A Frenzied Franchise Takes the Fight Up Close

Within every first-person shooter, there is a little bit of Doom. That 1993 game about a space marine slaying endless swarms of demons started a franchise known for ultraviolence and a broad arsenal of weapons, and also helped usher in a generation of successors.

More than three decades later, the arrival of Doom: The Dark Ages effectively reinvents the hellish shooter with a revamped movement system and deepened lore.

Players couldn’t jump or even look up in the original game as they navigated labyrinthine military bases and turned beasts into piles of flesh. The “3-D” space that made up the game’s levels was illusory — sections of each location were staggered in height.

After several sequels came a soft reboot also called Doom (2016) and its follow-up, Doom Eternal (2020), both of which rewarded players for mastering aggression, momentum and frantic movement in an entirely new way. For the first time, players could double jump.

The Dark Ages takes a striking shift in tone.

The celestial, sci-fi brutality of the previous two games is swapped for medieval goth, with the protagonist, Doom Slayer, sporting a fur cape, a heavily serrated shield and spiked pauldrons. Double jumping and dashing are ditched and replaced with an emphasis on raw power and slow, strategic melee combat.

Doom Slayer’s arsenal features a brand-new tool, the powerful Shield Saw, which Id Software made a point to showcase across its “Stand and Fight” trailers and advertisements. Used for absorbing damage at the expense of speed, the saw also allows players to bash enemies from afar and close the gap on chasms too wide to jump across.