Side Quests: Doom: The Dark Ages Review

Doom games, throughout the ages, have one simple premise: Kill demons with big guns. The formula has been modified slightly over time – our new era of Doom is now "kill demons, big guns, HEAVY METAL," which is an improvement – but as long as the basics are there, the game will likely be a ton of fun. Doom: The Dark Ages understands this, and it throws all manner of demons at you, with the express knowledge that you're going to kick the ever-living hell out of them. Man, it is a devilishly good time (and that pun is officially out of the way). 

Leading up to this review, a lot of comments made by the dev team focused on how they wanted to get back to "classic" Doom; not that there was anything wrong with where Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal took the franchise, but those two games did stray from the old-school feeling a bit. While this new Doom doesn't go all the way back to those dark ages, it does a really good job of straddling the line, as the combat system offers plenty of new firepower, but in a streamlined way that hearkens back to the Dooms of old. 

One big change that sounds controversial at first, but ultimately is one I really like, is the limits on over-the-top kill moves. The previous two Doom games loved showing you the same exaggerated kill animations over and over again, ad nauseum, to the point where you just wanted to get back to the demon-bashing. The Dark Ages still offers those "death moves"-where an enemy is vulnerable and one good melee attack will see them off--but here, the move is a simple punch, kick, or whack with a melee weapon, and they turn into mush. 

This change, less cinematic as it may be, makes combat run much more smoothly, and in its own way makes the Doom Slayer feel even more like an absolute badass than before. I've had a couple of sequences where I'd hit the killshot on one enemy, then immediately shield charge into another group before throwing my shield at a big bad toward the back of the pile, and it ruled.

Speaking of the shield, the new parry mechanic feels so good in practice. Hitting that parry, and hearing the satisfying clang of the shield as it stops an enemy dead in its tracks – or sometimes, just dead – works for me every single time. Enemies and their attacks will clearly be marked with green fire when they can be parried too, so you can key in and wait for one of those green fireballs to head your way. Parrying rules in Doom: The Dark Ages, simply put.

That sort of experimentation permeates the entire game, especially as you earn new toys to play with. My favorite gun is the Pulverizer, or the gun that crunches up skulls and fires their fragments at enemies. The way it handles big crowds is amazing, and later on you unlock a skill that makes it fire even more quickly, making it even more potent in the process. I let out an excited "whoa" a few times when I saw just how quickly it mowed down dozens of demons at once, which made it much harder to switch to any other weapon. 

I do like how some enemies have deliberate weaknesses to certain weapons. There's demons carrying shields throughout the game, and depending on the shield they're carrying, I can throw my Chain Shield at one of the demons in the group and then kill them all in one big explosion, just like that. Other demons are more susceptible to plasma attacks, and using those gives you a slight advantage over them. There's different strategies for different enemies while you're ripping and tearing, and changing them together can create some wild moments throughout the game. 

The demon hordes in this game are ruthless too, as they include the most varied roster of enemies in a Doom game yet. Every time I thought I'd seen everything the game had, here comes some big spider demon in armor to ruin my day. If it's not new enemies to defeat, it's massive groups of them that seem to never end when I need them to. The combat being so fun is only enhanced by the sheer amount of havoc I get to wreak, and the enemies certainly allow me to do so. 

Like its early-90s predecessors, Doom: The Dark Ages focuses on a linear storyline set in a series of sandbox-style levels; they're larger than simply walking in a single direction, but they're not so large that they feel too big. Finding secret areas and gaining extra health or armor or gold is cool and all, but the quest structure around them isn't all that engaging. It feels like I enter a room, fight demons, throw the occasional switch or solve the occasional puzzle, and then move on. There's not much meat on the mission bone…most of the time.

Sometimes, a situation calls for the big guns, and Doom: The Dark Ages has two: the dragon and the mech. Mech fights are fun, but they're also not breaking the mold all that much in my opinion. In those levels, I get into the mech, I walk around a bit, perform a few attacks, and then move on to the next area. As the dragon, I have a bit more freedom flying around, but the targeting system is not great, and dodging is simple enough that it doesn't really register as effective. I like the break from the standard action missions, but I feel like more could have been done with those elements. 

Doom: The Dark Ages nails that feeling of "classic Doom in a new era," thanks to its relentless combat, interesting if not perfectly suitable levels, and hordes upon hordes of demons. The new weaponry feels great – especially my pal the Pulverizer – and some streamlined adjustments to the process makes dropping demons dead feel great, especially in large groups of them. It's not a total reinvention of the demonic wheel, but it'll offer you plenty of Hell-themed fun in a familiar setting. 

Full disclosure: A copy of this game was provided by PR for the purposes of this review. Reviewed on Xbox Series X.