By KEVIN HOOVER
Unveiled last June during the Xbox Showcase as part of Summer Game Fest ’24, a DOOM: THE DARK AGES trailer revealed that the next iteration of the genre-defining FPS was near completion. Now, a release date has been announced as part of Xbox’s January 23rd Developer Direct, with the game slated to land on Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC on May 15th. DOOM: THE DARK AGES will function as a prequel to the critically acclaimed 2016 DOOM reboot, seeing the Doom Slayer flay-and-spray across a medieval backdrop etched with the Hell/Mars aesthetic synonymous with the series.
Early gameplay footage and dev diaries divulged that the third entry in the near-decade long reimagined canon will return to the franchise’s grounded roots, tossing aside the aerial stylings of a fleet-footed Slayer from 2020’s DOOM Eternal. “He’ll always be Doom Guy to us” is a tank this time around, heavily dependent upon strafing to weave through Imps and Cyberdemons. Don’t expect to be completely tethered to ground, however, as a new, 30-story-tall Atlan mech and flying dragon mount will carry the narrative into unexplored terrain.
While previous games were all about the guns, DOOM: THE DARK AGES seemingly prefers a melee attack system, most prolific of which is the new Shield Saw. Doubling as an up-close-and-personal method of dispatch and as a projectile for long-range attacks, the Shield Saw will head up an assortment of close-range instruments of destruction that also include a flail, spiked mace or electrified gauntlet.
To make the game as accessible as possible, DOOM: THE DARK AGES is proffered with varying adjustable sliders to modify elements of gameplay difficulty. World immersion is receiving an upgrade in a major way, as the text-heavy lore divulged throughout the previous games’ Codex is being replaced by fully rendered in-game cinematics, likely made possible by diverting team resources from any multiplayer experiences to a single-player-only campaign.
