Doom: The Dark Ages | REVIEW

 

“The core gameplay experience here is really dialled in a I enjoyed it. " 

PC | PS5 | XBOX SERIES |

HOW I PLAYED: I played on PS5 with a physical copy on an LG C1 and AirPods Max headphones.

STORY — 9/20 

INTRO (2)

Doom really failed to grab me right from the beginning. It opens with some cryptic text that attempts to provide some backstory and set the stage for the game. It did not resonate with me.

In the opening cutscene we get a sense of the medieval vibe that the game is going for from both the architecture and the costumes. Castles torches, dragons, dark gothic energy - I was like "OK this is cool I can get into this" Then all of a sudden this asshole shows up and starts talking on a bluetooth headset and it was like somebody dumped ketchup all over my nice dinner.

CUTSCENES (3)

The game leans on the cutscenes far too much without anything actually taking place in them that deserves your attention. There isn't any character progression or even character interaction that adds anything of value to the story. Characters appear for a few second and have dialogue without any prior or subsequent meaningful place in the word. It was all so lazily thrown together. While there are some cool cinematic moments, the cutscenes overall just annoyed me more than entertained me.

WORLD BUILDING (2)

Doom: The Dark Ages feels very very "video gamey". Why is a weapon upgrade shrine out in the battlefield where my enemies are? This felt so incredibly out of place. I should be upgrading my weapons back at the base not at ground zero while I'm under fire.

I wanna see that cool ship I keep gettin' beamed up into. Meet the people onboard. Walk around inside. Have a mechanic in there that sells items and upgrades my weapons. That's how how deepen a world and make it feel lived in.

OVERALL STORY (2)

The player assumes the role of the Doom Slayer in a war against the forces of hell, who seek a powerful relic call the Heart of Argent.

I felt like I was back in high school and had been missing classes because of how difficult it was to keep up with the story. The real problem is everything they try and sprinkle in in between in an attempt to add - I don't even know what to call it - it was just unarticulated filler. Am I just that clueless because this is my first Doom game and the developers expect me to know what's going on because I've played previous titles or is this actually how unsophisticated the story actually is? Chunks of the plot were just skipped or omitted entirely on a regular basis and then I'd be in some new area with someone on the radio going over the mission.

"Uhhh...How the fuck did I get here?"

Events seems to piece themselves together with no explanation and characters appeared out of nowhere to progress a nearly incomprehensible plot. Its crazy that with this many cutscenes the game never manages to add any depth or real lore let alone paint a clear picture. What starts out as skim milk doesn't turn into creme it ends up being mud water.

GRAPHICS — 12/15 

CHARACTER MODELS (4)

I thought the Demon's looked really cool. The main antagonist, Prince Ahzrak had one of the best designs in the game and showcased a lot of detail and artistry.

The Doom sayer himself also fits into this category and was impressive to look at.

A lot of the other human characters were just very generic and vanilla.

ENVIRONMENTS (3)

I don't know how else to say this but the game never managed to impress me visually. Something was just - missing. I messed with the graphics settings for ages and even went online because I thought I was losing it. Some people recommended turning off film grain and resolution scaling but I couldn't find those settings on PS5.

The game just looked so flavourless. So bland. Uninspired and lacking in art direction would probably sum it up best but there's also just a significant lack of texture and detail that I have enjoyed from so many other games on this console. Everything almost looks like it was done in watercolour and smoothed out or something. It just didn't scream "PS5" game to me.

SPECIAL FX (5)

Enemy death animations look really sick; they disintegrate into red embers. The game is full of a ton of impressive explosions, damage animations and various flashy visuals. There's a shit ton of eye candy in Doom: The Dark Ages.

AUDIO — 10/15 

AMBIENCE (3)

Really generic metal plays throughout most of the game while you mow down demons. Its synchronized to your battles and will dip down while you're out of combat and then kick in again right at the perfect moment but it got really repetitive. You're probably better off just throwing on your favourite record while you play instead.

BOSS MUSIC (3)

From what I could tell the boss music didn't vary from what plays throughout the rest of the game.

SOUND DESIGN (4)

All the guns, explosions, shield bashes and melee attacks are deeply satisfying. Navigating the menus and confirming choices sounded expensive for lack of a better word. I was a big fan of the audio choices in the game.

The voice acting on the other hand could have been better for sure but I was especially impressed with the vocal FX they used for the main villains. The Demon's sounded fucking cool.

As much as I've shitted on the story and the cutscenes I do want to add that the music during the cutscenes was pretty decent. It added drama and tension in the right ways and I appreciated its composition.≥

PERFORMANCE — 9/10 

FRAME RATE (5)

Here's a clip from my play through and you can see that I'm rocking a locked 60 FPS.

STABILITY (4)

Setting mechanics and graphics and all that stuff aside for a second, the pure gameplay experience of Doom: The Dark Ages was really enjoyable. I did encounter one major glitch where I was got stuck in a wall and had to restart from the last checkpoint but other than this the game felt really well tested and polished.

GAMEPLAY — 31/40 

CONTROLS (5)

I really liked the way the game felt. I don't play a lot of shooter - OK, I never play shooters - but I found what was on offer here was very fluid and responsive.

The game offers a ridiculous amount of customization and remappable controls and customization but I still felt like the default button positions were fine.

