DOOM: The Dark Ages Will Be the “Most Ambitious DOOM Game to Date” When Prequel Launches for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox App for Windows PC, Steam, P...

[Tsing]

As the Slayer, you’ll be invited to explore a dark fantasy/sci-fi world with DOOM’s immediately recognizable hellish twist, fighting your way across sprawling fantasy battlefields with an expanded arsenal of weapons and equipment.

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[DrezKill]

id Software talks about the game here:

So looks like the focus this time is on power over acrobatics. Hugo Martin said in Doom Eternal you were a fighter jet, but in this game game you're an iron tank. A balance between enemy projectiles and player movement that hearkens back to Doom 1 and 2. He said Doom 2016 was run-n-gun, Doom Eternal was jump-n-shoot, and now for The Dark Ages it's stand-and-fight.

The Shield Saw is for blocking, throwing, parrying, deflecting, and of course sawing.

You got the iron flail with the spike ball, electric gauntlets, and a spiked mace. You can also kick enemies.

I still say the game looks too dark and dull and bland compared to Eternal or even 2016. Eternal had a f*cking awesome use of color. The Dark Ages is reminding me of the 7th-gen era, when so many games were variations of brown and red and grey.

Interesting custom difficulty system with sliders, so you can change parameters like the parry window, daze duration, game speed, enemy projectile speed, damage to demons and players, enemy aggression level, and more.

And then of course there is the 30-story mech, and the flying cybernetic dragon, both of which were teased in the first trailer.

I see they brought back the swimming. I don't think anyone who played Eternal was really asking for more of that.

Seems like the environments are larger, more open, and more explorable. You have more freedom in how you go about exploring and completing mission objectives. They called it a "Doom sandbox".

This is the company doing the music for the game: https://www.finishingmoveinc.com/

"We've taken the narrative out of the codex and into the cutscenes". Yyeeaahh but we preferred it in the codex entries. And besides, they already kinda went heavy on cutscenes and story in Eternal - a bit too heavy. Doom 2016 had the right amount of story.

The game comes out May 15 2025. Though the Steam store page for the game still has a placeholder date: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3017860/DOOM_The_Dark_Ages/ (EDIT: not anymore)

Of course what I am looking forward to the most is the engine. I wonder if it will be an update of idTech 7, or if they moved to idTech 8.

I loved the f*ck outta Doom 2016, but Eternal was a disappointment to me. So I am approaching The Dark Ages with caution.

 

[Grimlakin]

I've always liked doom more than Quake. Used to like the WWII shooter more than Doom but that's changed more recently.

 

[Denpepe]

so they made it a souls clone?

 

[Snowy]

Well, it sounds good! I think the use of sliders to change specific elements of the difficulty is super cool. Looking forward to this!

 

[MadMummy76]

I've always liked doom more than Quake. Used to like the WWII shooter more than Doom but that's changed more recently.

Quake < Doom < Quake 2 < Doom II is how I'd rank the games. I could never get into the modern ones. Doom 3, Quake 4, the new Doom 2016 were all misses for me.

 

[Brian_B]

Quake < Doom < Quake 2 < Doom II is how I'd rank the games. I could never get into the modern ones. Doom 3, Quake 4, the new Doom 2016 were all misses for me.

Totally agree.

I can remember in high school when Doom released. We lived in a dorm, and a bunch of us LAN partied it all weekend. Not a lot of multiplayer (I don't even remember if it had multiplayer on the original release right away, and we didn't exactly have Ethernet, it was all dialup for us) - mostly just all of us running through the campaign but floating around encouraging each other if someone got in deep. We kept it going all weekend and just dropped in and out around eating/sleeping/whatever.

One guy, well, he stayed awake playing the entire weekend. No sleep. Playing 90-some hours straight. He kept the lights off, blackout curtains on the windows, had that Soundblaster 16 and cheap non-powered speakers cranked to max, Mtn Dew and Papa Johns were free flowing all over, probably had the 2L piss bottle - he was in deep.

