DOOM may not have been the original first-person shooter; for all intents and purposes, it perfected the genre. It’s a game that’s still enjoyed today since it came out in 1993. The expansive modding community has kept it relevant, and its simple design has made it flexible to be applied to all kinds of unique and interesting modules and ports.
The success of this franchise was monstrous and led to some righteous sequels and even a few spiritual successors. While the DOOM franchise took a back seat for most of the 2000s after DOOM 3 disappointed fans with its measured survival-horror gameplay, it came back with a vengeance in 2016. This massively popular shooter changed the paradigm for first-person action, and its sequel did it again in 2020.
Every entry in the DOOM franchise aims to innovate and do something different, unless you’re DOOM II. However, remember that this next one is a prequel and introduces new gameplay ideas. Giant mechs, flying dragon mounts, the nastiest and most savage weaponry imaginable… is this DOOM or heaven? Find out in our DOOM: The Dark Ages review!
DOOM: The Dark Ages
Developer: id Software
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platforms: Windows PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (reviewed)
Release Date: May 15, 2025
Price: $69.99
The story in DOOM games was never much of a focus and was largely left vague. Gamers never complained, and nobody ever thought there needed to be anything more than a lowly marine seeking revenge against all the forces of hell for killing Daisy, his pet rabbit. It was a simple, yet somewhat humorous motivation to spark a blood rage within the protagonist’s heart that gamers affectionately called the “Doomguy”.
DOOM 2016 carried the trend by downplaying any story and keeping players in the Doom man’s state of mind. DOOM Eternal started to elaborate upon the lore notes players found by having cutscenes in the third person and diving into the protagonist’s character, lionizing him and making him seem grander than necessary.
DOOM: The Dark Ages further goes off the rails into stupid territory by bringing the story to the forefront and making it a prequel to the 2016 game. Not only does this severely limit the direction of the story, but it’s also genuinely uninteresting. Knowing that the DOOM Man had a stint where he was under Maykr mind control does not amount to anything.
The problem with DOOM: The Dark Ages‘ story is that the DOOM man has no character, and he was never meant to be one. There are several characters in the story with whom he interacts, but he will always be the most silent, killing machine. If the protagonist isn’t a character, then there is no story to tell, making all the cutscenes a vacuous haze.
What’s worse is that DOOM: The Dark Ages feels unbelievably far removed from what DOOM 2016 established. The medieval fantasy-look and feel is very un-DOOM-like, resembling something out of a Quake game.
The Knight Sentinels were a pointless addition as is, and Eternal tripled down on them. The Dark Ages rams these characters down your throat, and they couldn’t be more dull or uninteresting.
Even if you ignore the tedium of the driving plot, gamers will still need to contend with some egregious game design choices. Every few levels, the game forces players to participate in some gimmicky set-pieces that severely limit gameplay.
In the giant mecha, all you can do is punch and dodge. Flying on the dragon is like a poor man’s Panzer Dragoon. It’s mind-numbingly slow, and dodging is overly simplified while flying in place.
DOOM Eternal expanded upon DOOM 2016’s gameplay by ramping up mobility by adding air-dashes and tightening ammo count.
Enemies couldn’t be killed easily by using any weapon on them, you had to exploit weaknesses and think quickly and move quickly because DOOM man died fast. This was a great and technical action game that constantly put pressure on players.
DOOM: The Dark Ages does away with all that awesome mobility and weapon-specific weaknesses. Most enemies are weak to whatever you have on hand.
The only exceptions are armored or shielded foes, which are not that common. Enemies barely matter now since DOOM man’s basic melee is overpowered, and he doesn’t zandatsu the same way as he could with glory kills.
The environments during battle took a hit and have become mostly flat and open arenas. This is due to DOOM Man’s weakened mobility. He can barely jump now, so battle areas have no verticality.
Players are expected to tank hits with the shield and use the battering ram ability to charge toward foes. The only good addition to the combat is the parrying, which deflects green projectiles back at enemies.
The visuals look as good as they have always been. The prior entries were some of the best-looking first-person shooters ever, and The Dark Ages is no exception.
While the art direction leans into a bizarre and out-of-place medieval fantasy aesthetic, its technical panache is hard to ignore. If this weren’t a DOOM game, the jarring change in style wouldn’t have been so offensive.
Some of the enemy designs are lifted from obscure sources. There are foes from DOOM 64 and even DOOM 3 that show up that will please hardcore fans, but the new design for Pinkies will confuse and frustrate them. For some reason, Pinkies are large, mount-like quadrupeds. They’re more Warg-like now than the upright, hulking, goat-legged demon they used to be.
Background scenery and the environment consistently impress, usually resembling heavy metal album art. Scarred fields riddled with the corpses of ancient, giant-sized demons and massive gothic fortresses are built into the fossilized remains of some esoteric elder being. It’s hard to believe that this is the same universe as the last two games because it looks a lot more like Mordor than anything else.
The combat and gameplay almost feel like something that could be fun, but end up feeling boring, and a lot of that has to do with how utterly asinine the difficulty is handled. Never mind that DOOM: The Dark Ages has become feminized by renaming “I’m Too Young to Die” to something lame; it doesn’t even matter what difficulty you play on.
Every difficulty mode has gameplay sliders that tweak various settings like damage taken, damage given, how much health pick-ups restore, how much ammo is picked up, parrying window, and even game speed.
These parameters can be adjusted to any difficulty, making the choice utterly redundant. You can play on Nightmare and grossly overpower yourself, waltz through the game, and it will still give you the trophy/achievement.
This decision (likely included at the behest of a browbeating feminist) undermines the entire game’s design and cheapens the experience. It shows that the developers lack confidence in the players and their vision. This is further emphasized by the large yellow crap that signals to players what they can climb on.
Compounded with a worthless difficulty system that allows you to break the game, DOOM: The Dark Ages is criminally overpriced for what you’re getting.
Not only is it not as long as DOOM Eternal, but it’s also missing features that were standard in prior entries. There are no multiplayer or arcade modes. There isn’t even a stupid Turkey Puncher minigame. It’s such a bad deal that the publisher didn’t even put the game on the physical disc.
Worse yet, DOOM: The Dark Ages has no retro levels. Both DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal had bonus levels made with retro assets and were based on old DOOM and DOOM II levels.
Somehow, The Dark Ages completely missed this entirely. There is nothing at all, and this is probably due to the greater emphasis on the narrative. For a $70 AAA game, it does not justify its price and fails at delivering value.
DOOM: The Dark Ages is disappointing. Most of its issues are due to misguided choices and a lack of content. It’s still better than most first-person shooters out there, but DOOM games should be awesome.
It delivers polished, meaty, and violent action with excellent visuals, but it won’t matter if it’s cheapened by difficulty sliders. Move over, DOOM 3, DOOM: The Dark Ages is now the most disappointing entry in the franchise.
DOOM: The Dark Ages on Xbox Series X using a code purchased by Niche Gamer. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. DOOM: The Dark Ages is now available for PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
