fine. The maps are significantly more open-ended where you kinda just mosey around. It felt nice and appropriate for secret-finding in a DOOM game, but it also meant things didn’t always have the right directions. It’s not super bad though, just different. The levels felt bigger but not overly big. It's fine I guess, no major complaints. Less claustrophobic. It's a lot of weird backtracking and exploration to get stuff done, it's kinda meh but it's fine. Maybe they'll get better on the next iteration or DLC. [h2]Vehicle sections were kinda lame[/h2] There are two different vehicles that have dedicated levels and sections for them. They’re kinda boring. I mean they make you [i]feel[/i] cool with the spectacle, but it was boring. They basically take all your weapons away and just force you to dodge, that’s about it. [h2]Some weapons/runes felt underwhelming even with upgrades[/h2] Weapons with the same ammo type share the same weapon slot 1-6 and you just press F to swap between the two, ie: Shotgun and Super Shotgun are both 1, Machine Gun and Gauss Cannon-equivalent are both 2, Energy Weapons are 3, etc… Some of the weapons just feel weaker than their shared slot counterparts. The only weapon I actually switched between the two were the shotguns—the regular for blasting and setting scrubs on fire, the super shotgun for blasting the big boys and breaking armor. It’s probably just my playstyle though. I don’t necessarily want the puzzle combat where I’m forced to use a particular weapon in a scenario, it’s just I didn’t feel many scenarios justified the use of half the weapons ever.

I Just finished Doom: The Dark Ages and I loved it. Huge respect to id Software for not just remaking Doom Eternal. Each of the modern Doom games now stands on its own, and this one might be my favorite. I really liked the new shield parry system, especially when paired with the falter mechanic. Combat feels deeper and more tactical than it first appears. It’s slower and heavier, but still intense. My only real gripe is the music, it’s good and fits the tone, but it doesn’t hit as hard as Doom 2016 or Eternal. Overall, 9/10.

Pretty solid DOOM title, but far from the best. Started and finished strong, but a good chunk of the middle chapters were a bit of a drag in my opinion. I place this as the 4th best DOOM game (1. Eternal, 2. DOOM 1, 3. 2016). My main 3 issues with this entry is: 1. The game is much slower than Eternal. Not the game's fault, that was on purpose, but the constant slow downs really hamper the game. Every time you parry, melee, go to throw your shield, or even shoot some guns, the game enters a slowed state that can harm the pace of DOOM the previous titles have set as the expected speed. 2. There is a severe lack of need to swap weapons throughout the entire game. This is something that I've felt way more in the reboots (2016, Eternal, TDA) than in the originals (1, II, 64, 3). The constant feed of ammo is meant to keep you feeling like the killing machine the Slayer is, however, you don't run out of ammo for the one weapon you use. In the originals, you are constantly switching guns, and have times where you feel like you're scrounging for bullets. It made you feel excited to get a new gun or ammo for a gun that's been empty for a while be an event of happiness. Since Eternal (Less so 2016 as it still had moments where you lacked ammo), DOOM has stepped away from this and has fed you ammo faster than you can use it. Because of this, I really ended up just used the chainshot, super shotgun, and maybe one other gun a level. 3. The cutscenes are something that some players won't really care about unless they want good background on the Slayer and lore of the game. I enjoyed the story as it was one of the clearer story of the DOOM games, but if you're someone who only came to beat demons with a flail, just skip them and ignore it. Overall, I give DOOM: The Dark Ages a 7/10. Definitely the weakest modern DOOM title IMO but not bad. Again, the middle can be a bit of a slog, but the ending was worth going through some meh levels for pretty solid end chapters. I would recommend buying this game on sale for around $50 or just play it on GamePass. I can't say I want to go back and play this game for a second time or collect all of the secrets (especially since they removed the hub where you could see all your collectibles).

