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DOOM: The Dark Ages
As a single-player prequel to DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal, DOOM: The Dark Ages builds its combat around weapons such as the Super Shotgun and Shield Saw. Its player rating is 88% from 32,715 reviews, alongside the current offer at $22.49 from 
Fanatical. English interface, full audio, subtitles, and full controller support help you judge whether it fits your setup. Steam is $23.09, so the offer at Fanatical saves $0.60; both prices refer to the matching Standard.
GGselDOOM: The Dark Ages Steam Key (PC) GLOBALCredit/Debit CardAll-time low ~ $19.17across Steam & third-party stores
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $19.172026-02Current Low Across Stores~ $22.49Fanaticalvs. Historical Low+17%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
DLC
01About DOOM: The Dark Ages
Fight as the DOOM Slayer in a dark medieval war against Hell. DOOM: The Dark Ages is a single-player action game and a prequel to DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal. Its combat pairs familiar weapons such as the Super Shotgun with new tools including the Shield Saw. Explore ruined castles, battlefields, and other strange realms across expansive levels. Steam player rating: 88% positive from 32,715 reviews. Release date: May 14, 2025. The Steam PC version supports English interface, full audio, and subtitles.
Credits
Developer
id Software
Publisher
Bethesda Softworks
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$19.172026-02-20 · GreenManGamingBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| Traditional Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| English | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Show 12 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Italian | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| German | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Arabic | Yes | Yes | — |
| Korean | Yes | Yes | — |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Russian | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spanish-Latin America | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Japanese | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Turkish | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-17
02Before you buy
Play style
The Steam PC version is single-player and supports full controller input.
Language
English is available for interface, full audio, and subtitles; additional interface languages include German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese.
03Frequently asked questions
Can I play with others?
It is a single-player experience, with no co-op mode stated in the supplied game data.
Where does it fit in the series?
It is a prequel to DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal, depicting the Slayer in a medieval war against Hell.
What weapons can I use?
Weapons include the Super Shotgun and the versatile Shield Saw.
8.0
Overall Score
Graphics8
Audio8
Gameplay9
Story7
Content7
“Shield-centered combat loop emphasizes pressure-filled frontal advances within a dark sci-fi medieval fantasy setting, though simplified exploration may disappoint veterans seeking systemic depth.”
Our Verdict
If you plan to sink twenty-plus hours into this campaign, that time is very likely well spent, provided you accept that it is not a straight-line upgrade of the previous game but a clearly branching evolution toward heavier, grounded advance. It shifts the combat's center of gravity away from high mobility, aerial combos, and intricate solutions, and onto shield-driven frontal control.
A deliberate change of direction
Some players will adore this change, because the force of pushing a tide of hostile forces back one step at a time is genuinely rare. Others will feel let down, because simplified systems, shallower secrets, and more direct combat solutions mean the series' once near-obsessive precision has surrendered part of its place. The good news is that the game does not present its trade-offs as a compromise, it presents them as a direction. It commits, and that conviction is what separates a watered-down sequel from a confident reinvention. You always know what kind of experience the team wanted to build, and the design holds that line with impressive discipline from the first hour to the last. That clarity of vision is rarer than it sounds, because plenty of sequels try to chase two audiences at once and end up satisfying neither. This one picks a lane and commits fully, accepting that it will lose some of the players who loved the previous formula in exchange for winning over a different crowd. It is a confident bet, and whether it pays off for you depends almost entirely on which of those two crowds you belong to, but you can never accuse the game of being unsure of itself or hedging its design philosophy.
What holds up and what does not
The visuals remain ferocious, the audio remains punchy, and the content volume is more than enough to carry a complete campaign. The story is more proactive than before, though it still has not reached the point of standing entirely on its own. You can feel very clearly that this is a work trying to fully realize the idea of the series planting its feet and fighting from a fixed stance. Against its main rival in the series, the previous entry, it loses the contest of raw systemic depth and ceiling, but it wins on immediacy, momentum, and the sheer tactile force of every advance. Which of those matters more is genuinely a matter of taste rather than a question with a single correct answer. Across the board the scores tell a consistent story: combat is the standout, presentation and audio are strong and dependable, while narrative and the depth of exploration sit a step behind without ever dragging the whole down. There are no glaring weak points here, no dimension that feels broken or neglected, just a clear hierarchy of strengths that all serve the same grounded, aggressive identity. That balance is part of why the package holds together so well, even when individual elements fall short of the genre's very best, because everything is pulling in the same direction toward a single coherent experience.
