Available since this week, Doom The Dark Ages invites us to return to hell to discover the origins of the Doom Slayer with an opus that serves as a prequel to Doom (from 2016) and Doom Eternal (from 2020).
During our preview in March, the teams at id Software told us that it was the perfect opus to discover the saga. What can we say about it after having set foot in the lands of Hell to bring down a merciless demon? Let's take stock.
Doom: The Origins of the Slayer
With this opus of Doom, the teams at id Software wanted to offer a game much more accessible to neophytes and those who had never dared to take the plunge. The emphasis is on storytelling, and the title opens with a horde of demons attacking Khalim's village. King Novik's Sentinels, with the support of the Maykr, attempt to hold back the demon assault, led by Prince Ahzrak and the Witch.
To have a chance of survival, Commander Thira calls on Kreed Maykr to ask him to free the Slayer. Fans of the franchise thus discover the origins of this mythical hero, who was, at the beginning, nothing more than a weapon held by the Maykr.
Of course, to avoid any spoilers, we won't go any further into the plot. Doom The Dark Ages allows us to discover the story of the Doom Slayer, through a campaign that is much more narrative and scripted than the previous games, with some twists and turns.
To put it simply, the story of Doom The Dark Ages remains fairly classic and offers nothing revolutionary. While the entire first part of the game seems fairly mastered, we are a little less convinced by the second half of the game, which drags a little. The finale is nevertheless very successful and allows the game to be energized in its last part, in order to end on a positive note.
The very accessible Doom
It was one of id Software's promises: to make a game accessible to all. It is clear that it is successful. Firstly, thanks to the storyline since the game is a prequel. You don't need to know the basics or the Lore, you will discover the origins of the license.
The other point is at the gameplay level. The game offers a plethora of tutorials to help you progress step by step and master all of your weapons, skills and gadgets (like the shield). In addition to numerous difficulty modes with a great deal of possibility in terms of difficulty adjustments, damage points that you will inflict and receive, etc.
Thanks to this, Doom The Dark Ages offers an ultra-complete experience, which will offer an extremely high challenge to players who like to suffer and who do not want to have the right to make the slightest mistake. And, conversely, a non-existent challenge with simply the satisfaction of charging in and shooting at everything for players who don't want to get bogged down.
We can also talk about the skill tree which has been greatly simplified in this opus, making it, again, much more accessible. Overall, you can improve your weapons, your shield and your melee weapons. Each time, you have a few improvements that can be installed in exchange for gold or precious stones to be found in the different areas of the game.
A beautiful technical and visual feat
The entire test was carried out on a PS5 version of Doom The Dark Ages. The game is technically impressive. The 60 FPS are stable, we do not experience any drop in frame rate, even slight, whether in calm moments or in very intense sequences where it shoots in all directions.
Graphically, the game is very clean, we face a very particular artistic direction, which fans of demons and hell will appreciate, but nevertheless very qualitative, well researched and varied. The game consists of 22 chapters which are all different and offer quite sublime panoramas visually.
Nothing to report on the bug side, with a well-finished game, without problems at the level of the objectives, and no crashes to deplore. This is becoming rare enough these days to not be worth mentioning.
Staying on the technically perfect side, let's quickly discuss the game's soundtrack and sound design, which, once again, are impeccable. On the soundtrack side, Doom The Dark Ages offers a selection of heavy metal tracks, as usual, which will please fans of the genre. Personally, I found the soundtrack to be quite redundant and repetitive, especially after about fifteen hours of play. Regarding the sound design, there's nothing to complain about, which once again shows some very beautiful things. Whether it's the sound of the environment, the demons, the sound of your footsteps and our weapons, everything is really well transcribed. A small bonus point for the French version, which is also of high quality. In this Doom The Dark Ages, we are amazed by the sights and sounds.
The immense variety of the medieval arsenal
Doom The Dark Ages takes place in the Middle Ages. Thus, the sets, costumes, and of course, weapons are all inspired by this era. And, as always in Doom, the arsenal is numerous, varied, wacky, and quite enjoyable.
We find the traditional Slayer weapons with the Shootgun or the double Shootgun. But, the teams at id Software also offer us more chivalrous weapons with the Chain Shot, which allows you to fire a cannonball. You also have the Crusher, which allows you to fire human bones that will scatter everywhere and hit several enemies at the same time.
In total, you have six types of ranged weapons with five variants. Note that at no time does the game force you to use this or that weapon. You are free to do the entire adventure with your favorite weapon, knowing that you can find ammunition quite easily.
Like any good knight, you also have melee weapons that will pair perfectly with your shield. We thus find a gauntlet, a flail and a mace which all have their own specificities.
Not forgetting the shield which will allow you to protect yourself from enemy fire and which will be a real Swiss army knife. This shield allows you to attack, to parry, but also to activate mechanisms, or to unlock secret passages. It is clearly the object which is at the center of the game and which will be indispensable to you throughout your adventure.
Open-World, dragons and Mecha, the new features of this Doom The Dark Ages
Among the main new features of this title, we find levels that are much more open than the previous installments. Some areas even offer mini open-worlds where you can wander around, solve puzzles to access secret passages, collect codex pages, other collectibles, find caches of gold and precious stones to improve your arsenal.
Quite honestly, the open areas are nice and allow us to complete the objectives in any order we want. Beyond that, they are fairly trivial and will save a few extra hours of play for those who want to complete the levels 100%. Otherwise, they don't add much to the adventure.
Some sequences will require you to ride a dragon for several aerial sessions. As we already feared in our March preview, these passages of the game are not the most memorable. The dragon's handling is quite approximate, the shooting sequences simplistic with an automatic locking system, in itself, nothing catastrophic or revolutionary. These sequences are not extremely numerous and bring a little diversity to the gameplay, but they will not remain as the highlights of the title.
Finally, we also have sequences in Mecha robots. Among Prince Ahzrak's hordes of demons, we find gigantic titans. To fight against them, the only solution is to climb aboard giant Mecha robots. If on the gameplay side, there is nothing really incredible, with again, as with the dragons, something rather approximate and redundant in the fights, we still really appreciated the spectacular side. The sequences in Mecha really give us this impression of grandeur and crazy power which are extremely well transcribed. This gives us some striking sequences, especially in cinematics.
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