MECHANICS (3)

I didn't go into this FPS expecting to parry but that's honestly what you're going to be doing for a lot og the game. Several of the larger enemies will fire waves of energy blasts at you called Hell Surge's that can be deflected or "parried" with your shield. Only specific coloured Hell surges can be parried and you'll have to dodge or defend the others. Every single boss in the game also uses this mechanic. One thing that really bugged me was that the Hell Surges default colour is the same colour as ammo and healing items in the game. Green. Luckily you can customize this in the menu but this struck me as a really odd choice by the developers.

Certain enemies will have special armour that needs to be super heated and then broken with your shield before you can actually inflict damage on them. Super heated armour will turn bright orange signalling to you that its ready to be shattered. This mechanic also carries over to boss fights as well. I really liked the gameplay flow that this created, forcing you to always switch between shooting and launching your shield. It had a great rhythm.

There's a noticeable amount of overlap in your weapon variety that renders almost half of the kind of pointless. To make matters worse, some enemies have plasma shields which are especially weak to your plasma weapons but can just throw your shield at them instead. The shield is very, very overpowered also. Let's take a closer look at that.

Your shield not only deflects attacks but can be used to lock onto enemies and cross great distances extremely quickly for a powerful shield bash attack. Beyond this, you can also throw your shield to take out smaller enemies and temporarily stagger larger ones. The shield is kind of ridiculous in some ways; I felt like in some instances it was best to not even use the guns. The shield was like a Swiss army knife out in the battlefield.

PACING (4)

Some of the maps are kind of huge and as a result some missions dragged on. The overall pacing of the game too was a bit prolonged; of the 22 total mission I feel like they could have executed the same experience or better in 18-20. Maybe even less.

UI/UE (4)

I liked the look of the UI and the menus were well designed and intuitive. While the UI was compact and practical, the actual guns and shield took up a big portion of the screens real estate. I'm wondering if they could have gtot away with leaving more room for the action?

BOSS QUALITY (3)

The initial bosses all become elite mobs as the game progresses which was slightly disappointing and the bosses later on were kind of crap. Each boss has a unique twist on the main parry mechanic. Early bosses were cool and felt imposing. They did a good job of teaching the player the games mechanics and encouraging different play styles .

ENEMY VARIETY (4)

I feel like the enemy variety could have been better. I was fighting the same enemies in hour 2 as hour 18 which started to feel stale. There are enough of them to keep the game afloat but it would have been cool to have environment or area specific ones too. I really felt like I was walking into the same scenarios over and over.

GAMEPLAY VARIETY (4)

Even if its not always as good as shooting demons in the face, the game offers a lot of variety and play styles. I wasn't expecting this much emphasis on puzzle solving and platforming in a shooter. Naturally, your shield comes into play here as it can be used to activate switches and cut down locks. Its also used to move giant cubes which you use to climb onto and jump to new areas. Yeah, there was a lot of climbing and jumping across gaps too. I didn't mind it though.

You'll fly on a dragon and ride in a gigantic mech called and Atlan. These sections are pretty one dimensional but I appreciated to effort to mix it up.

The Atlan sections essentilly consist of pressing R1 or R2 to attack and dodging incoming eney attacks which are dramatically telegraphed. Like I said, there wasn't a ton going on here

The game also has a couple of turret sections but I don't really have anything exciting to say about them.

REPLAYABILITY (4)

The game offers four difficulty levels that can be changed at any time and an additional two that you're locked into for the duration of that run.

There are plenty of secrets to unlock, toys to collects, skins to acquire and extra gold to collect to upgrade your weapons.

BONUS — 1/3

The game offers a staggering amount of customization. For this category we're looking for colourblind options and that get's one point.

OVERALL — 72/100 

GOOD

Doom: The Dark Ages equally annoyed and entertained me. A welcome variety of gameplay styles and exhilarating combat kept me pushing forward; the dynamic between aggression and being a few hit point away from death then just scrapping by and acquiring healing items was a mega rush. The core gameplay experience here is really dialled in a I enjoyed it.

While I didn't go into this expecting Red Dead Redemption level storytelling, I definitely expected more. People in some other comment sections were saying "well you can just skip the cutscenes". That's not an option. A lot of people throughout really hard and spent a long time putting this together. They're part of the game. They made this for you. Saying "just skip the cutscenes" is like ordering a pizza with toppings you know you don't like an then picking them off instead of asking them to make it without them. Speak up and demand better.

PROS

✅ Solid gameplay variety

✅ Core gameplay is genuinely exhilarating

✅ 

✅

 

CONS

❌ Feeble attempt at a story

❌ Generic soundtrack

❌ Weapon variety is kind of a joke

❌ Seeing the same enemies all game gets repetitive

TLDR: 72/100 (GOOD) Doom: The Dark Ages delivers a thrilling core gameplay loop with intense combat, fluid controls, and a satisfying rhythm of parrying, shooting, and shield mechanics that kept me engaged despite never being a shooter fan. The game shines in its moment-to-moment action and offers impressive variety—from dragon flights to mech battles—but suffers from weak storytelling, overused enemy types, bland environments, and cutscenes that add little value. While the soundtrack is repetitive and the weapon variety underwhelms, the game’s high performance, satisfying sound design, and solid customization options help it stand out. It’s a fun but flawed experience that’s worth playing for the gameplay, not the narrative. Final score: 72/100.

PICK UP (DOOM: THE DARK AGES) HERE:

PlayStation: https://a.co/d/7zLnmNf

Xbox: https://a.co/d/dtFnerA

PC: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3017860/DOOM_The_Dark_Ages/

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