Who should buy it
It will not necessarily become everyone's favorite entry in the series, but it may well be the one that pulls a particular kind of player back in. So is it worth those twenty-plus hours? If you want a sturdily made, distinctly styled, consistently spectacular heavy action shooter, yes. If you only want to see the previous game's design pushed even further toward the extreme, lower your expectations a touch, because this entry did not crank the dial upward. It brought the hammer down instead, and it did so with real satisfaction. For newcomers it is an unusually approachable doorway into the series, and for veterans willing to meet it on its own terms it offers a fresh, weighty take on a formula they thought they had fully mapped. The recommendation is simple: if you like standing toe to toe and refusing to flinch, do not pass this one up. It is a polished, purposeful action shooter that knows exactly what it wants to be, and it executes that vision with enough craft and spectacle to justify the asking price for anyone drawn to its grounded, relentless style of play. Go in expecting a confident reinvention rather than a familiar encore, and there is a great deal here to enjoy.
Latest news about DOOM: The Dark Ages
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
I remember the first time I played Doom. It was December 25th, 2016. I was a ten-year-old kid living with a condition known as MD. I couldn’t walk. My world was a bed, a ceiling, and the slow crawl of time. To escape, I sketched heroes battling devils in a notebook which was my only outcry against the stillness. That morning, my mother gave me a Christmas gift. A single blue game disc case and a PS4 console. It was the first game she ever bought for me. But it wasn’t just a game. It was the beginning of something much bigger, and I played until my hands ached. For once, the pain didn’t come from my muscles failing. It came from living that moment fully. That game didn’t just save me from boredom. It reminded me I could still be strong. Doom 2016 became my lifeline. Suddenly, the world around me changed. The pain. The stillness. The silence. They all vanished like smoke on the wind. The music thundered like it came from the core of the Earth. The title screen roared with fury. And in that moment, I was no longer a fragile kid in a broken body. I was the Doom Slayer. I tore through Hell like I belonged there. Chainsaw in hand, my movements felt like instinct. I didn't just kill them, I lived it. The rhythm of destruction was its own kind of healing. In this world full of fire, demons, and rage, I somehow found peace. Time slipped away. Hours felt like seconds. I memorised every level, every rune trials, every secret wall. I had no guide. No YouTube. My slow 2G GPRS internet was no good, all I had was huge patience and luck. And I reached 100% completion. Every achievement, all challenges, on my own. Back then, that game was everything to me. And even now, I see it with the same wonder I saw at ten. Every now and then, my mother would sit beside me. She'd watch the screen, quiet and wide-eyed. She came from the days of Ludos and Tetris. To her, this world of demons and metal was like looking into the future. I still remember the day I handed her the controller. She stepped into the arena, tried to fight a Hell Knight. She lost. She laughed. I laughed. She wasn’t made for Hell. But she liked being there with me. She liked seeing me strong. Unstoppable. Free. It was my refuge. It became our bridge. And now, nine years later, it returns with The Dark Ages. The world has changed. I have changed. I’m 19 now. And she… well, she is no longer here. She passed away from COVID in 2021. I missed Doom Eternal, things were rough then, money was tight, and life became very challenging over here. But that storm has passed, since I earn now. I can finally buy what I want. This new Doom looks different, but the heart is still there, at least for me. As I stare once more into the red skies of Hell, I hear echoes of a younger me. And somewhere inside it, I hear her laugh again. That same laugh when she lost to the Hell Guards. That same warmth of her hands on mine. This game is a window now. A way back to a time when she was still here. Sometimes a tear slips out. I don’t know if it’s sorrow or gratitude. Maybe both. Maybe it’s love that never found enough room in words. All I know is that I miss her. More than I can ever say. And Doom is the bridge. Wherever she is now, I know she’s happy, free from pain, wrapped in light, at peace. Thank you for everything, Ma. Love you Forever ❤️Show moreShow less
0.4 hours at review3,162 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I don't think DOOM: The Dark Ages is a *bad* game, but I really can't say that I would recommend it. Too much of the gameplay has been boiled down to "stand around and press the parry button when the game tells you to" and it's missing a lot of what I liked about Eternal, which was on the fly thinking and using smart movement, positioning, and enemy prioritization to win fights. Encounter design in this game is especially lackluster - almost every single arena is just in a boring, kind of flat way too big area with maybe a few rocks or walls around in places, and enemy usage isn't very interesting or threatening either. Mech/dragon segments are cool in concept, but in execution are incredibly boring. Both of them are mainly "hold down fire button, dodge when the game tells you to dodge." You don't ever have to dodge or weave multiple attacks at once in these sections, or make sure to position yourself well to avoid certain attacks. Hold fire, press dodge when you see green on the one enemy attacking you, that's it. The weapon upgrade system relies too heavily on secret hunting in boring, empty levels where for some reason even though they already fixed this problem in Eternal it is once again possible to get locked out of areas so you have to replay the entire level if you missed a secret too early on - which is a shame because I really like the new weapon upgrades! It feels significantly better than the mod system of 2016/Eternal where you were ONLY using the mods most of the time, but if you want to upgrade everything you're going to need to constantly open your map to make sure that you're not missing out on any important resources. (also... why even bother calling them secrets if now they're just visible on your map by DEFAULT? lmao) The game is a huge mixed bag. For every genuinely good change from Eternal or fun idea, there's something else that feels bad or at the least confusingly designed. I didn't hate my time with it but I'd have a really hard time saying it's worth picking up over other games - especially at this price point.Show moreShow less
