Doom: The Dark Ages Review (2025)

With the 2016 Doom game, id Software brought the landmark FPS franchise back from the dead in a big way. That effort was followed up by Doom Eternal, which offered blisteringly fast action that took the Doom 2016 experience to the next level. Doom: The Dark Ages is the third installment in the Doom reboot series, serving as a prequel to the 2016 game and featuring some interesting twists on the established formula. Doom: The Dark Ages provides an experience that is both familiar and new, with id Software delivering yet another memorable Doom game filled with near-endless demonic enemies to eviscerate.

There's been a lot of talk about how Doom: The Dark Ages slows things down when compared to Doom Eternal, and while that is true to a certain extent, it's still plenty fast-paced. Doom: The Dark Ages battles are chaotic, with dozens of enemies bombarding the Slayer at any given time, forcing players to constantly be on the move. The twist is that Doom: The Dark Ages' Slayer is more grounded and comes equipped with the brand-new Shield Saw weapon that can be used to parry attacks and deliver devastating blows of its own.

The Shield Saw is a Game-Changer

The Shield Saw is the star of the show in Doom: The Dark Ages, with players able to use it to zoom immediately to far-away enemies and obliterate them with a bone-crunching bash. The Shield Saw can also be thrown, leaving players feeling like an ultraviolent version of Captain America. For defense, the Shield Saw can block most incoming attacks, but where it really comes in handy is its parries.

Doom: The Dark Ages enemies have color-coded attacks so players know how to react. Most attacks should be dodged or blocked, but green attacks can be parried. Parrying an enemy leaves them vulnerable, allowing Doom: The Dark Ages' Slayer to follow up with melee strikes or blasts from his various souped-up firearms. Later in the game, players can collect runes that add additional benefits to parrying, making it even more worthwhile.

There have been some concerns about Doom: The Dark Ages combat feeling a little too "video gamey" because of the color-coded attacks, but they never pulled me out of the game. Combat in the game is exhilarating and nailing those parries is a great feeling. Stringing together combos like shooting an enemy with a shotgun, parrying an incoming attack, smacking them over the head with the flail, and then finishing them off with a gory glory kill is immensely satisfying. Doom: The Dark Ages encourages players to be hyper-aggressive as hitting and killing enemies is the main source of health, armor, and ammo, and as long as players are constantly shredding demons, they should be in pretty good shape.

For the vast majority of the time, Doom: The Dark Ages has players on-foot as the Slayer, but there are a few instances where they take flight on the back of his cybernetically-enhanced dragon or take direct control of an Atlan mech. These segments incorporate the same ideals as the standard combat, but instead of parrying, the dragon and mech dodge incoming green attacks. With the dragon, successful dodges gives players missiles that can more easily destroy targets, while the mech builds up a meter to unleash special attacks. The first couple of dragon and mech segments are thrilling, but each time is fairly similar, and that's an issue that Doom: The Dark Ages has in general.

Doom: The Dark Ages is a blast for the most part, but a little over the halfway point, repetition sets in. When the game stops introducing new enemy types and new weapons, Doom: The Dark Ages starts to drag because there isn't much to the gameplay beyond combat, and fighting the same foes over and over again becomes tiresome. While there are occasional puzzles thrown in the mix, it's basically non-stop fighting from start to finish. Doom: The Dark Ages' combat is genuinely incredible and loads of fun, but at a certain point, it's too much of a good thing. Doom: The Dark Ages feels like it needed something else to shake up the core gameplay, like how Doom Eternal had platforming sections, to help keep things feeling fresh for the entire runtime.

I also came away disappointed in Doom: The Dark Ages' boss battles. There aren't many true boss fights in the game, and the ones that are in the game aren't particularly interesting. The boss fights are more of the same action that players get from fighting regular enemies, and while bosses take longer to kill, they aren't more challenging.

Veteran Doom players are definitely going to want to crank up the difficulty in Doom: The Dark Ages. My initial playthrough was on Hurt Me Plenty, the Normal difficulty equivalent in the Doom games, and it was way too easy. Luckily, players are given a great deal of freedom when it comes to customizing difficulty in Doom: The Dark Ages, with the most notable example being the parry slider. Personally, I have a lot of fun parrying in games, but there are those out there who aren't interested in mastering parry windows. Those individuals can adjust the parry window slider in Doom: The Dark Ages to the point where they don't even have to think about it.

Quality-of-life features like this are greatly appreciated. Besides the parry window slider, Doom: The Dark Ages also gives players visual indicators of when they are about to reach a point of no return. This way, those going for all of Doom: The Dark Ages' collectibles can make sure that they don't accidentally lock themselves out of certain areas before they're ready to move on.

Doom: The Dark Ages is Littered With Secrets

Doom: The Dark Ages' levels are littered with items to pick up, from health to armor to ammo to gold that can be used to upgrade the Slayer's weapons. While every mission has a fairly linear path, there are plenty of secret areas to find that greatly reward players for their efforts. Those who want to max out their Doom: The Dark Ages weapons will want to make sure that they are exploring each stage as much as possible.

Those uninterested in hunting down secret areas can still get a lot of gold thanks to Doom: The Dark Ages mission challenges. Each chapter has its own set of challenges for players to complete in exchange for gold, and each gun has its own mastery challenge as well once it's maxed out. These challenges inject Doom: The Dark Ages with significant replay value and their rewards are well worth it.

As Doom: The Dark Ages players rip and tear their way through the game's 22 chapters, they will bear witness to all kinds of epic cutscenes that can't be described without ruining them. Even so, the story fueling these cutscenes is nothing to write home about. None of the Doom: The Dark Ages characters leave an impression, and the plot exists, but it's impossible to get emotionally invested in what's happening. But that's not the point of a Doom game anyway. The campaign's story features striking imagery, jaw-dropping "wow" moments, and incredible action, and that's all it needs.

Doom: The Dark Ages cutscenes are gorgeous and downright impressive, and that visual fidelity is also on full display when actually playing the game. Every area in Doom: The Dark Ages is highly detailed, as are the horrific creatures that inhabit them. Doom: The Dark Ages demons are grotesque in the best ways, and the sheer number of them that fit on the screen at one time with zero slowdown is remarkable. Chunks of the monsters fly off their bodies based on where players shoot them, with all the eye-popping action supported by an intense heavy metal soundtrack that perfectly matches the sheer brutality of it all.

My initial playthrough of Doom: The Dark Ages took about 12 hours, but that was with thoroughly exploring many of the 22 chapters.

Doom: The Dark Ages is action-packed and has really high highs, though the last quarter of the game doesn't quite maintain its momentum. Still, Dark Ages is a no-brainer for fans of the 2016 Doom game and Doom Eternal, as well as anyone who is in the mood for a high-quality and exciting first-person shooter experience.