I’ve played Doom: The Dark Ages for three hours: here are 3 things I loved, and 1 that I didn’t

I didn’t think simply adding a shield to the Doom Slayer’s arsenal would enhance the upcoming first-person shooter Doom: The Dark Ages so much or grab me as much as it did, but here we are: it’s an absolutely brilliant addition that works better than you might think.

It’s an explosive bit of kit that I got to play with (in the game, I mean) at a recent exclusive event in Germany where I was able to go hands-on with the demonic behemoth.

In short, Doom: The Dark Ages is going to offer fans more Doom which is, well, absolutely what the next game in the rebooted series should offer. However, there’s a bit more going on under the hood this time around, and The Dark Ages is spreading the wings of the series a little - in both good and slightly eyebrow-raising ways, at least judging by the mix of bits that I tried.

Standing and fighting - but also throwing

The combat of Doom: The Dark Ages is as chaotic, brutal, and gory as ever - and it rules.

Hands down, among that chaos and carnage the star of the show is the new shield saw.

A shield might not sound like something to be enthusiastic about, but let me tell you right off the bat, that it fits like a glove. It’s chunky, hefty, gruesome, and successfully adds a new layer to combat that helps Doom: The Dark Ages offer its own twist on the series’ trademark action.

Controlling the shield feels intuitive, aggressive, and powerful using a pad, too - but is also deceptively simple, relying on just two buttons and some visual queues to get the most out of it. Flashes of green tell you that an attack or projectile can be parried and returned to the enemy, and timing a press of the left trigger well enough will cause a flash of action that parries the attack right back at your foe.

Pressing the left bumper will see the shield saw fly out of your hand and lodge into enemies, cutting into their flesh, before another press brings it back to your grasp. In this respect, it feels a lot like Kratos’ axe in the recent God of War games. It can be used for solving puzzles too, unlocking gates by latching onto their mechanisms, or even thrown onto specific enemy to shatter heated-up armor.

Simply using the shield is joyous, but mastering it is even more satisfying. Being able to time a parry for maximum damage on an enemy never felt stale - and is accompanied a pleasing metallic ‘bong’ (that even changes slightly in a series of parries). Using it to traverse levels is slick, and combining it with other melee weapons like the flail or ranged weaponry that’s draped in the same gothic aesthetic and can shoot things like crushed skulls is incredibly moreish.

While developer id Software has built Doom: The Dark Ages around the concept of ‘stand and fight’, it’s important to note that this - and the addition of the shield - doesn’t mean the combat is static and certainly doesn’t dictate the pace of the action.

You can be a stationary beast, blocking and parrying enemy attacks to stave them off, but you can also still be very fast and furious which is excellent. Now you just get to wreak havoc with a cool new toy.

A grim dark past

Another highlight from my time with the game that I’m excited to get back to is the bleak and grimy setting and environmental design. Taking place in the Doom universe’s dark ages (not ours) looks to be an excellent and appropriate setting for the Doom Slayer to roam through. It’s a land filled with ruins, grotty lairs, caves, and barren landscapes that make for a very effective backdrop. There are echoes of Warhammer 40,000 here, which is not a complaint at all.

I played through a mixture of environments and locations in my time with the game from linear levels with some exploration to find keys or secrets (somewhat redolent of the classic Doom level design approach), as well as one large open sandbox-type area. I was sceptical at first if the latter would work for a Doom game given its focus on fast-paced action, but the good news is that it does. The sandbox areas are large, yes, but offer a variety of means to put your toolset to invigorating and brutal effect against multiple enemies, as well as find hidden areas, treasure, and bonuses, and complete a host of objectives.

The environments have a less vertical focus than Doom Eternal too, which will be a relief to some fans. A positive effect of this is that the action is largely kept on one plane, keeping you progressing steadily from enemy to enemy and point to point.

Assisting the environment design and sense of place is a much more prominent story and a new take on the lore of the Doom universe. There’s much more of an emphasis on cutscenes and more immersive storytelling than just written-word codex entries, such as listening to radio exchanges between NPCs (non-playable characters).

Of mechs and dragons...

While I will rave about the combat and the setting of Doom: The Dark Ages, I did come away from my preview with my eyebrows raised at two other parts of the game.

First, my time spent playing as an enormous mecha known as the Atlan Titan was, sadly, too short to give me any extensive insight. The section was very linear and heavily tutorialized, with combat taking place entirely within the confines of both.

There’s definitely a real heft to the movement and combat of the Titan which is translated well into how it feels overall, but I’m curious to see how prominent this is and how it’s implemented in the full release. While it channels some similarities, it feels a just little far away from the Doom Slayer’s core combat to me.

While the Atlan section was almost too short to pass full judgment on, I am yet to be convinced about the dragon-flying section of Doom: The Dark Ages. Something just felt a little un-Doom about it. Even seeing the Doom Slayer get onto a dragon looked a little weird, like a fully padded-up football player getting onto a kid's bike (though the dragon is a little bigger, naturally).

The action and combat were pretty guided, once again, but the on-board weapons were very underwhelming. Feeling like a weak pistol, locking on to targets was overly snappy and jerky. Dodging incoming projectiles felt very weird too, with shots coming from one side and my dragon dodging them on another, direction almost not mattering at all.

This is somewhat tempered by the flight of the dragon feeling decent, with the beast able to boost quickly through caverns and ascend and descend smoothly, but also turn on a sixpence.

The wider gameplay of the section was also good, though, and well-balanced - after taking a ship’s defences down on the dragon, I needed to get aboard on foot to disable it. This needed to be done a few times over with some well-done variation thrown in.

While the idea of the Doom developers trying something new with these ideas is to be commended, I came away from my preview feeling like I wished I had just had more Doom Slayer time than the overly-snappy Dragon shooting, and big ol’ mech combat.

Just give me more Doom guy, please

Overall then, my time with the game has me salivating for more. The best bits of being this new iteration of Doom Slayer complete with wicked-cool shield saw, and I can’t wait to jump back into the suit for that reason alone.

The moment-to-moment action, scrapping away when you’re right in the thick of it, deciding in a nanosecond to throw the shield or parry an attack, whether to take on a big enemy mano a mano or dodge away and lay into them with an awesome weapon is just Doom at its brilliant bloody best.

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