17.8 hours at review1,812 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Overall recommendation: Series veterans might want to wait for a sale Overall I'll call this a tenuous recommendation, with the caveat that I don't think it quite lives up to the previous 2 installments (which are both technically sequels to this), but the combat loop itself is worth playing, even if it means waiting for a sale first. The core gameplay is good, with the introduction of shield and melee mechanics to replace Doom Eternal's flamethrower and glory kills. Thanks to the sound and physics design, you really feel the weight of the Slayer when you move, and each of the weapons as you fire. The combat on its own is good, but not Doom Eternal good. It's interesting in that most of the weapons seem pretty viable on their own, but there are a couple standouts (chainshot, and the assault rifle secondary mode) that made using many weapons feel kind of unnecessary if not oftentimes useless. It's a pretty big contrast from Doom Eternal's loop that required using all the tools at your disposal frequently, and I never really felt incentivized to mix up my play in Dark Ages the same way I did with Eternal. Whereas Eternal made swapping weapons second-nature, Dark Ages makes swapping weapons almost feel like a chore--you save heaps of time just hurling your shield instead of swapping to the plasma rifle to take out shieldbearers, for example. It's pretty indicative that the core design of the combat was around the new shield mechanics more than anything else, which isn't bad on its own. Like I mentioned, all the weapons feel pretty viable to use, so if you want to just use one over another you really can without feeling much detriment. Beyond combat, however, the game nearly broached becoming what I would deem a slog, due mostly to how the secrets and maps are set up. The maps themselves all feel enormous, partially due to the inclusion of mech and dragon set pieces demanding additional scale, and also due to a more open-world approach than previous installments had. This has a large drawback, however, in that many of those maps require copious amounts of backtracking for hunting secrets. The last main level alone has you progress about 70% of the way just to find the secrets key, at which point you go back through the entire previous portion of the map to collect the secrets you had to leave behind until finding said key. This kind of thing occurs often in Dark Ages, and has kept me from immediately jumping back in on Nightmare/Ultra Nightmare after finishing my Ultra Violence campaign on my first go-around. The mech and dragon portions of the game I could do without entirely--they break the pace pretty hard and the combat with each is pretty lackluster and unexciting. If these portions had been cut or even reduced to cinematics the game would have been improved quite a bit, I think. As the saying goes: "To some, perfection is achieved when there is nothing more to add. To others, perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away". I think in the case of Dark Ages, more could have been taken away to good effect. On that note, I will say that the soundtrack is sorely missing Mick Gordon. I can remember having those catchy, driving, synth-metal tracks from Eternal stuck in my head for hours after playing, but I couldn't recite a single riff from Dark Ages if I tried, even after my first campaign over 17 hours. It's an unfortunate blemish for Dark Ages that Id and Gordon's relationship faltered the way it didShow moreShow less
17.6 hours at review1,448 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
TLDR: Very meh. Definitely not worth full price unless you're a die hard fan, and even then that is a stretch. The "Stand and Fight" version of The Doomslayer is cool on paper, but it wasn't executed very well and paired with other poor choices, this game is a pretty big step back from previous titles. There are a few reasons for this, and I'll just quickly list off why: It is hard to overstate just how poor of a choice id made by not including glorykills. Removing glorykills for nearly everything is just a massive downgrade. In this game you'll get an enemy low, and instead of getting a chance to activate a glorykill you instead swing your melee weapon for free. It is particularly annoying that some mobs DID get glorykills, but there are only a few and they are not consistent at all. Every now and again you'll activate one and saw a Mancubus in half, or behead a Hell Knight. For a second it feels incredibly satisfying and cinematic until you realize that combat doesn't include such moments 99% of the time. The fact that there are a handful of glorykills in the game on non-boss enemies leads me to believe the content just wasn't ready in time and they shipped it anyway. This leads into the problems with combat: there is almost no pressure on the player ever. If glorykills aren't going to be in the game, the rest of the combat needs to be satisfying right? Well, sorta. The parry mechanic