Doom: The Dark Ages Forced Me to Fly and Parry And I Liked It All

Doom is a well-established franchise with great entries that extend into the current era. In some ways this makes it a known quantity but it only got there by keeping up with modern sensibilities and iterating on its own strong design. Based on my 3.5 hour preview, Doom: The Dark Ages is set to continue that legacy. 

Killing demons is still fun as hell but what’s more notable is the fact that riding your flying mount actually feels like a good addition and not just variety for variety’s sake. The shield and parry system is intuitive and exciting. And the abilities are enticing enough to make me want to take a completionist approach to the game. 

Flying Feels Good

During the initial trailers the flying mount gave me the most pause. Sure riding a dragon is cool but more often than not flying in a game doesn’t feel good. I’m happy to say that a few smart design choices went a long way, making this aspect of the game a complimentary component instead of a chore. 

When flying you can go into Assault Mode to lock onto targets for automatic hits when shooting. It gives the flying more of a controlled, strafe feel avoiding the standard flying pitfall of awkwardly chasing down enemies and fighting the controls to reconfigure your position. It also gives the experience a more arcadey feel, which I welcome.

The flying level I did also had moments where you had to land and do something on foot (such as unlock a gate) to continue which helped mix things up.

Likewise, in this same mission I came across large ships known as Hell Carriers. The task was to take them all down. Doing so meant I had to destroy the barriers on the outside to reveal a landing spot and then go inside the ship to fight on foot with the traditional gunplay Doom is known for. 

And of course, in Doom guts and gore fashion, the mission culminates in my dragon spewing fire directly into the mouth of a demon. Gross. But in a good way.

They’re Gonna Make Me Parry and I’m Gonna Like It

I hate parrying because I am bad at it. I’m not afraid to admit that. Luckily, parrying in Doom is very achievable and by the end of my demo I was obsessed with it. 

Specifically, parrying projectiles because they take a while to get to you and in that time you can position yourself perfectly for success. Some say parrying is really a rhythm game and I felt that strongly in Doom: The Dark Ages. Facing an enemy's projectile attacks felt a lot like staring down descending music notes and striking at the right time. The only difference is you need to position yourself correctly before doing so, making sure you’re there to hit the green, parryable attacks.

Killer Combos

My favorite aspect about the upgrade system is that some upgrades are essentially a two for one deal. For instance, the Shredder’s first upgrade comes with both Pincushion (Hitting a demon with Shield Throw or parrying a Hell Surge attack detonates embedded Shredder projectiles) and Ricochet (Shredder projectiles that hit a demon affected by the shield saw strike one additional demon). These two buffs can be switched from the menu. This occasionally doubles the fun of an upgrade and allows for greater player experimentation because you can see what works best for your playstyle or the circumstance. 

The Fight and the Flow

I love the shield's versatility on the battlefield beyond blocking and parrying. Dealing damage heats up enemy armor, allowing it to be shattered with a shield throw. It’s not quite on this level but the shield reminded me a bit of the axe from God of War (2018). It's effective and satisfying.

Morale Encounters are a fun twist on arena combat. In these instances, there’s a leader demon that’s shielded until the Morale Meter is empty. Morale is depleted by killing demons. The more powerful the demon, the more the morale meter depletes. Once the meter is empty the leader’s shield goes down and it can be killed.

And novelties aside, areas remain well designed with a good mix of tight spaces, open areas, and plenty of elevation and alcoves to keep you moving. Doom is at its hardest when you have crowd control tasks but it always gives you the tools for the job. 

Drops reinforce the speed and aggression of Doom. Because wounded enemies drop health the only way out of a bad situation is to stay aggressive, forcing me to abandon my coward tendencies. 

The environmental puzzles I encountered were straightforward but fun: a simple hit the switches task that involved a little observation and a few jumps. Exploration is aided by health and shield placement, breadcrumbing the player along paths. It’s possible that the complexity isn’t there to support the full campaign but it was enough for me in this brief session. 

I’m excited to play the full game more thoroughly. Optional exploration is well supported since the map shows how many secrets you’ve found and there are (at least at times) warnings for when you reach the point of no return in a level.

What’s Not to Love?

I loved my time previewing Doom. The only negative I can think of is some veterans might think the game too easy as health and shields were abundant. The higher difficulties may solve that issue for people but I only played on the standard setting. As someone who doesn’t normally care for shooters but is always excited to play Doom, I was satisfied and adequately challenged especially in the Morale Encounters. 

In short

Before we started playing we heard from the team in a prerecorded video. Here they stated there were 3 pillars to Doom: the Dark Ages: “innovative FPS combat, expanded levels of exploration (explorable sandboxes), and story which is done through narrative cutscenes [and not just reliant on the codex].” While the narrative strengths remain to be seen the rest is delivering on its promise and I can't wait to play more.