NOTE: This will be the last Microsoft-owned game covered by Ludology Now! moving forward unless significant things change. Microsoft has continued to support Israel in their Palestinian genocide and I cannot in good conscious ignore that. There are thousands of companies and independent developers creating games without these ethical issues attached, and those all deserve to be spotlighted much more.
I’ve always enjoyed DOOM, from when I got the shareware floppy disk of the original in 1993 all the way to when I reviewed DOOM Eternal and the re-release of Doom 64 a few years ago. I was a Doom 3 defender back in 2004, partly because I thought the lighting engine was so interesting and partly because it was just nice to see the series do something new, and I LOVED the re-booted DOOM 2016, especially its custom multiplayer maps.
Even with all this previous franchise appreciation in mind, I have been thoroughly lukewarm on DOOM: The Dark Ages since it was announced. It’s mostly the setting – as I’ve said before, I’m a hard sell on high fantasy – and I probably wouldn’t have even played it were it not for the fact that DOOM: The Dark Ages is on Xbox Game Pass, but since it is I decided to take a look. And, well, it’s fun, but it ain’t DOOM. This is Quake 5: ReDOOMer.
DOOM: The Dark Ages Story Bad
I heavily dislike many aspects of DOOM: The Dark Ages, but I don’t think it’s a bad game. It just doesn’t feel like a Doom title. I do not like how cutscene-heavy it is. DOOM Eternal’s story was already the least interesting part of the game, but it seems like the developers have fallen deeply in love with their own lore and are now buried underneath it.
I say this as someone who loves narrative games, someone who generally really enjoys stories in first-person shooter settings, and someone who tries to approach each new game with an open mind, even if I am already whelmed by its marketing – the story in DOOM: The Dark Ages might suck. I say “might” because I gave up on trying to care about it during the middle of Chapter 2’s intro and have been skipping them ever since. It might get better. I do not care. The first few lengthy cutscenes were close enough to being a bad Dune movie to dissuade me from wanting any more.
There are many things about the game I do like. It feels good during big fights, the combat shotgun has a hefty punch, the shield is an interesting addition, and I like being able to target an enemy then zoom across the map to smash into them. That’s neat, and the levels are just the right length. Kicking me back to the title screen after every mission doesn’t help immersion, though. This isn’t Tony Hawk, let me keep shooting. The more I played, the more I began to realize that I’m just not the target audience for the vibes DOOM: The Dark Ages is giving off.
A Disconnect With DOOM: The Dark Ages Reviews
That must be the case, because early reviews of DOOM: The Dark Ages sure were glowing. Shacknews gave it a 9/10 and said it’s “a Doom game everyone can appreciate.” PlayStation Universe gave it a 9.5/10 and said “There wasn’t a moment I didn’t enjoy playing DOOM: The Dark Ages.” GRY Online called it “the best post-reboot game in the series” with a 9/10, while Screen Rant gave it a whopping 10/10 and said “It’s hard to find any real complaints about DOOM: The Dark Ages,” then spent the next paragraph talking about how cool the toys in the collector’s edition look.
With that in mind, here’s a quick list of things DOOM: The Dark Ages does not have:
- A double-jump
- A dash button
- Any kind of home base/hub area
- MULTIPLAYER
Look, I know tastes change, people have different preferences, time’s arrow flies on and all that, but DOOM Eternal had, well, all of those things. Some DOOM fans (including me) were already upset at the removal of custom multiplayer maps from DOOM 2016 to Eternal. As a franchise, DOOM has both originated and championed the “deathmatch” mode longer than any other series. And now that streak is broken. RIP, I guess, but check out how fancy this little Doomslayer doll is!
Underneath all the new moves and skull-crushing chainguns, DOOM: The Dark Ages is a decidedly smaller, lesser experience than DOOM Eternal. It brings over some of the most frustrating design decisions Eternal added, like tutorials that completely freeze the game and break the flow of fights every time a new enemy or mechanic is introduced, while ignoring major elements that made DOOM Eternal so great. It is absolutely not a bad game, but to look at something as comprehensive as DOOM Eternal (with a hub world that gets progressively larger, completely playable versions of previous games, and multiplayer) or DOOM 2016 (with its infinite number of customizable, user-generated deathmatch modes) and then suggest DOOM: The Dark Ages as a better value for your money is, at best, unknowingly incorrect.
If you already have Game Pass and like DOOM, yeah, go ahead, give it a go. I enjoyed it while I was playing it, but I also was actively not as engaged as I was with either of the previous post-reboot titles. DOOM Eternal’s story was weird, but it wasn’t so bad or invasive that I skipped cutscenes or actively wanted them to be over before they were. For my tastes, for a DOOM game specifically, DOOM 2016 had just the right amount of narrative; every time a computer or NPC started talking, the Doomslayer punched it until it stopped. That’s the flavor of DOOM I grew up with, and that’s what I like.