they added is good, but it is incredibly over used. Most of the enemies that aren't chaff are primarily defeated by parrying their attacks. This leads you to some weird circumstances where you're just sitting around waiting for them to do something so you can parry and fight back. That is, until you upgrade just one of your weapons. Once you do that you can just run through basically the entire campaign spraying everything to death with it. There is no incentive beyond personal flavor to pick different weapons, they all perform at relatively the same level (except for the Skullcrusher weapons, those things are leagues ahead of everything else DPS wise). It isn't like the other Dooms where you need to swap weapons in order to have the right tool for the right target. No, in this game you can just hold down M1 and basically get the same results across the board. Everything feels equally powerful/viable for everything and as a result none of the weapons really stand out from each other. The way you get upgraded weapons is also a big letdown. You have to run all over these very large maps collecting gold, hunting "side bosses", and solving puzzles. This ends up doing something really weird to the Doom formula: for the player to upgrade their equipment they must spend a LOT of time wandering around giant, empty maps collecting stuff all over the ground. I don't just mean the player has to take a little break from the combat to grab these things as he passes through. If you are collecting most things as you go in order to upgrade your gear you are spending *significantly* more time running around empty fields and corridors than you are fighting. Crossing the map for a key, backtracking to unlock a door and collect 25 gold, etc. It just really sucks compared to the way you got these upgrades in the past. In the previous Doom titles combat was never that far away. For many of the upgrades/secrets in those games you had to complete extremely intense encounters, where in this game you get them from wandering around and solving "puzzles" that mostly consist of checking the map to see where you are supposed to jump off a cliff to land in the secret area below. A couple of the puzzles got pretty interesting in the last 1/4 of the game, but by then you're so exhausted collecting all these trinkets that have been spread across the lands like Dragonballs that what interest you might've had is outweighed by how annoying the process has been the entire game. Then is the overall difficulty. This is a significantly easier game compared to the last two Doom titles and most of it has to do with the amount of encounters in the game paired with the overall lack of intensity. Even the "hard" encounters against mini bosses are a total breeze. There are a few gore nests that can be completed as optional objectives, they too are incredibly easy. The only standout difficult encounter comes on the last mission, where 2-3 Cyberdemon tier enemies come after you at the same time. Even still, you have access to multiple one shot mechanics and can parry most of the damage. It's like id forgot how to pair enemy types to create genuine problems for the Slayer, and there are significantly less dangerous enemies overall. It feels like you spend little time fighting and more time walking from one symbol on your map to another. It is a REALLY bad combo. I seriously cannot overstate how little of the game is combat if you plan on 100%'ing pretty much any of the missions. I've repeated it a few times in this review but it is by far the games weakest area and it is basically a requirement because upgrades are all locked behind it. For me, Doom Eternal with DLC was a 9.5, borderline 10. This game is clocking in at a mild 6-6.5, and that is being optimistic. This game took several steps backward. With the lack of variety in combat, the lack of pressure on the player, the lack of difficult combat encounters, the lack of glorykills/dynamic gameplay, lackluster weapon implementation, lame "puzzles", frustrating map design/obligatory trinket collection, a pretty underwhelming story, and a mostly forgettable soundtrack all come together to create a very "meh" experience for a Doom title. There are just too many missteps when it came to how things were put together in this game, and I say that with heavy heart as one of this franchises biggest fans. For now, hope that the DLC or some sort of update redeems these qualities and get it when its half off.Show moreShow less
23.7 hours at review1,075 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
It’s incredible to see ID software put out 3 completely different combat frameworks for a FPS in the last decade. Each game is different while being distinctly DOOM. Not many publishers take that kind of risk. DOOM 2016 asked you to run and gun. DOOM Eternal asked you to jump and shoot. While DOOM The Dark Ages asks you to stand and fight. Imagine these 3 games were your kids. They are all different and You love them all equally for their unique qualities.Show moreShow less
4.7 hours at review1,269 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
