DOOM: The Dark Ages

+++ Insane visuals ++ Very fun gameplay + Many weapons + Mech and Dragon sections mix up gameplay + Nice soundtrack + Extensive difficulty tuning * Expensive wait for sale - Weird story - Mostly no Glory Kills - Maps are too large, Secrets already marked - Forced Raytracing -- ♥♥♥♥♥♥, greedy companies Well, this was a mixed bag. Overall I really liked the game, but it is just a step down from the previous two entries. But I got a lot of respect for ID Software, for taking the risk of making three very different, innovative, and fun games. The biggest positive are the visuals, some backdrops of the maps look absolutely insane and give a great sense of scale. I made quite a lot of screenshots, the rest of the game looks very good as well. Another positive is definitely the very fun gameplay. This time it is melee focused, and smacking demons is a pretty good feeling, although the hit animations are at times not even close to the Demons. The shield is parry, fodder-killer, stun, and gap-closer all at once and very versatile in combat. After a bit of time I was even stun-juggling larger demons with parry and melee while fitting in shield-bash and Super Shotgun shots. Amazing flow state! There are many weapons (variants) which all have their use cases and small advantages against certain enemies, some swapping is recommended but not needed, although I mainly used the Super Shotgun, which was completely busted. While the Mech and Dragon sections mix up gameplay, the Mech sections were more trivial/boring overall. The soundtrack was nice during combat, albeit forgettable overall. A HUGE step down! Neutral point is the price, no game is worth 80€ in my book, wait for a sale, or play through Game Pass. The first negative point concerns the story, which was very generic and cliche with no memorable characters (does the Doom Slayer count as a "Character"?). [spoiler]Also the Cthullu stuff was just super weird. It didn't really fit the rest of the story/series.[/spoiler] There are also almost no Glory Kills, which were a staple of the previous two entries, and just super cool. Additionally the maps are too large, causing stretches of just walking around the empty maps. Secrets are already marked, making them not "Secrets" anymore, but finding those in the large maps would have been a pain in the ass too... I still spent a lot of time in the Map screen, which breaks exploration flow. Forced Raytracing is something I cannot, for the life of me, get behind. The previous games ran on Black Magic! ID Tech gave amazing visuals even on a potato PC, and everyone could play the games. Not anymore, they took the great, resource-efficient ID Tech and forced Raytracing, also forcing upscalers at the same time. Some people are locked out of playing outright, since their GPUs can't handle Raytracing, others criticize the blurry, upscaled visuals. Thanks to my strong setup I could use FSR Native (no upscaling) and lowered the rest a bit. But locking the Game to 60 FPS was only possible thanks to my AMD Adrenalines "Chill" mode. The last thing, which is not part of the game, but a pretty big negative to me are the ♥♥♥♥♥♥, greedy companies, which publish this game. Microslop? Bugthesda? I don't like ANY of these companies, but I really wanted to play the game and the DLC. The solution: I voted with my wallet. I got a VERY cheap Premium Edition Key (27 EUR) from a third party Keyseller, who already bought them in bulk anyways. I saved a lot of money, and did not give companies that I hate a single cent. Not like it actually matters in the end, most people played this game for "free" through Game Pass anyways, explaining the abysmal sales and player count. With this, they shot themselves in the foot since the beginning, who needs profits right? Better cut ID Software in half to balance it out, LOL. Plus the situation with Mick Gordon... I don't think I need to add anything more there.

[NERDY REVIEW] Really enjoyable entry in the doom series, but i wish it was more accessible to mid range systems, as it only comfortably runs on my 3080 after 4 hours testing on 3060ti, which is still a very popular and powerful card in 2026. just seems a bit unfair to force unnesecary raytracing and graphics when the previous entry was so well optimised. still a very good game though.

I have tried to get into this game but matter how many times I load up the game, I still exit after a short while. It's good that they went in a new direction to test new things out, but for me it has failed. The first one in the "relaunch" of DOOM is still the best one, it had much tighter map design and better guns, and better gun play. This one just feels way to heavy and also where is the epic music!

rip and tear

Easier than Doom Eternal, but still fun.

Dark Age è massiccio e possente. Incarna tutto lo spirito di Eternal e lo porta su un nuovo livello. Certo il fatto di essere improntato più su approccio in mischia, con un arsenale particolare da padroneggiare può disorientare un pò, ma l'anima c'è tutta. Nemici ancora più vari e particolareggiati, mappe e ambientazioni enormi piene di gente da tritare, grafica eccellente, sound ottimo (anche se si sente la mancanza di Mick) e il tutto tenuto unito da performance stratosferiche! Un altro mondo rispetto a certi bidoni blasonati che non riescono a girare decentemente nemmeno su un PC della NASA. Infatti sono sempre più convito che in Microsoft lavorino pupazzi caricati a molla il cui unico scopo e mandare tutto in malora.

I thought this was going to be corny crap and ruin the series but it's actually extremely fun. The focus shifts from fast weapon switching for DPS to parrying attacks and chaining melee strikes. The overall formula is the same, but they manage to keep this going in a fun way rather than copying and pasting like Far Cry did. Doom Eternal did best when you're swapping between like 3-5 different weapons but you can almost just use whatever you like in this one. It's a little harder on the video card than Eternal is, but my 3080 can still play it smoothly with DLSS on. It's definitely showing its age though.