Oh, and there are dragon sections and big robot vs. kaiju sections. Like all games with big kaiju sections, the scale doesn’t really work as well as you’d want it to. The combat feels sluggish and the movement is unpleasantly slow, which the developers must have known because these sections of the game feature the return of the dash button. Dragon stuff is novel but goes on a bit too long, and isn’t really complex. Also, the more I played the more it felt like this was the easiest DOOM game yet, so much so that I ended up turning the difficulty up a bit to see if I was right or not. I was.
DOOM: The Dark Ages and Ability-Based Design Issues
More than anything else, I do appreciate DOOM: The Dark Ages for helping to solidify some level design quibbles I have been thinking about over the past few months. I’m not entirely sure what to call it, but “ability-based design” feels close to appropriate. Let me explain.
Picture one of your favorite game worlds. Now think about the actual journey that you took from one place in that world to another, ideally over long distances or between two distinct levels, zones, biomes, or any of your other favorite geographic location synonyms. Could anyone else in the world make that journey, or was the path only accessible because of your equipment and/or abilities?
Examples of the former would be games like Skyrim, the Red Dead Redemptions, Stardew Valley, Resident Evil 4, Kirby, and about half of the Mario games. In all of these titles you gain abilities and upgrades of some kind, but the world you inhabit is relatively logical, and a hypothetical NPC’s progression path from A to B wouldn’t be impossible without your weapons or skills. These are worlds that make sense.
Examples of the latter situation come in the forms of games like God of War 2018, Psychonauts 2, and DOOM: The Dark Ages. Sometimes this works and makes sense thematically – in Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2, for instance, you are going inside people’s minds. Obviously things are going to be a bit weird, and we have weird powers to accommodate that. But it doesn’t make as much sense in a setting that tries to be quasi-realistic, such as the new post-reboot God of Wars.
This is something that The Legend of Zelda kind of gets a pass on, because otherwise the games would not function at all, and up until now I have subconsciously been giving the DOOM franchise the same pass. For the first time in the series’ history, The Dark Ages has really drawn my attention to it, and now I can’t look away. This game shows what happens when ability-based design is taken to extremes.
Everything in this game is created with the Doomslayer in mind. Doors are locked in such a way that ONLY the Doomslayer’s shield bash will destroy them. Levels are designed to utilize skills like wall climbing, sprint jumping, and shield throws in the same way that God of War 2018 designed paths that could not be traversed by anyone without Kratos’ specific loadout. It’s one of those things that, once you notice it, you can’t stop seeing it in everything, which is a major problem because, you know, doing that is theoretically good game design.
No game wants you not to finish it. Every game is designed to lead you to the next objective. But when it’s so in your face about it, and there’s clearly a story that states you are in a specific location, it makes me question the world we’re inhabiting. How, and why, is the world specifically tailored to me specifically? Why did this evil base give me all these convenient weapon placements for sieging, and none for defense? It’s the “Hero of Kvatch AND The Archmaester of the Mages Guild AND the Leader of the Thieves Guild” problem, but extended to the actual layout of the world itself. The old refrain here is “ludonarrative dissonance”, which DOOM: The Dark Ages has in spades.
This isn’t always an issue, but as I get older it’s something I’ve been thinking about more and more. I appreciate games that make a real effort to make their world feel like a logical place, whether it feels “real” or not. Xen in Half-Life isn’t real, but it feels real because it feels like a place inhabited by aliens, and Gordon Freeman can only traverse it by utilizing awkward long-jumps and landing in puddles. Half the enemies fly, so they don’t have this problem. This makes sense. Hell demons needing different colored keycards, using heated-metal door padlocks, and installing wooden grates that have the Doomslayer’s shield icon pre-painted on, not so much. It’s even worse when there are multiple areas you can only shield-bash through in one direction, even though you can clearly see the paint seeping between the cracks.
Those are my thoughts on and around DOOM: The Dark Ages. Play it if you still have Game Pass and are interested in it, but if you were having any of the same reservations that I was after looking at trailers and pre-release footage, it’s not that big a deal if you skip it. I hope they get to do another one, and I hope it continues to be different so it’s not this again. It’s a good Quake sequel, and a good game, but a disappointing DOOM Eternal follow-up and, for me at least, the worst post-reboot DOOM so far.
Thank God I don’t have to give numerical review scores anymore.
THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDED MEDIA:
- [READ] A Fond Farewell To Polygon, From The People Who Worked There by former Polygon staff and Nathan Grayson for Aftermath.
- [READ] Former Employees, Community Members Allege AbleGamers Founder Fostered Abuse Behind Closed Doors by Grant Stoner for IGN.
- [READ] I did Liberation Day tariffs in Victoria 3, and it all went well until the famine in Colorado, the 2 lost wars with Canada, and the president beating a man to death with a stick by Joshua Wolens for PC Gamer.
- [WATCH] Hating Me Gets Them Views, Here’s My Story by Alyssa Mercante for YouTube.
- [PLAY] Nova Jet [Prototype] by Ludology Now! alum Acrylic Pixel (co-developer of Ten Bells) on itch.io.
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