ANerdzLife

INTRO:

Doom continues to be a series that both feels lost to time, but also somehow forward thinking all at the same time. After the somewhat disappointing release that was ‘Doom: Eternal,’ Bethesda took some major steps forward with Doom: The Dark Ages but also stayed locked in their own echo chamber in other aspects. Let’s talk about it.

STORY:

The story of Doom: The Dark Ages takes place in the before time, when the Doom Slayer was still a Doom Pup, many years before the invasion of Earth from hell. The Doom slayer finds himself at the heart of a war between 2 civilizations, with one almost literally holding onto him with a leash via mind and body control. The story of these Doom games continues to be kind of an afterthought, but I don’t think for lack of trying by Bethesda. You can tell that they put extra effort into crafting a narrative that they had hoped fans would latch onto. I think it just comes down to not being that interesting when all I want to do is slay demons in gruesome ways while heavy metal riffs blare in my ears.

GAMEPLAY:

The gameplay of this series continues to do the heavy lifting. Bethesda has been innovating with every release in the modern Doom series, and that innovation continued in Doom: The Dark Ages. You have many of your classic favorites like the Super Shotgun, a machine gun…but the real fun comes with the addition of the new medieval themed weapons like the Pulverizer: a gun that grinds up skulls and shoots the bone shards at your enemies. My favorite addition, however, was the shield. You get this item pretty early on, and I found the shield being the focus of all of my combat for most of the game. Throwing the shield, having it decapitate a demon then the feeling of it slamming back into your hands is a feeling that is maybe only rivaled by the Leviathan Axe in God of War.

SOUNDTRACK: In addition to the lackluster story, the soundtrack was another let down for me. At times, it felt like it was ratcheting up to the adrenaline pumping levels of music we saw in Doom (2016), but it felt like it always fell just shy of reaching those levels.

CONCLUSION: Doom: The Dark Ages is really good and really fun. I think it’s best when you turn your brain off and embrace the gore and fun in slaying demons. The new weapons are a ton of fun and it’s still a blast to fight horde after horde of demons. I just hope that Bethesda pushes the series forward in a more meaningful way.

SCORE: 8.0/10.0