They should've fired Marty Stratton the moment Mick revealed the truth. The game can be fun at times, and I liked the story, but it's definitely levels below Eternal. The soundtrack is non existent. It's like me opening a random video on Youtube while I'm playing something else so that there's just a sound in the background. It literally makes you think "now it'll go hard, that's the drop" but then the music fades away. I can not express how many levels below it is compared to 2016 and Eternal and I'm not even taking what happened between Mick Gordon and Marty into account when I say it. It's made just so the game has a background music. The gameplay loop is fun but the difficulty is just straight up random. I've played on nightmare difficulty but it definitely wasn't "nightmare" difficulty. I don't want to believe that they just didn't even try to balance the difficulties because there are sliders now in the game but it feels like they tried so hard for the game to be for everyone at the same time even at higher difficulties. I wish instead of this much sliders, they'd add less sliders but more set difficulties. The game is much more slower than Doom Eternal but it still makes you feel like you're fast. It's not a complaint from me but just a heads up. There is a speed modifier but it's just goofy. It was disappointing to see that the speed modifier also affects the voice lines. If i wanted my *whole* game to be at %150 speed I could have used cheat engine. I'm not sure what else to add. Just keep in mind that this game is available in gamepass. It uses denuvo (surprisingly my PC ran it much better than I expected) and don't let it be forgotten that Marty Stratton is an evil human being.Show moreShow less
19.3 hours at review976 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
PURE TESTOSTERONE Doom The Dark Ages is a heavy hitter. It’s not fast and twitchy like Doom Eternal. This one slows things down. You’re not dashing around, you’re stomping forward like a tank. You stand your ground. You fight. And it feels amazing. Combat is all about power. Every weapon has weight. Every hit lands with impact. You’re not just clearing rooms, you’re crushing demons with sheer force. It’s intense but not chaotic. The story is there and it adds to the atmosphere, but you don’t need it to enjoy the game. The gameplay does all the talking. You’re dropped into a brutal world, and the goal is simple: survive and destroy everything that moves. The music fits the tone. Dark, gritty, and moody. It’s not as aggressive as Mick Gordons work, and yeah, that edge is missed. But whats here still drives the action and matches the medieval hellscape vibe. Just raw, satisfying violence without the noise. If you want speed, look elsewhere. But if you want to feel like a medieval war machine stomping through hell, this Doom is for you. It’s slow, brutal, and ridiculously fun.Show moreShow less
4.9 hours at review1,032 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Doomed by the Dark Ages of Optimization ⭐☆☆☆☆ (Note: I have about 2 hours in but steam is showing a lot less because I switched to offline mode due to crashing) AAA gaming in 2025 has officially gone to Hell, and not in the fun, shotgun-in-each-hand kind of way. I'm so tired of fighting the game before I can even fight in the game. Trying to play DOOM: The Dark Ages feels less like ripping and tearing and more like begging and praying that the game doesn't turn my PC into molten slag. Look, I just want to enjoy a video game. I shouldn’t have to run tech support for an hour just to squeeze out a stuttery 45fps. I have good hardware. Like, stupidly good hardware. Most people would assume a 4090 and a 7900X would tear through a DOOM title considering that it's the original universal game that runs on everything. But nope. What used to be "plug and play" is now "tweak and pray." Owning high-end hardware doesn’t mean much when every new release tries to turn your rig into a sacrificial offering. That said, if you've ever wanted to watch your GPU burst into flames while rendering a torch-lit corridor at 17fps, DOOM: The Dark Ages has you covered. Forget demons, your real enemy is the graphics settings menu, which might as well be the final boss. Every AAA game now needs DLSS and Frame Gen just to hit a desired framerate that's even close to what my monitor supports. It’s absurd—especially when the last two DOOM games were optimized so well. So who at id thought baking ray tracing into the engine permanently was a good idea? Whoever it was, they deserve to be trapped in a mirrored lava room where every surface reflects their mistakes. I booted it up on “Ultra Nightmare” thinking it was a challenge mode—not realizing it was describing the optimization. There’s literally a preset called that. Bold choice. You can’t turn off ray tracing either. Even on “Low” settings I'm barely hitting 60fps natively, which also changes almost nothing visually, you’re stuck with ray tracing so aggressive it might as well be tracing your soul. The whole game looks like a demonic funhouse with RTX on cocaine. It’s like they cooked ray tracing into the engine with a Hellforge and now it’s fused at the molecular level. It’s almost poetic. A game set in the Dark Ages ends up representing them in terms of modern tech. What’s next? A $70 "Performance Pass" that lets you turn off bloom? But besides that how's the game actually play? Well, yes, the game is metal as hell. But look, we need to talk about the elephant in the blood-soaked throne room: they removed Glory Kills. Gone. Axed. The very mechanic that made DOOM 2016 and Eternal feel so visceral, so kinetic, so alive—ripped out like a Revenant’s spine. Glory Kills weren’t just for flair; they were the heart of the loop. The brutal ballet of staggering a demon, charging in with a spine-shattering finisher, and getting a reward for your aggression? That was pure game play genius. It kept the tempo fast, rewarded skill, and let you control the chaos. Now? You just charge and parry like you're playing some weird version of first person Sekiro. It sucks the fun of getting to see all of those gory and bloody finishers right out of the combat. For a game all about ripping and tearing, it’s wild how much less satisfying it feels to, well... rip and tear. It's also missing a fundamental that made the first two Doom reentries an amazing audio experience. Mick Gordan. Let's not forget the real hellish saga behind the scenes. Remember the Mick Gordon debacle during DOOM Eternal? The man who gave us the iconic, pulse-pounding soundtrack was subjected to a development process that was, frankly, infernal. Gordon worked for months without pay, was excluded from key