Edit: Every single chapter. Every. Single. One. A GUI issue at the end required a complete restart of the game (Alt+F4) and then to spin up the next chapter. There was no immersion or enjoyment in this game for multiple reasons. But man...it's done. This is one rip and tear that should have been stopped before it started. How the mighty have fallen. Original review: This game is a hot, buggy mess - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt. What gets me is the fact that I've got a high end rig and sometimes I get a black screen on launch, sometimes the GUI becomes unresponsive during launch/load, sometimes the GUI becomes unresponsive in the middle of an actual map. I don't know WTF is going on with this game but "shoddy coding" doesn't even begin to cover it. Don't buy this game unless you're a fan of spending more time relaunching a game rather than playing it. Unfortunately, I'm way past my 2 hour refund window, or I'd have refunded this. I'm still going to try. I cannot believe I paid a full AAA price for a game that doesn't even work.

The game is great and a worthy addition to the new Doom saga. The gameplay takes a little while to get used to, especially the bigger demons, but once you get in the flow it's very enjoyable. The exploration is a bit weird: the game shows you all the collectibles ant it's up to you to go after them, but it refuses to include any of the platforming into combat, making it feel very detached. The soundtrack, altough not composed by Mick Gordon, is still great and gets you pumped. The story is...there. It makes a big deal out of all the supporting cast even though it gives no action to them at all. High recommend.

What have they done!?!? Doom 3 was classy. Simple, scary, engaging. Perhaps a bit slow but that's why it was engaging. Doom Eternal got quite "busy". Weapons got complicated. Not as engaging. Loved the meat hook and double jump. Doom: Dark ages. Bloody awful! They've ruined a classic. Way over complicated. Not even slightly engaging. Not scary. Crap weapons. Whats with the mech warriors and flying dragons. Monsters too complicated. massive arena. shoot, shoot, shoot. run to next arena.. shoot shoot shoot. FFS! It's tiresome! I've played only 8 hours of this and given up as it's incredibly boring and tedious. Go back to Doom 3 style game with the odd arena challenge thrown in like the empyrian keys arena in Eternal. Keep the weapons standard and unable to modify them. If I have to keep leaving tghe game to menu check the key bindings then that screams too complicated! Note, I only get an hour or 2 a week to game so remembering gameplay this complicated is tiresome. Absolutely trash game. Hated it from the 1st hour and I was looking forward to a new Doom experience. I'd happily have a refund and delete this rubbish off my PC

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.

For a game from such a storied studio, DOOM: The Dark Ages is absolutely full of soft-locks, and because it auto-saves, you simply get stuck with the soft-lock and need to restart the entire level to resolve it. Sometimes arenas can spawn with you still outside the arena. No way to get into the arena (they fixed the bug where you can walk through the barriers using the weapon wheel but NOT the bug where arenas spawn with you outside them). Too bad, restart the entire level. Sometimes you need to take elevators between zones. If you trigger the right progression flags, now you can't take the elevator you need. Whoops. This isn't speedrun stuff. I am simply trying to finish the damn game and get 100% of every level. This is months post-release. These sorts of bugs shouldn't still be a thing, not that they should have on release. Too frustrating to want to play now.

this game did not live up to doom eternal's legacy, which massively disappointed me, if youre a doom fan and you need your fix, it's satisfactory, but if you want to get into doom, definately don't start here, the game's main problem is how much slower it is compared to doom eternal, and to make matters worse, the dragon and mech levels take the already slow gameplay and compound upon it even more, the mech is not satisfying to control or opperate, the gameplay is just, dodge, punch, punch, punch, dodge, punch, execute and it's incredibly slow on top of that, without the coolness factor the actual gameplay can't support how those levels/sections were designed, the normal shooting levels are ok for the most part, but definately do not impress me

This game is phenomenal. It is my second favorite game of all time, and second favorite installment in the franchise. If it weren't for DOOM Eternal's more fast-paced gameplay, better music, weapons, and the various individual demon mechanics, this game would take the cake because almost everything about this game is better and rivals Eternal for me. The Shield mechanics are phenomenal and never feel stale, and the mech and dragon portions are fantastic. This one, in my opinion, is the most unique because of its different gameplay mechanics from the rest of the installments. My only complaints are that the water portions are very slow and the fact that I never ran out of ammo. I would just troll the entire game, blasting and giving back shots to every demon with my super shotgun. The boss fights and story are the best they've ever been. Thank goodness the developers didn't take crack when writing the story this time. The music isn't as good as Mick Gordon's, but it still is amazing. Overall, an 11/10 game, definitely worth the money.