We get into class that Monday. I guess this guy finally nods off, because in the middle of math class, we are all there just working on some problem and it's pretty quiet, and he jumps straight up out of his chair, screaming about demons, starts making the Doom shotgun sound and runs out of the classroom. One of the best memories of high school right there.

 

[Showbiz]

Quake < Doom < Quake 2 < Doom II is how I'd rank the games. I could never get into the modern ones. Doom 3, Quake 4, the new Doom 2016 were all misses for me.

Really wish Id would come out with a proper single player Quake game. It's been 20 years since Quake 4.

 

[Denpepe]

Really wish Id would come out with a proper single player Quake game. It's been 20 years since Quake 4.

Q4 is a Raven software game, you need to go back to Q3 for a id quake

 

[MadMummy76]

Q4 is a Raven software game, you need to go back to Q3 for a id quake

And you need to go back to Quake 2 for a single player one.

Really wish Id would come out with a proper single player Quake game. It's been 20 years since Quake 4.

As one of the few people that actually liked Unreal 2, I wish for a proper single player Unreal even more.

 

[DrezKill]

...I wish for a proper single player Unreal even more.

I was beating that drum for many years. I wanted one more than a new UT. But then Epic started turning into the Epic we know now, and then I was glad they didn't attempt another single-player Unreal. Cuz then they couldn't ruin it. But it still rubs me the wrong way that the engine series continues to be called "Unreal" when there are no Unreal games on them. Closest we got was UT4 alpha, which I spent some time with, but that game never got far enough along to get its own feel and identity.

I did not mind Quake 4, but Quake 2 was much better. I've never revisited Quake 4 again, and have no real desire to. I played the RTX version of Quake 2 in 2023. Then the remaster hit but by then I was Quake'd out. I plan on revisiting Quake 1 with the remaster at some point.

I love the f*ck outta Doom 1 and 2 and still play those a decent amount (usually via the sourceport Zandronum). Recently went through both the new campaign for the Doom 2 remaster Legacy of Rust, and the community-made path-traced version of base Doom 2. Played Doom 64 for the first time with Nightdive's remaster in 2020, and within 2 years I had done a second playthrough. In 2016 at a LANParty three of us went through Doom 1 in co-op, which was a neat experience. Never cared for Doom 3 though.

I can remember in high school when Doom released. We lived in a dorm, and a bunch of us LAN partied it all weekend. Not a lot of multiplayer (I don't even remember if it had multiplayer on the original release right away, and we didn't exactly have Ethernet, it was all dialup for us) - mostly just all of us running through the campaign but floating around encouraging each other if someone got in deep. We kept it going all weekend and just dropped in and out around eating/sleeping/whatever.

One guy, well, he stayed awake playing the entire weekend. No sleep. Playing 90-some hours straight. He kept the lights off, blackout curtains on the windows, had that Soundblaster 16 and cheap non-powered speakers cranked to max, Mtn Dew and Papa Johns were free flowing all over, probably had the 2L piss bottle - he was in deep.

We get into class that Monday. I guess this guy finally nods off, because in the middle of math class, we are all there just working on some problem and it's pretty quiet, and he jumps straight up out of his chair, screaming about demons, starts making the Doom shotgun sound and runs out of the classroom. One of the best memories of high school right there.

This story had me rollin'!!!

 

[Showbiz]

Q4 is a Raven software game, you need to go back to Q3 for a id quake

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Still thought it was fun, and I still want a new single player quake game.

And you need to go back to Quake 2 for a single player one.


As one of the few people that actually liked Unreal 2, I wish for a proper single player Unreal even more.

I liked Unreal 2 as well, made me upgrade from my Geforce 2 whatever to a Geforce 3. What a huge difference that was.....sigh's wistfully.....

 

[Denpepe]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Still thought it was fun, and I still want a new single player quake game.

Oh yeah, I would not mind a new one, replayed Q2 with ray tracing not that long ago