The Dark Ages review — ‘a thumb-blistering shooter’

Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Squint a little during Doom: The Dark Ages‘ first mission, and you could almost be fooled into believing you’re playing a first-person, fantasy roleplaying game. As you storm a medieval castle engulfed in flames, you’ll spy dragons flying overhead, hear church bells clanging in the distance, and watch the evening sky fill with flocks of cawing ravens.

By the time you reach a towering, offshore demon that needs to be dealt with, you might expect to do so by blasting it with ballista bolts. Of course, once you find yourself pelting the enormous beast with plasma fire from behind a science-fiction-flavoured turret, you realize you’re indeed back in the Doom Slayer’s chunky boots.

But The Dark Ages’ welcome, intoxicating mix of fantasy and sci-fi elements isn’t even the biggest — or best — thing that separates it from its predecessors, Doom and Doom Eternal. No, that honour goes to its incredibly satisfying, but drastically different gameplay dynamic.

While the prequel retains the series’ signature rip-and-tear combat and obscenely over-the-top action, it loses the peppy run-and-gun cadence and fast-paced platforming of the previous two entries. Instead, id Software’s latest gore-soaked shooter is weightier and more grounded in ways that somehow feel like a perfect evolution for the franchise.

The hellspawn-hating protagonist is still pretty quick on his feet, though he’s traded his double-jump and dash moves for the ability to reduce demons to hamburger from behind a beefy shield. No mere medieval buckler, the new weapon — which is quickly enhanced with a buzzing saw blade — is brimming with both defensive and offensive capabilities. In addition to absorbing damage, it can deflect projectiles, propel you toward baddies with a devastating bash, and halve hell’s minions from across the battlefield.

And as with the rest of the hulking hero’s varied, upgradable death-dealers, it’s seemingly always evolving. Long after the shield has made Captain America’s Vibranium companion look like a glorified cosplay accessory, it continues to get better. By the time you’re embedding its razor-sharp teeth into a baddie’s mid-section — then raining death on nearby enemies by firing bullets into its spinning blade — you’ll wonder how you ever survived the underworld without it.

But The Dark Ages is so much more than a cool, new shield and fresh, fantasy/sci-fi setting. It has bigger maps filled with more enemies, deeper storytelling, a banging soundtrack, and secrets and collectibles aplenty. Toss in a retina-searing visual presentation and incredibly immersive audio design, and Doom‘s latest invitation to defeat hell’s uglies isn’t just the series’ best entry yet, but a thumb-blistering, smile-inducing shooter that’ll be hard to beat come awards season.