decisions, and was blindsided by the announcement of the official soundtrack before he even had a contract. When he finally did get to work on the OST, he was given a mere 29 days to complete it, only to find out that id Software had been working on an alternative version for six months without his knowledge. The final product included a mix of his tracks and poorly edited versions of his in-game music, leading to a public fallout that saw Gordon distancing himself from the project entirely. It's a stark reminder that the demons aren't just in the game—they're in the boardrooms too. But wait! There's more! DRM: Kernel-level anti-cheat in a single-player game. Fantastic. Just what I needed! An angry daemon scanning my background processes while I try to rip and tear. Apparently, RGB lighting software is more dangerous than a baron of Hell now. My BIOS hasn’t been this insulted since I let Windows auto-update during a firmware flash. I miss when you could just... buy a game from a respected company and expect it to be pretty good. We had that era. Now it's rolling dice with the odds against you while everyone points and laughs at you for pre-ordering a game in 2025. Well I'm glad I did, because now I can warn some of you reading this to please stay away from this game. At least until they fix it 8 months from now when it's 75% off (Gotta love that) At the end of the day, DOOM: The Dark Ages probably a genuinely fun game buried alive under the smoldering rubble of modern PC gaming sins. It doesn’t feel like I’m playing a shooter—it feels like I’m participating in an interpretive dance about the death of optimization. If you listen closely while your PC wheezes, you can hear Carmack somewhere in the distance… screaming in binary. Final Verdict: DRM+RTX/10 They promised Rip and Tear — Instead I got Lag and Despair.Show moreShow less
0.3 hours at review836 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
For some, the hardest part of playing The Dark Ages will be letting go of Eternal. I see this game as an overcorrection from Eternal. DOOM is one of the most respected franchises ever, and while each entry has its own camp, nearly all of them are beloved by the majority of players. That said, there’s always an inevitable clash between industry trends and player expectations. Sometimes, pushing a franchise forward is necessary. I respect the fact id keeps trying but it's not always as easy to appreciate a work for what it is, though I still appreciate it's fresh. If you thought Eternal was too "gamified," guess what? Dark Ages is also too gamified just in a different way. Sure, it’s more grounded and rounded across the board. I don’t know why people label this as a "stand and fight" game because, believe me, it’s not. It still has the DOOM run-and-gun mayhem at its core; it’s just not as rhythmically demanding as Eternal, where optimal play required using every weapon in your arsenal while platforming like a madman. I loved Eternal, but Dark Ages is more of an all-rounder. It’s still rhythmic in terms of parrying (the timing window is forgiving, so you’ll get it naturally), but you have more freedom in weapon choice. If you preferred 2016, this might address some of your issues though I doubt the 2016 camp will inherently fully embrace it. Grenades are gone, replaced by a trusty shield that’s just as eager to chop enemies apart. Melee and close-quarters are better than ever. The weapons are creative enough to keep the flow engaging, and the BFG has been swapped for a BFC (a crossbow, obviously), which fits the theme quite well. I miss the Crucible already, there’s no equivalent here but it is what it is. Unfortunately, glory kills feel downgraded. I get why, but unless you approach enemies from specific angles, you’ll see the same few animations repeatedly. After Eternal’s variety, this left a sour taste. I finished my Nightmare playthrough in about 18 hours, collecting around 3/4 of the upgrades and secrets. And that’s where my biggest gripe lies. Collectibles aren’t just codexes and toys they’re tied to upgrades, too. This baffles me. We’re drowning in soulslikes and RPGs, open worlds packed with busywork. I do that every month. Now I am doing more of the same in DOOM? I don’t see the necessity. If it were just a few levels, fine but most are sprawling, encouraging free-roaming exploration. At first, I welcomed it, but it got old fast. I lost focus and grew bored, the worst possible outcome in a DOOM game. Regardless, I still appreciate how some missions lets you take them at your own pace and do objectives in any order. The levels themselves are monotonous and lack dynamism. This is another consequence of stepping back from Eternal, where some accused the game of turning into Mario Galaxy with its platforming. Fine, keeping traversal grounded is certainly a choice but the levels also lack distinction. Most look and play the same, with some elevation but nothing like Eternal’s verticality. You’ll mostly run circles in arenas. Dark Ages is more accessible than Eternal, which some found demanding. In fact, it might be the most accessible DOOM yet. Achievements are easy to 100%, and Nightmare was rather easy until the final missions, where the game unapologetically spams enemies. The challenge wasn’t playing "Simon Says" with the parry cues but constantly getting hit from off-screen. It’s still tailored for hardcore players but is not an exact ''sweaty palms'' game like 2016 either. Dark Ages itself plays like a mediator between two different DOOM entries. The mech (Atlan) and dragon sections are disappointingly shallow. The Atlan feels clunky, with little room for mastery—mostly just perfect dodges and button-mashing. The dragon is underwhelming, requiring lock-on attacks and more of the perfect dodges. You can’t park your dragon and freely explore; landing zones are predetermined. The only real interaction is chasing fleeing ships (loot goblins, essentially) to be rewarded by the mission challanges. It’s bland. If you wanted cinematic presentation in DOOM for whatever reason, you’re in luck. Dark Ages has the most presentation in the series. Funny, considering 2016 initially prided itself on anti-narrative (though even it had unskippable cutscenes). Eternal drowned in convoluted lore dump, while The Dark Ages goes for a straightforward, cinematic approach. It’s easy to follow, and I don’t mind it being there but do I care? Honestly, hard to give a ♥♥♥♥. The Slayer is still the dude. He rips, tears, and makes folk run for their life. But the rest of the cast? Generic military tropes, Sentinel war councils, and bits of outsider-vs.