⚡ NEW: Id/antigrammer - Collection

In 2025, JRPGs and first-person shooters - the most different genres imaginable - were united by one thing. Two of the year's high-water marks for each - Clair Obscur and now, Doom: The Dark Ages - both have a parry mechanic that feels immaculate, and anchor each game. Of all the mental obsessions Dark Souls has forced upon game designers in the past 5 years, a smooth parry with responsive feedback and a healthy dose of dopamine might be one of the best.

It's also a sign of just how well id Software understands good game design that this game's implementation is so different. Clair Obscur relies on a strong grasp of enemy attack patterns and precision, while Doom With Medieval Decor favors a generous parry window and fat, "close enough" hitboxes that are more than happy to give it to you. And it makes sense why - this series entry will throw more demons at you than you've seen since the early 90's, with open areas that harken back to maps like Doom 2's Refueling Base. Add in a vast increase in the amount of projectiles onscreen, and your parry is going to be what keeps you alive as you weave through a bullet hell, charge into packs, and take on a superheavy who can cut you down in two hits if you aren't careful.

This is a lot of time to dwell on one mechanic of one tool in your arsenal, but it is the clearest indicator of a fact that's been true for 30 years: id Software has never developed anything with bad gameplay. Not Doom 3, not even Rage (well, maybe Rage, my only memory of that game is how truly awful the driving was.) I came into this as a diehard fan of Doom: Eternal, skeptical at having my double dashes and extra jumps stripped from me. Doom With Castles won me over instantly. The sheer speed at which you traverse the map, the way the game encourages you to dash toward projectiles you can parry, and the amount of combos that can be performed between stuns, melee falters and weapon abilities is addictive.

It's so good, in fact, that I completely ignored basically every time this game whiffs. And good lord, it whiffs a lot. Chief among these whiffs is the story. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, but at this point I'm actually down to hear a story about the Makyrs and the Night Sentinels and how the Doom Slayer is actually the Doomguy Marine somehow. None of it makes any sense to me even though I read all the stinking lore notes in the first two games, but the set dressing is cool! But this story doesn't really do anything? There's a demon who looks like a dumb Destiny villain. The Betrayer shows up but doesn't actually do any Betraying. The story pretty much just exists - for as incomprehensible as Doom: Eternal's story was, it at least seemed like it was doing something.

Worse is where the mechanics start to break down under their own weight. The emphasis on the shield dash, shield stun, shield parry, melee and all the other non-gun mechanics mean that guns are de-emphasized enough that many don't even have the chance to shine. There are not one, but TWO guns in this game that grind up skulls and shoot their fragments at your enemies, and I barely used them! When you have enough upgrades, you basically just need your Super Shotgun to do heavy damage and your heavy plasma gun to soften up heavies to take more damage. That's it. Eternal was incredibly demanding with weapon switching, sure, but I used even fewer weapons in Ye Olde Doom than I did in Doom 2016. It doesn't ruin the game, but there's an empty feeling you get when upgrading guns you know you'll never use because you've maxed out your special two already.

Other people will have already addressed this by now, but the mech and dragon segments are spectacle over gameplay in a way that I never though id's designers would go for. They're fun in the sense that you can look at the incredible graphics that idTech 8 is pumping out, but if I replay this these sections are going to drag. There's even multiple instances of the most hackish of FPS campaign design: the turret segment.

So the game is very good despite its flaws - if it wasn't for Doom 2016's flawless atmosphere I would probably rank this one above it with it's speedy human pinball gameplay far surpassing that game, which feels genuinely slow now. I'll end this review with a few recommendations:

- There's a setting in the menu to turn Auto-Run ON. Do that immediately. This feels better to play, and more importantly, is the most 90's Doom you can be in 2025.
- Go to the volume settings and rebalance the audio. Crank music all the way up and dial back environmental sounds a bit. This is nowhere near as good as Mick Gordon's work on the previous games (or even Hulshult and Levy's work on the Eternal DLCs) but it's chunky and enjoyable even if completely forgettable, and you should hear it.
- If you're an Eternal vet, play on Nightmare. I actually don't know if I would have enjoyed this as much playing on Ultraviolence. With the difficulty up you need to move even faster, parry more desperately, and have a strong awareness of your shield strength at every moment.