Doom the Dark Ages Review

ACG Youtube version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlnhyFw5jVc

Doom is a franchise that thrives on chaos, speed, and moment-to-moment gunplay—then suddenly decides, “Mario's fun as hell, let's add some platforming,” and creates Doom Eternal and it still rocks.

This is a game that's died and come back more than once—resurrected through pure gameplay grit, an enemy you never sympathize with, and a whole lot of cathartic carnage.

Gameplay Review

From the first moment, Doom: The Dark Ages shows off its scope. Levels are bigger than ever, enemies swarm like sentient dorm stains stuck to every surface. It's still the Doom we know: “Make it darker, edgier, and full of guns—and blow it all up.”

Doom 2016 taught you time travel—not in a sci-fi way, but in that every frame behind you was filled with glowing enemy gore, and pausing even for a second meant instant disintegration. That tension is still here but there is a new complexity. Shield parries.

Airborne combo attacks. Massive battlefield leaps. You can rebound a projectile into a demon's face, slam into a mounted monster with your shield like a pissed-off Spartan, and then chain combo your way into another kill.

The fluidity feels like a mix of rhythm game and ballet—if the ballet involved severed limbs and flaming skulls.

You’re constantly switching—melee, ranged, special moves, combos, and interactive shield mechanics. That shield? It’s not just defense. It's a key, a weapon, and sometimes, a 400mph demon-slicing wok.

The DNA of Doom is here: brutal, fluid, fast. But every player’s experience will be different. Your build, your weapon choices, your rhythm—everything affects how you play. Some players may edge toward precision, others toward chaos. Both are valid.

This is the best kind of evolution. It feels familiar—if you played Doom 2016 or Eternal, your instincts still work—but everything’s remixed, tested, and refined.

Weapons and Upgrades

Weapons are layered with customization. Guns, melee, and the shield form the holy trinity of violence. The Shield alone can reflect attacks, chain lightning, or power up after demon kills.

The flail, easily one of my favorites, is like a blunt trauma consultant. Forget the mace—it’s a damn wrecking ball. With the "Resonant" upgrade, it disrupts enemy armor by vibrating their metal shells into uselessness.

Each weapon offers upgrade paths with alternate modes. The Shredder can switch between "Pin Cushion" and "Ricochet" for area control. The combat shotgun can inflict burn effects or make demons drop extra armor. The Impaler has “Salvage” for powered shots and “Chronospike” to slow time for enhanced damage.

This dual-use system encourages strategic choice. Maybe you need crowd control. Maybe you need armor piercing. Either way, your arsenal feels flexible without overwhelming you.

Level Design

The open levels are vast arenas,

You’re not just running and gunning—you’re climbing, leaping, and ricocheting your shield off surfaces to solve spatial puzzles. Sometimes it feels like you're skating on demon blood and gravity boots. Other times, it's a shield-platform jungle gym powered by evil.

Even the secrets follow suit: visible but not obvious, designed for the player who says, “There’s got to be a way to get up there.”

Graphics

Doom: The Dark Ages feels both modern and nostalgic. Not crusty old—but familiar. You’ll see a launcher perched at the cliff’s edge and know: that’s going to launch you sky-high, and yes, there will be a platform waiting. Because Doom doesn’t trick you. It dares you to trick it back.

Performance-wise a 3080 handles native 4K easily. With DLSS, Ultra settings run smooth. The RAM requirements may surprise you—32GB for high and even medium—but that’s the price for this much carnage on-screen.

Music and Sound

The music isn’t as iconic as Mick Gordon’s work on 2016, but it’s still good. During combat, it’s pure war metal. However, it isn't nearly reactive enough to the combat and its situations to help elevate the game. It feels like it loses emotion by being so cool about whats going on that its tempo doesn't rise except in the most extreme of times.

The sound design itself is good. Every gunshot has weight. 3D audio makes spatial positioning feel second nature. You’ll hear enemies before you see them. And when it all erupts in a cavernous arena, it sounds like hell’s symphony tuning up.

Fun Factor

This is Doom. This is Fun with a capital F.

It’s heavy firepower, player-driven movement, and a rhythm of chaos glued together by a rich atmosphere. It evolves everything you knew about the series without forgetting where it came from and thats even when your not setting the speed up or down to go from superhot to unreal 1999 in terms of gamespeed.

I wasn’t sure what to expect going in. What I got was a refined, faster, more flexible Doom.

Rating / Final Thoughts

What’s a universe without the Doom Slayer?

Thankfully we won't find out. Dark Ages is enjoyable as hell despite the warts and at times it channels Eternal, 2016, and Returnal that it feels like a weird crazy, hopped up child. Happy to be there but a BIT much for someone who doesn't know what to expect.

Still worth it.