Is this a bad game? No. This is a top-quality first-person shooter compared to other recent FPS games around. But is Doom The Dark Ages underwhelming? Yes, very much.


Doom Eternal was a great game, not a flawless one, but it was certainly amazing. It enhances the 2016 experience and perfects the formula.
They tried something different with Doom The Dark Ages, while the large maps filled with exploration and slow but powerful shielded gameplay looked promising, it's got some problems.


First of all, the game appeals to a more general audience this time, its kind of easier, you have many more options with the ammo in the weapons, and the tactical, strategic gameplay where you approached every enemy differently in Eternal is gone here. Which makes the gameplay feel like spam left click mindlessly, and block when you see green. This is such a downgrade. Sometimes, mindless games can be way more fun than tactical games, but it doesn't feel like that here.


I was very excited for the open-world-ish structure of the levels in the Dark Ages. Maybe we could get a smaller-scope version of Elden Ring? We experienced some unique bosses or rewards for exploring everywhere. Unfortunately, that doesn't exist either. You get the same upgrade materials, and there are no special encounters anywhere present. I 100%'d every map until halfway point, then I got bored since there is absolutely no reason to do so. The finishing animations, are almost non-existing here, which was one of the best parts of Eternal.


Do I have to talk about the goods? It's ID Software, of course, and pretty much everything is top quality here. The game feels, the mechanics, gunplay, the vfx, the sound design, animation quality, everything feels amazing to control and engage with.


I am running a beast myself and it runs great, but I wasn't when this actually launched, and I tried it back then and the performance was pretty bad. The forced ray tracing may overwhelm your pc if you are an AMD user or an old NVIDIA card user. It runs great on RTX 4000 series and above, though. The graphics...I don't know. For some reason, it never looks great for me. Something is wrong with the colors and lightning. Not a fan of how this looks.


The story is very generic and boring, as expected from a Doom game. I've never been a huge fan of Doom's music. Some of Eternal's music is pretty good, just not my style. Here, I didn't recognize any outstanding music.


Doom: The Dark Ages is not bad, it's okay, and can be fun from time to time. But it really is underwhelming and forgettable compared with the previous titles.


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TL:DR – Despite a few fun moments and impressive visuals, this is a huge step backward from the other “modern” DOOM games. Dark Ages is over-authored, inconsistent, boring, and fundamentally misunderstands what makes the DOOM series special. Not worth $70. Barely worth $30.

This game would be fine as a “bullet hell” non-DOOM title at around $30 to $40. As a DOOM game? Not a chance. Dark Ages replaces the series’ core identity of fast, aggressive FPS combat with heavily authored systems that constantly interrupt flow and dictate exactly how you are supposed to play. Gimmick-driven segments, scripted encounters, rigid mechanics, parry timing, and quicktime-style elements repeatedly break the combat rhythm instead of enhancing it. The parry system is the biggest culprit here. Time slows down, the player waits for a green pulse, hits the button, parries, and repeats. It absolutely wrecks the pacing and turns combat into a rhythm game instead of the rip and tear slaughter we want!

On top of that, add in flat, uninspired arenas and an overemphasis on story and spectacle, and the result feels less like DOOM and more like a first-person action RPG wearing a DOOM skin. This game is missing too much of what defines the series!

Back to the $70 price point: There is not nearly enough content, replayability, or inspiration here to justify the time or the money. Once you have played a few levels, you have basically seen everything. This feels like a major step back compared to DOOM (2016) and Doom Eternal, as those games felt longer, tighter, and infinitely more engaging. (Even with the glory kill mechanics that I did not care for.) In 2016, glory kills were cool but optional. In Eternal, glory kills granted ammo, so they felt less optional. In Dark Ages, glory kills are one of the only ways to heal during heavy combat on top of dispatching stunned enemies, which makes them completely mandatory. Not only do I not like being forced to play this way, but as an avid PC gamer you can tell this mechanic is just a babysitter mechanic designed to help console plebs.

One of the biggest issues is how inconsistent everything feels. The game comes off like it was stitched together by multiple teams that never agreed on the same design rules. Forced combat mechanics feel odd and break up the flow. Doors work one way in one area and completely differently in another. Secrets look identical to others you have already unlocked but suddenly function in an entirely different way. Some things unlock and you do not even know why or when it happened. Eventually, I just stopped caring and let it happen. The game feels oddly detached from its own maps.

Speaking of maps, all secrets are shown outright, so goodbye exploration and discovery. Finding secrets is a core part of a DOOM title, and here they are handed to you on a silver platter. Shame.

And the music… man. The soundtrack is a massive letdown. It is not awful, but compared to Eternal, it is not even close. It feels passionless and like a cheap knockoff. Mick Gordon is missed in a big way, as the game never hits those adrenaline-fueled highs that DOOM is known for, and I honestly think the lackluster soundtrack is a big part of why.

Visually, this is the one area where the game truly earns its AAA label. If you can run it properly, it looks gorgeous. That said, performance is still rough. Forced ray tracing does not help when the game still runs poorly and does not look meaningfully better than Eternal.

The story is another wide-spanning patchwork mess. DOOM was never about lore, plot, or narrative cohesion, and it still should not be. Riding dragons, solving puzzles, piloting mechs. Cool ideas, sure, but entire levels built around totally different playstyles? That is not DOOM. You are supposed to be a marine with a chip on his shoulder and an endless hatred for hordes of demons. A solo killing machine. That is all DOOM ever needed to be, not whatever this is. Call me a boomer if you want, but this will be the last “modern” era DOOM game I play if the series continues down a story-driven path. I do not care about the "Slayer" or his history. I am DOOM GUY and I just want to dispatch demons.

I have been playing DOOM since the shareware floppy days in 1994. I love this series. I waited until I finished the game to review it, hoping it would grow on me. It did not. Once you are halfway decent at the gimmicky mechanics, the replayability just is not there. I was bored, but the game was so easy to 100 percent that I just decided to go for it. What a slog.

Next time a “modern” DOOM game comes out, I will be watching reviews that say the series has returned to its roots. If not, I wont bother, and you should not either.

It’s okay at best. Maybe worth trying at 50% off or more, but not worth paying full price.