- Tested on PC with a RTX 4070 TI in 3440 X 1440 ultra wide screen.
- Code transmitted by the publisher.
- Home gameplay captures
- Completed in three sessions in about thirty hours of play in Nightmare mode by boosting these settings:
- Damage to the player in %: 250/500
- Damage to demons in % : 100/1000
- Maximum aggression of demons in %: 150/150
- Maximum speed in %: 150/150
- Maximum projectile speed: 5/5
- Resource efficiency: 2/5
- % stunning effect: 75/150
Throned, chopped, roasted, calcined, depiated, electrocuted... a good demon cooks in five ways, like a lacquered duck prepared by the texans d的id software. After the voltiges and other acrobatics offered by The Ancient Gods, the two DLCs Doom Eternal, many feared a more grounded game because of the shift to a gameplay based on shield counters and punishments to the weapon mass. Exits double jumps and aerial games, the new grammar of Doom Go back to basics. « Stand and fight », three words scanned by developers during the promotional campaign of the title to define the new state of mind of the Slayer. Can Id software still surprise the old lady?
What the hell is this?
Designed as a prequel of Doom EternalThe story of the game tells how the Maykrs have given us superhuman speed and strength. A scenario that holds on a post stamp with a battery of characters all more dispensable than each other. Fortunately all this is not taken seriously and we do not play to Doom For his pretty words. With this new episode, the Doomguy opts this time for a medieval style with a small cape in chamois hair covering its traditional emerald armor. In terms of new features, our character firmly holds a chainsaw shield that we can send in in the skull of our opponents with a simple pressure of the wheel. By pressing the right click, you can protect yourself against the projectiles, a short moment of respite, just enough to keep the guard high and find an opening, which will most often come from an enemy green shot that will have to be returned by setting a pile at the time of impact. A slight slow down allows us to instantly calculate the best next move to generate maximum damage in record time, golden rule of any good episode of Doom.
As often with the saga, there is an exponential margin of progression. After a few tens of hours, the most robust enemies are eliminated in just a few seconds by chaining the good combos and parades by slipping a few shotsgun shots between the two eyes of the demons. Finally, once well run, each dance ends up with a rush to the enemy to beat the blow of grace once it turns purple. To use the expression Outliner, « the mechanical engineering of the bodies » find a new breath with The Dark Ages, especially for the toughest fans of the saga who will be ready to hack the parameters of difficulty.
Pimp my slayer
Besides its futuristic medieval setting, The Dark Ages was presented as the Doom in terms of options. The HUD is fully adjustable, idem for colors displayed for Daltonians. Low hat for the work accomplished and which should act as standard in any modern game today. On the menu, four main modes of difficulty: Slayer budding, hurt me, ultraviolence and nightmare, this last mode having two ruthless variants with, as a bonus, more checkspoints in the levels and seals of life reduced to simple care in the latter case. As the author of his lines had returned the DLCs The Ancient Gods In all senses, it did not seem too adventurous to start directly in nightmare mode, but keeping the checkpoints. The parade window is smaller, the enemies are extremely aggressive and the damage received increases drastically.
But that's not all, for the first time id software added a difficulty setting system to the card. If at first we were more than skeptical about this addition, fearing that the experience was unbalanced, we came out convinced by the approach. The latter has the merit of being able to bring players who are not afraid of the epilepsy crisis to a completely different experience. It's simple by boosting aggressiveness, bullet velocity and travel speed to a maximum of 150%, I discovered what a real fast FPS was. Clearly, Doom 2025 is the most nervous ever out. Finally, The Dark Ages holds the most successful difficulty system since the excellent Kid Icarus From the inimitable Sakurai.
There is no kind of feeling that is more vivid than that of pain
In Amphetamine-boosted Nightmare mode, the first third of the game is not a small deal, the fault of a wasteful life bar that leaves no room for error. Then, as we learn the game, we end up reaching the substantive mellow of the gameplay: generating the maximum damage in the most reduced time interval. Playing up all the potashes is a real masochist treat certainly, but what a mortiferous frenzy! Ridiculously difficult but always possible with the 150% higher game speed, my experience looked like an unlikely marriage between Doom and Benny Hill with demons that gesticulate like Gremlins in front of Snow White. Once the campaign was over, I tried to restart the game without touching the speed and aggressiveness parameters of the enemies. Verdict? I felt like I was slowing down. The game lost all flavor, where modified, it joined the sensations of a Sekiro and its punitive counters as well as salvators.
