I’ve been a fan of DOOM since I first got to play it in the late 90s, but fell off the wagon with DOOM 3. DOOM’s 2016 reboot brought me back hard, but its sequel, DOOM Eternal left a bad taste in my mouth. Now my hopes are on DOOM: The Dark Ages to give us more of the real DOOM experience.
DOOM 2016 Was a Pitch-Perfect Reimagining
While DOOM 3 was an interesting game, and one of the reasons I bought a new graphics card, alongside Half-Life 2, it turned out to be a very different kind of game than classic DOOM titles. This was a cramped shooter with a horror focus and few enemies to fight at any give time. It was a fine game in its own right, but it had barely any DOOM DNA in it.
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So after playing and finishing it, I never really went back to it until the later, brilliant Nintendo Switch port of the title, which is a great fit for the OLED model in particular.
To get my DOOM fix, it was the classic DOOM games that I turned to, and of course I still play them today. However, in 2016 we were blessed with one of the greatest games of all time. Simply titled “DOOM” this soft reboot of the franchise was exactly what a modern imagining of the classic games should be. It looked shiny and modern, but this had the same beating heart as classic DOOM.
Consequently I’ve played through the DOOM 2016 campaign multiple times, and it’s very nearly as timeless as classic DOOM.
DOOM Eternal Was Not a True DOOM Game
So imagine my immense disappointment when DOOM Eternal arrived (a game that I bought as soon as it was available) and it plays nothing like a DOOM game should.
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Instead, this game felt like ID Software’s Quake III, but with a DOOM skin slapped on top. Gone were the grounded Mars base set pieces, and instead each level was littered with surreal vertical arenas, jump pads, and platforming puzzles.
When I bought DOOM 2016, I finished it in less than a week and then went for a second go right away. With Doom Eternal, it took me a year before I saw the credits roll for the first time, since I played the game in small reluctant bites. It wasn’t particularly hard, but it wasn’t very fun. For the first time, I only finished a DOOM game because I wanted to see the story–imagine that!
The Dark Ages Promises To Ditch the Quake III Style Gameplay
In DOOM Developer Direct 25 Hugo Martin (Game Director) states:
You know, we want every DOOM game to stand on its own as a unique experience, so in 2016 we asked you to run and gun. In DOOM Eternal it was jump and shoot. And in DOOM: The Dark Ages, you’re gonna stand and fight. And the Shield Saw will give you the strength to go head-to-head with some of the biggest, baddest demons we’ve ever created at id.
That’s what I like to hear. “Jump and shoot” was exactly why I couldn’t stand DOOM Eternal and its sweaty, twitchy gameplay. A demon slaughterfest with your feet firmly planted at least sounds closer to what made DOOM good than what Eternal attempted.
Maybe “Stand and Fight” Will Bring Back the DOOM Magic
I’m not so naive as to think that DOOM: The Dark Ages will be a rehash of the 2016 game, and I don’t want the series to just stay stuck in one groove. It’s just that Eternal felt like a divergence rather than an evolution of the game series.
If a game franchise loses its core identity, then I think it should be a new franchise instead. Instead of using a well-known brand to sell what feels like a half-baked set of ideas. EIther way, I’m holding all my thumbs that The Dark Ages will actually be a DOOM renaissance instead.
