Doom: The Dark Ages could be the weird sequel the series needs

Following Doom’s revelatory reboot in 2016 and its greater however not essentially higher sequel in 2020, Doom: The Darkish Ages is doing precisely what it must do: getting targeted, and getting a lil’ bizarre with it. With its dramatic shift in setting and its emphasis on toe-to-toe demon punch-outs, it appears like a tough left flip for the sequence. However after my time with the demo construct at a current in-person preview occasion, I consider The Darkish Ages’ additions to the Doom 2016 system are thematically and mechanically cohesive, and furthermore, they’re actually goddamn enjoyable.

Doom (2016) was an train in mechanical purity. It weaved effortlessly between frantic enviornment fight and environmental exploration, similar to its 1993 namesake. Its massive addition to the system was the Glory Kill, a melee finisher that primarily turned wounded enemies into well being packs, encouraging you to all the time keep within the battle. The sport succeeded on its propellant fight design, however misplaced some steam within the again half, by which level it had handed you all of its weapons, launched your entire demonic foes, and granted your one massive motion improve within the type of a double soar.

Doom Everlasting constructed on the 2016 Doom’s groundwork, including hundreds extra stuff. On prime of the standard unfold of massive weapons, you had an arm blade, double jumps, air dashes, a shoulder-mounted flamethrower (which might additionally shoot ice grenades), a laser claymore, and one thing known as the “Blood Punch.” Whereas that massive pile of recent mechanics allowed for a extra regular drip feed of treats over its playtime, it additionally by no means felt as elegant or targeted as its predecessor.

Doom: The Darkish Ages feels nearer to the candy spot. It performs much less like Everlasting’s offspring and extra like its bizarre youthful sibling. One other, completely different evolution of 2016’s design, constructed recent atop its basis. You continue to run quick, discover keycards, and shoot demons, however id Software program has stripped away the shoulder-mounted flamethrowers, air dashes, and Blood Punches, and changed them with a number of recent techniques — and this time, these additions really feel neatly intertwined with one another, and thematically at house within the new darkish fantasy sci-fi setting.

The Doom Slayer’s new buzzsaw-bladed defend is the centerpiece of this mechanical streamlining. It’s all the time there, in your left hand, and it’s all the time justifying the area it takes up on the display. Its most simple operate is as a defend. Think about that. You possibly can raise it to cowl your self as you advance beneath fireplace. Its barely much less fundamental operate is as a tennis racket. A fast faucet of the defend button parries inexperienced projectiles again at foes in addition to repelling the melee assaults you’ll be seeing much more of in The Darkish Ages. The designers clearly need you to rise up shut and private on this one, and your individual melee assaults have obtained a critical buff to that finish.

How do you rise up shut and private? You employ your defend. Your protection instrument can be a motion instrument, outfitted with a defend sprint that locks onto an enemy and zippers you towards them astoundingly quick. Once you arrive, you unleash a shock wave that turns smaller demons to stick. However greater demons may need to go a couple of rounds. As you commerce blows, you may discover you’ve burned via your restricted inventory of melee strikes. How do you restock? As soon as once more, you employ your defend. Profitable parries refill your melee expenses, so skillful protection turns you right into a perpetual violence machine.

If that’s not sufficient, you may as well chuck the bladed defend at unhealthy guys to lock them down. An enemy together with your buzzsaw defend lodged of their head received’t essentially die, however they’ll be stunlocked till you recall your defend. It’s a helpful trick for taking a extra highly effective demon out of the battle for a couple of seconds when you concentrate on cleansing up the cannon fodder.

Assigning so lots of the new mechanics to the defend, an object that’s all the time on the display, is fairly sensible. It meant I by no means as soon as forgot about my new talents as I scrapped via every chaotic encounter. If I obtained torn up by a Mancubus’ plasma orbs or a Cyberdemon’s vitality sword, the instrument I wanted was proper there, bobbing to the left of the crosshairs — however the actual utility of that instrument was as much as me. I used to be continually considering and making selections about find out how to weave the defend into my fight move, whether or not for motion, protection, or offense.

Talking of offense: The weapons are good. I performed with mainstays just like the fight shotgun and plasma rifle, however my favorites have been the arsenal of comically brutal medieval contraptions. From a seemingly bottomless journal, the Pulverizer feeds rune-inscribed skulls right into a churning grinder, creating a relentless spray of bone flechettes in a horizontal line. The Chainshot expenses up and fires a retractable iron ball. The Impaler launches large railroad spikes that pin demons to partitions. Even the Shredder, which initially seems like a reskinned machine gun, achieves new mechanical complexity when it’s been upgraded. After making use of a swappable weapon mod, it may super-heat targets with concentrated fireplace, and people piping-hot demons may be detonated with a well-placed defend throw.

That’s what I discover most promising about Doom: The Darkish Ages. I can’t discuss one ingredient of it for lengthy earlier than I’m speaking about the way it connects immediately to a different ingredient, and the way that ingredient connects to a different and one other. Inside its fight design, there’s a intelligent financial system at play, designed to reward you for utilizing the breadth of its instruments. Thumbing via the upgrades menu, it appears there’s even a little bit of room for buildcrafting — speccing mods and expertise to take advantage of synergies that improve your explicit play type.

Doom: The Darkish Ages’ willingness to attempt one thing new is charming, and for a franchise that has been booted and rebooted, it may be mandatory. We’ve been to Mars. We’ve been to hell. We’ve been to hell on Earth! I didn’t doubt that id might squeeze one other serving to of enjoyable from Doom, however I wasn’t actually itching to see the Doomguy return to E1M1 for an emotional homecoming. It definitely seems like the liberty to forge a brand new path is holding the builders keen on their very own work. The weapons, world, and monsters of The Darkish Ages drip with the type of adolescent enthusiasm you solely see when an artist is given permission to get a bit bizarre. In the meantime, the implementation of recent mechanics appears considered and considerate.

Whether or not the brand new strategy will coalesce into an excellent recreation is but to be seen, however I’m excited to search out out when Doom: The Darkish Ages launches on Might 15.