First off, I want to address the barrier to entry to play this game. This game demands a graphics card capable of ray tracing and an NVME SSD for storage. My computer just barely meets the recommended specifications and it chugs quite a bit even when running at 1080p. I think it was a real shame that players who may have enjoyed the two previous games but were running older hardware were boxed out from trying this game. You might reason that five years had gone by between [i]Doom Eternal[/i] and this game’s launch, giving players ample time to upgrade their hardware. The issue with this rationale, however, is that the current state of the PC component market is utterly abysmal. Anyone that might want to upgrade their hardware right now will have to settle for exorbitant prices (thank you AI) just to afford decent RAM and storage, never mind a powerful enough graphics card. With all of this in mind, the timing of this game’s release and its demanding specifications couldn’t have been worse.
Now, onto the game. This game strays considerably from the formula established in 2016’s [i]Doom[/i] and perfected in [i]Doom Eternal[/i]. While those games had you constantly on the move and making use of platforming and verticality to better position yourself against enemies, this game still has you constantly on the move but it cuts out the platforming and verticality (during combat, at least). If anything, this game actually plays a lot like the original [i]Doom[/i] games did, and I really appreciate that. Some of the levels in this game place you in vast, open arenas and battlefields, a lot like the “city” levels from [i]Doom II[/i]. As a result, enemy encounters also somewhat resemble those from the classic games, spread out over the arena and a bit slower paced compared to those in [i]Doom Eternal[/i].
Personally, I find the shield satisfying to use during combat, though I understand some people may feel differently about it, especially with the byproduct of parrying being a core part of the game’s combat loop. Prior to playing [i]Doom: The Dark Ages[/i], I had not played any games that had parrying as a key gameplay mechanic, so learning the system took some getting used to. I think the one moment in the game where the parry system feels tiresome and cheap is the final boss, and it just artificially makes said battle more difficult when you miss a single parry in a chain of attacks.
This is the first [i]Doom[/i] game with intricate, customizable difficulty settings. Before starting a new game file, you are presented with a list of different gameplay parameters that you can modify via sliders and drop-down lists to make certain aspects of the game easier or harder. Examples of such parameters include damage dealt to the player, damage dealt to demons, and parry window duration, just to name a few. While I prefer the simplicity of just picking a preset difficulty level and jumping right into the game, the extra customizability can offer interesting options for challenge runs or to train specific skills (or to help game journalists rush through the game).
I have some mixed opinions about the weapons in this game. There are six “classes” of weapons in the game: shotguns, plasma rifles, skull crushers, rail spikes, reaver, and launchers. Each class, with the exception of the reaver class, have two weapons to choose from. My main problem with this system is that there is usually one weapon of the two that outshines the other. In some classes, both weapons may have a specific use case like the shotguns or the rail spikes. For others, this is not the case. Of the plasma rifles, once I acquired the “Cycler” later on in the game, the previous “Accelerator” plasma rifle basically never got used again. The same thing happened with the launcher weapons when I got the rocket launcher after the grenade launcher. As cool as the skull crusher weapon designs are, their utility quickly faded after I got other weapons and upgrades, with the shield becoming a better crowd control device than the skull crusher. It’s not like [i]Doom Eternal[/i] where each weapon had a purpose, no matter what part of the game you were in.
I think this game made a tradeoff of having more total levels at the expense of having less memorable levels. While the levels in the latter half of the game are more unique, I personally found the Cosmic Realm to be dull. The few really cool things to come out of its inclusion in the game are the designs for the baron of Hell and cacodemon. [i]Doom Eternal[/i] had about half the number of levels, but each level was very distinct and had their memorable moments. Also, on the subject of the levels, I need to talk about the mech and dragon levels. The mech levels were not awful when I first played the game on a lower difficulty with a more generous parry window. However, on nightmare and with the tightest parry window, the mech sections are frustrating because it is hard to tell when a titan’s attack is going to connect to the mech. The dragon sections didn’t add much to the game and simply consist of flying from point A to point B to progress the story. There are some secret landing zones in dragon levels, but not much else that makes flying around with the dragon feel any more special than running around in a normal level.
I agree that the soundtrack as a whole is weaker than that of 2016’s [i]Doom[/i] and [i]Doom Eternal[/i], I think there are a few really standout tracks in this game’s OST that elevated the levels in which they played. At the time of release, I’m pretty sure there were audio mixing issues that made the music hard to hear during combat, but when I returned to the game after some of its patches it sounded good. I think it would have been interesting if Andrew Hulshult had been brought on to work on the main soundtrack considering his great work on [i]The Ancient Gods[/i], but alas, it never happened. Fortunately, Andrew would have at least some recognition in this game’s DLC for his work on remastering tracks from the classic [i]Doom[/i] games.
Finally, the [i]Revelations[/i] DLC. It was a blast to play through, and the spear was overall a satisfying addition to the game with the many abilities you unlock. While the base game strayed from the hectic combat loop of [i]Doom Eternal[/i] where you flew around the arena, [i]Revelations[/i] is a perfect marriage of the two games’ different playstyles. After acquiring the spear, it took some time to adjust after becoming used to the shield, and I had to spend some time reconfiguring my binds to make sure everything played smoothly. One thing I noticed during my time playing with the spear is how little I ended up switching to the shield after getting the shield back towards the end of the DLC. Switching between the shield and spear is something I will have to try out in future runs of the game because they are probably very powerful when used in tandem.
I enjoyed my time with this game despite how different it is from 2016’s [i]Doom[/i] and [i]Doom Eternal[/i]. I do believe it is the weakest of the three modern [i]Doom[/i] games, but that is simply a matter of personal preference for the old playstyle. I think id Software went above and beyond when they worked on [i]Doom Eternal[/i] and there was frankly no way they could have topped it, so they instead went for a much different gameplay loop when developing this game. [i]Revelations[/i] was a way of bringing back a hint of that crazy gameplay into [i]Doom: The Dark Ages[/i] and I think they did it masterfully. With the news of the layoffs that hit id Software just before the DLC released, the future of the [i]Doom[/i] franchise is uncertain, but supposedly there is already work being done on a new game. I wish the developers at id Software the best in these rough times that the video game industry is currently in.