-locals perspective. It was interesting to see how the Slayer earned his place, but the storytelling relies on tired, overused set pieces. I don’t care about Sentinels war plans or whatsoever, just let me shoot something in the face. The pacing also feels stretched. Unique bosses are unevenly spaced (you fight all in the last 3 chapters), and the only rune, Rage, is introduced late for gimmicky fights. I missed traditional power ups, this type of gameplay could have benefited greatly from them. The guns still feel punchy, but mastery challenges only reward skins. I didn’t feel compelled to upgrade everything, sticking to one or two favorites. Each weapon has two mods (switchable anytime), and upgrades grant perks like the classic flame flares (armor on hit) for the shotgun its often associated with. I recently revisited DOOM 3. Love it or hate it, it was a bold departure. Made during an era of industry experimentation, took risks. Newer DOOMs feel more like Painkiller than DOOM 3 in an ironic way. Players clearly love weapon-juggling, fast-paced combat, and arena shooters hence the indie boom of "retro-feel boomer shooters," many of which are even faster than this trilogy. Most aren’t true to DOOM's (or Duke 3D's) roots either, but that’s just how trends go. I never opened the map until I hit a breaking point. Constantly checking the map isn’t something I associate with DOOM. If you love exploring every corner of given levels, more power to you. But this isn’t my idea of an FPS sandbox. I expect something more calculated and focused; Dark Ages sacrifices that precision of the former two for openness. Still thrilling, but its highs are lower due to design restrictions. The new remix of the main theme (the one that greets you in the menu) is cool and all, but the rest of the BGM... If you could ask the soundtrack itself, it would agree that it misses Mick Gordon. At some point, Gordon had to move on, but it’s a shame how he departed. I don’t think the new tracks are as memorable as those in the former two. Must be a part of why I got bored. The music has the similar tunes, sure, but is not as vibrant, intense and energetic. Instead it's more flat and obviously far less experimental although some might still find it catchy. The mixing needs some serious help however. DOOM strangely followed Tomb Raider's path so far, a beloved franchise from '90s making a strong comeback with arguably a great reboot debut, followed by a more divisive sequel and finishes up with a messier entry. That's just how I interpret it. What's next? Another reboot? That I don't know but I do know this: Dark Ages is still a good game. It's just not my type of jam. Each to their own, I don't feel apologetic as I hated both RAGEs hence feel like id sometimes do miss the mark but the ongoing theme here is clear enough. It's what you prefer. To me, Dark Ages will remain the weakest link of the new trio. Maybe it should take a longer break but whatever's next, I want to believe it'll be always good to play more of DOOM. The lack of multiplayer is saddening actually. [Turn on auto sprint on btw] ★★★½☆☆ Please take a moment to check out my curator for more in-depth reviewsShow moreShow less
23.4 hours at review894 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
The game is fine. You can play it, it runs great, you'll be entertained. But if you're like me and made the mistake of playing DOOM (2016) and/or DOOM: Eternal before playing Dark Ages, you'll be left feeling underwhelmed. COMBAT tl;dr: "Another flavor of DOOM, but definitely not the best flavor." The combat now resembles a "Bullet Hell" style game. Enemies will be numerous and peppered across large areas with bigger, more elite enemies sending projectiles galore at you. Using your handy dandy shield, you'll need to parry all the "green" projectiles to stun or weaken those elite enemies. This is a major departure from the other DOOM games and while I appreciate the id Team trying something new, it's not workin for me. The dev videos will spin a tale about this relentless "push forward" combat mechanic, but in reality it's anything but. You will often spend more time scanning the arena from the back, waiting for the green projectiles to fly over so you can work on weakening the elites and in between parries, probably throw your shield at groups of "fodder enemies." This fodder mechanic basically turns a handful of enemies from the previous games which used to have interesting combat mechanics into one-hit trash mobs. Even the most painfully simple enemies from DOOM (2016) had their place; Imps were squishy, but they'd scurry around and jump on walls and columns hurling fireballs at you which could distract you from bigger threats. Possessed soldiers often were easy to manage, but if you left them alone, their charged shots could become a problem real fast. And the variant that had plasma shields could also be a nuisance, blocking shots and closing in on you while you're trying to juggle mancubus and cacodemons in a room. In Dark Ages, they now stand around in groups being virtually no threat thanks to your shield being able to chop em all in half with one shot. They do try to incorporate some DOOM: Eternal