With freedom to use whatever weapon works for you, the game feels more expressive even if a lot of the speed is gone.
DOOM (2016) is one of those must play titles, everyone who fired it up would rave about it, a true spiritual successor and reboot to the decades old franchise.
It was fast and brutal with enemies that were just cartoonishly evil, each level ripped from your brother's mate's metal band fan art.
Even if you weren't tooling around in the DOS prompt in the nineties you could appreciate the speed and razor sharp gameplay that players fell in love with.
DOOM: THE DARK AGES feels like a reboot of its own, a sideways step back away from a lot of the changes made in DOOM Eternal.
If you don't know your BFGs from your super shotguns this might be exactly the DOOM for you, a great entry point for newbie Doomslayers.
Lets get one thing out of the way straight away. No one really plays DOOM for the plot. Sure there is a story weaving each of the levels together but it felt like window dressing on the demon murder. Here is the story if you missed out
Hell, DOOM Eternal opens on a weird timeskip with absolutely zero explanation, I honestly do not remember a single thing about that game, the first one had something to do with super hell energy hyper-capitalism? I think?
It doesn't matter.
So when I say one of the biggest changes The Dark Ages brings is that it actually has a story with multiple characters and story cutscenes. Like the fundamental parts are still there from the previous games (as a reminder, Demons appear, you kill them, repeat) but you now actually get more of the how and the why.
The world that was hinted at or referenced obliquely is much more fleshed out this time around ready for you to tear into, each exquisitely rendered hallway and room fills out our picture of this universe.
You find out who the Sentinels really are, you get to meet a fair few of them, you find out what they are fighting for. The mysterious scheming Khans are here up to no good. There is exposition.
DOOM: The Dark Ages, I'm convinced is meant to be someone's first DOOM. It feels like such a specific entry point. It's not as hectic and you aren't left to just puzzle it all out as you kablam baddies into what comes after the afterlife.
No. You still kill them.
One of my major issues with DOOM Eternal was how much it funnels you towards specific counters for specific enemies and building that pattern of skills. Learning each of the counters to each situation took trial and error. You had to do what the game wanted you to do.
It was at the core of the design of that game with Game Director Hugo Martin even stating in interviews that he wanted to "hold the player accountable" and keep them playing a particular way, and keep them in the "fun zone."
It didn't work for me, I have played a lot of FPS titles over decades and it felt bad.
The Dark Ages feels like a genuine step away from that philosophy and let players complete these combat puzzles in their own way. I had countless encounters where I was switching through weapons frequently, when I ran out of ammunition in a favourite gun I just moved to the next one and didn't feel like it was game over. That was absolutely not the case in the previous game.
I could also actually have a favourite weapon and build strategies around using that gun I liked, weaving together counters with the new shield and the different melee weapons.
It comes with a pretty major trade off, one that might be a deal breaker for certain players, it's a lot slower. You need to be ready for enemy fire and position yourself correctly, but you've definitely got time to get there.
Glowing green projectiles rocket towards you and you need to be ready to blast them back towards the demon who sent them your way with your shield. Each encounter is new dance as you shoot demonic foes, then ricochet their attacks back at them, finishing them off with a final gorey melee kill to refresh your ammo and health.
You can strategically chuck your shield at a group of glowing fodder to build up your armour. You can actually choose how your guns level up, some upgrades giving you more damage over time, or make your attacks wider and more deadly to groups of foes.
Choices are firmly part of this game and it's interesting to see how teams who have built a series of games change their overall design mentality as they release new titles. That's a really good thing in my book.
Switching between shooting, defending with the shield, meleeing falls into a really enjoyable rhythm.
As the world is bigger and you're not running through complete ruins as you were in previous games, you get to spend more time in the ruined beauty.
Two nice additions to the gameplay are the flying sections where you hope astride your dragon and fight through the air moving to different areas in much larger spaces. It's just a dragon by the way, they don't give it a scifi fantasy name or anything. If it's cool they just go with it.
One level saw me flying through the arches and past the domes of a city under siege, blasting down enemy ships them catapulting myself back into first person to finish everyone off on foot. The dragon connects up each of these little encounters and you're free to pick where you're going first.
In other levels you jump in the cockpit of a ponderous gigantic mech, complete with it's own crucifix launching frame. The absolute heft of this machine is evident as you biff demons into next week, it feels slow but completely relentless.
The mech sections really are just a slightly different style of first person level if you look at the fundamental structure, but it's a nice way to change it up.
The DOOM games have a fun over the top vibe. Gibs of unlucky monsters spray across the floor and walls. Garth Marengi would be proud of narrative team. This world is ridiculous and silly to be in, an adolescent power fantasy where you are absolutely the good guy even if you aren't a nice guy.
What I really like about DOOM: THE DARK AGES is that there isn't the same pressure on you to be absolutely perfect, the fun zone has been widened pretty dramatically and the game is much better for it. Of course if you want to ratchet it all the way up to ultra-violence difficult setting you absolutely can.
This game is for people playing their first DOOM game ever, but I actually think if you bounced off DOOM Eternal, it's worth pulling on the green helmet and scowl once again.
You are then are presented with a choice, head back towards the modern game that started us down this journey with DOOM (2016) or head down the path of mastery with DOOM Eternal.
The choice this time round, is completely yours.
A copy of DOOM: THE DARK AGES on PC was provided to SIFTER for the purpose of this review.
