Done With #16: Doom: The Dark Ages

This is going to be quite a different vibe from the usual, and I’d like to apologise for that beforehand.

If I can be blunt, I really don’t have a lot to say when it comes to DOOM: The Dark Ages aside from it being more DOOM, I suppose.

If you’re wondering if that’s a good or a bad thing, then let me dissect my overall thoughts for you. With the 16 hours that I spent with DOOM: The Dark Ages, I had a great time blowing the monsters up, ripping their hearts out and banging my head to metalcore music on my Spotify.

However, now that it’s been a few days and I’m trying to put my thoughts into words, it’s been incredibly hard to say anything that’s very positive about this game I suppose? It could be that a lot of gaming news has been wearing me down lately and I have been spoiled by games that are considered generational as of late, so there’s quite a bit of bias writing this down.

What actually worked for me

Ever since the 2016 reboot, The Dark Ages is easily the slowest DOOM game when it comes down to the game’s speed. Ironically, it’s more inline with the original DOOM from 35 years ago, and it is actually not a bad thing at all. In fact, it allows id Software to also add an option to customise the game speed to your liking with its robust difficulty and accessibility options. Those are some of the biggest strengths of this title, as you can customise your gameplay’s experience to your heart’s content. I played around with this setting, replaying a couple of levels while adjusting game speed, enemy damage and player damage and it’s quite a blast to play through the varied settings.

The elephant in the room of this title is definitely Doomguy’s shield, which is honestly one of the best additions to his arsenal. Not only is this a defensive tool, but the game actually encourages you to be aggressive with it. It’s one of the best weapons in the game and an incredible mobility tool that really helps you get around faster for more action. Also, you get to feel like Captain America, throwing it around whilst slicing the enemies in half.

If you’ve played DOOM: Eternal and hate its hellish pacing (just like the game’s setting), then you’d be pleased to know that The Dark Ages’s pacing is actually quite great. There are new weapons to use every chapter, and the steady supplies of weapon upgrades really change up the gameplay loop for the duration of the experience. Its semi-open zone structure also helps for more moment to moment combats and more opportunity to shred the hellish monsters, testing out your ever growing loadout.

And that's kinda it...

The thing is, while the gameplay is great and you are rewarded with more things to shoot with, there’s so little in regards to what to shoot so to speak.

This game relies on you knowing the lore of 2016 reboot and Eternal. There are multiple moments where the game pauses itself like MCU films as of late, nudging you and going “hey hey we did this isn’t it cool wink wink”. Heck, that’s probably the entire game’s campaign to be honest. On top of that, it really did feel like the game had nothing to say. It’s clear that id Software was going for the whole “breaking free from control” story, but it was so surface level.

Gaming as a media has evolved so much the past several years. The medium is not considered one of the most creative art forms with the perks of being able to convey messages through multiple components, be it the gameplay itself, the audio, or the narrative. I’m not trying to say id Software did a horrible job, or saying this is not “real art” and a lot of people play DOOM just to have mindless fun I suppose, but it’s also a bit tiring to excuse it as “well, it’s DOOM!”.

The Dark Ages had a great premise and had potential to tell a powerful story. It’s a game with a really big budget and a big price tag (it’s 70 bucks), with less content (no multiplayer) to “focus on the campaign”. However, that’s not what the game delivered.

You could say that I’m expecting gourmet food at McDonald’s. However, just because I’m buying McDonald’s doesn’t mean it’s not expensive. These days, this is rather overpriced actually. On top of that, it doesn’t mean I should excuse McDonald’s for serving me slob. I should be able to expect better meat, buns that actually classify as breads, and hot fries that are not soggy, dang it!

Really does feel bad to be negative about such a fun gameplay loop

It really does feel like a game that comes and goes; an experience that seriously left my mind after I’m done, which is quite a shame. Even the music wasn’t that great ever since the beef with Mick Gordon started, thankfully I had Knocked Loose and Loathe entertaining me while playing. The half baked story really doesn’t help. However, it doesn’t take away from the pure adrenaline rush that I had with the game either. The moment to moment gameplay is still an aspect that’s very commendable.

It doesn’t hurt to give this game a go on GamePass. I suppose you could say that I’ve been spoiled by amazing experience for the past 8 months ever since The Veilguards and Metaphor dropped. We’re seeing generational games coming out every other week as of late, but, to me, DOOM: The Dark Ages sadly isn’t one.