style gun-puzzles where all rail-spike weapons help break armor and plasma weapons explode plasma shields, but you'll likely not find any challenge with this. Now you might be thinking "Well, if fodder enemies are no threat, why would you just sit in the back of the arena?" The problem is pushing forward often punishes you. Glory Kills used to be this awesome visceral moment where you're rewarded for closing in on an enemy with a show and some ammo/health, but now Glory Kills are reserved for bigger enemies and only initiated when you stun them from parrying their green projectiles enough times. There's no variety to them anymore either. You'll see the same kick in the chest, the same uppercut fist to the jaw, the same rip-their-heart-out animation (that one specifically is for enemy leaders, a rare enemy designation that rewards armor upgrades). When you initiate one, often times, you'll see every other enemy big enemy pounce on you, sending you from full armor and health to dead faster than you'd think. You're almost never encouraged to be up close and personal in bullet hell games for this same reason - doing so just leaves you open to other enemy projectile fire. It's better to sit back and clear fodder, clear as many elite enemies from a distance, and only close in when you got one or two left. MUSIC tl;dr: "The lack of Mick Gordon was severely missed." I don't have a ton to say on this, but the music was underwhelming. A few tracks carried some old Mick Gordon vibes, but often the music just didn't hype me up like DOOM (2016) and DOOM: Eternal did. Mick's style of relentless riffing amplified every fight and unfortunately that was not retained in Dark Ages. There was like one or two moments where I did pause the game and was like "Yo, now THAT sounds pretty good," but the rest just left me wanting to pull up Mick Gordon's "Rip and Tear" and play it over the game. STORY tl;dr: "I'm not sure why they did this." Team id decided to try and deliver a cinematic story around the DOOM Slayer. I'll keep it brief: you will not remember any of the character names, you will not remember their faces, and half the time you'll start thinking you're actually playing a new Gears of War or Mortal Kombat story campaign rather than a DOOM game. It's incredible that after seeing all the positive buzz that came from fans appreciating the focus on gameplay over heavy-handed lore and world-building, they decide to reverse course and usher in forgettable characters to serve up a plot that honestly didn't need them. I would've welcomed an approach to story and lore like Elden Ring or even DOOM (2016) where it's mostly found-lore or smart level design that helps you infer things about the world around you without taking the controls away. Instead, Dark Ages gives you these cutscenes that do nothing but leave you scratching your head and wondering "Can I skip this and will I miss anything if I do?" (The answer to that is yes you can skip, and no you will not miss anything). LEVEL DESIGN/GRAPHICS tl;dr: "I'm sorry if you played DOOM (2016) or DOOM: Eternal right before playing Dark Ages" Now let me give some positives: I had no bugs, no issues whatsoever running DOOM: Dark Ages on Ultra settings. I loved the amount of destructible environments in the levels. Punching an enemy in the face not only knocked them back, but it often disintegrated statues, furniture, walls, and other clutter in each of these arenas and it felt amazing, really adding weight to the DOOM Slayer's movement and combat. Scale also was done really well in this game. Some of the enemies are ridiculously big, and sometimes you get very, very big, and so whether you were looking up at a mammoth titan giving a beatdown or you were looking down at miniscule imps fighting against a tiny squad of allies (who you could literally step on or obliterate by collapsing the structures they're fighting on), the changes in scale were actually pretty cool. The problem with the level design is really a problem with the combat. For the "bullet-hell" style combat to work, the designers often needed to provide massive spaces for arena-style fights to allow ample room to juggle the sheer amount of enemies and projectiles on screen. Because the combat needed to account for all the strafing and projectile parrying, what you often will see is these very uninspiring flat landscapes with a severely limited amount of verticality (since projectiles need to be able to travel for long distances, not get stopped by rocky platforms, or terraced ledges, (etc)). This will often result in uninspiring landscapes that are maybe interesting for all of five minutes before you're zooming through the level, totally forgetting where you are or what it looks like. I think this is a shame, because again, looking at back at the other games, the levels often carry such a distinct atmosphere and tone to them; Cyclopean temples and Catacombs full to bursting with skulls and bones, Martian facilities replete with dark maintenance corridors, bloodied hallways, and futuristic laboratories, decimated cityscapes with dilapidated skyscrapers and streets. Dark Ages does try to vary it up and some instance are pretty awesome, but oftentimes you'll feel uninspired to stop and look around you, preferring to quickly rush over to the next combat arena instead. CONCLUSION tl;dr: Play DOOM: Dark Ages if you played the other games and want more DOOM with a different flavor. Prioritize playing DOOM (2016) or DOOM: Eternal if you haven't played them yet. It's not a bad game. You can absolutely have fun with it. I definitely was, but I also was left thinking way too many times "I should stop and play DOOM: Eternal cause I like that better." I wish rather than a thumbs down, I could just have an emote of a guy shrugging. That's how I feel about it.Show moreShow less
11.7 hours at review787 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.