Doom: The Dark Ages Set to Release Next Week

The next entry in the Doom franchise, ‘The Dark Ages’ is set to launch on May 15th- next week. This is the third release in the modem Doom series and comes after the immense success of Doom 2016 and ‘Eternal’- both of which iterated on the original formula by bringing it into the modern era. These two also saw the player rewarded for aggression with the ‘glory kill’ system- much the other way of most FPS cover-based shooters at the time.

Image by id Software

By contrast to ‘Eternal’s zippy movement and constant focus on movement, however, ‘The Dark Ages’ instead focuses on making the player feel as powerful as possible in one place. Slower movement, a focus on parries and more melee combat will force the player to stand their ground rather than jump around to avoid enemy fire. You’ll still have the typical dodging, and glory kills but The Dark Ages sees The Doom Slayer more as a walking tank rather than an agile fiend.

The addition of a controllable giant mech and ridable dragon, The Dark Ages is set up to make its players feel invincible while still injecting a good level of challenge that punishes mistakes. A greater focus on more open zones rather than linear sections is set to slow the pace of the gameplay down slightly- which could be a good or bad thing depending on what gameplay style you like more.

Image by id Software

With the game poise to come to game pass, even if you’ve never played a Doom game before, this prequel is a great starting point and, with an apparent greater focus on story, it’s a good chance to get accustomed to the Doom lore (what little there is). You can check this out when it releases next week on May 15th.