Do not fear the pain, Doom is only played in the assumed freedom. In three sessions of about ten hours each, I reached the end credits, the sore thumb, the dilated pupil like that of an opossum, as amazed by the margin of progress achieved in terms of playing. Regardless of the demon, we find ourselves reducing it to a heap, thanks to even more subtle chains than those offered by the previous strands. No more combo grenade, grappin, flame throwers, Finishing Move from the old games, here everything rests on using the shield. The best defense is the attack and this opus does not derogate from the rule. What's more fun than putting a five-time incendiary shot into the trick of a cyberdemon followed by a plague between two parades! There was only a second but an impressive number of actions.
Where the precedents Doom played on the side « stone leaf scissors » enabling the recovery of life, armor and ammunition according to the blows carried, The Dark Ages opts for a completely different flow. It is first much more avarous in health bonuses; It is more the arena kits that will allow you to heal your wounds. The more we move forward, the more the bar of life and armor increases, which is why the first hours of play are clearly the most punitive. Then we unlock specs weapons that allow us to regain a little life by attacking. But generally speaking, The Dark Ages freed from his three-faceted gameplay to go towards something much more open with more personal game styles (and that's so much better!).
Do you have any weapons? - Then you won't save anyone.
New Doom also says new arsenal. If one regrets the absence of grenades, the game offers a palette of playful weapons. Each of them has two modes to unlock like shotgun and supershotgun, grenade launcher and rocket variant. We also find the faithful plasma gun that passes overload when one machine guns at all goes. The skill tree makes it possible to make certain weapons demonic in terms of the possibility of gameplay. To access it, it will first collect gold on the map and find different types of crystals hidden in the levels after winning tough challenges. Concerning radically new weapons, the sprayer pulls skulls and its firepower increases at each elimination, ideal to clean up the hordes of fragile enemies. His alternative, the pest, bears his name by trading dispersal to focus on one opponent. The weapon becomes fearsome once the vampirism attributes are increased, which allows you to regain life, a precious element and the most punitive point of the game in the boosted Nightmare.
The chain gun will also be crucial for destroying the armor of the most carpented enemies. The embalmer is very « elegant » to make tactical blows and grab the demon into the walls. The BFG is also entitled to its variant, the CFB, which is nothing other than the same weapon of mass destruction in crossbow. For limited use, this last rescue gun is to be reserved as a joker, even though I had to use only three times in the game, not being fan of the side too « assisted » of this aspect of gameplay. In short, we pass all the details to keep you surprised, but whether it is firearms, body to body or shield, the improvements are numerous and allow you to understand the gameplay in all forms while promoting replayability. Note that devs have abandoned multiplayer mode to focus on solo. Sweeps that they keep under the elbow for a probable reboot of Quake.
Another important change in gameplay, the game offers two types of levels, some particularly open and others very narrow and closer to the mazes of the very first episode that defines the standards of the FPS in 1993. While the former are not always the most inspired in terms of construction, they still have the merit of displaying a number of enemies never seen for the series. Fortunately the shield throw was designed to eliminate complete garrisons. The smallest truly act as cannon flesh, the tank enemies of Mancubus style being for their part endowed with a thick armor. They are also always well hidden behind a line of shields to cross. Then you have to focus your shot on one of the shields before you throw our right into the mile to eliminate the whole row at once. Overall, the game also requires a good understanding of patterns and positioning against enemies, especially at such a speed of play. The knights continue to harass us continuously, the Cacodemons and the Mancubuses generate fire from dams, the soldiers possessed draw lines of magical shields, etc.. At any rate, it is a real macabre dance to which one gives himself, always on the lookout for a green shot to return in the lard of the opponent.
Titan Fall
Other more dispensable novelties, the game offers XXL levels by looking without blushing on the side of The Titans Attack. We then control the mechas that would not deny Pacific Rim. Subtle objective: to remove hordes of giants by destroying everything in our passage. The Darks Ages also offers some sequences with dragon back. Without necessarily being disobedient, these passages are not necessarily the most inspired or the most arduous, but they have the merit of diversity and they largely share the feeling of any power. If we were to get a little bigger, we should see The Dark Ages as a mixture between fast-FPS and Ikaruga with a touch of Sekiro. If we missed the lack of verticality a little, the sensations are well present and we would only regret that the Doomguy does not take off a little higher, the jumps being sometimes so stuck to the ground that it is hard to overcome an obstacle of nothing at all.
It is only in the last third of the game that The Dark Ages allows some fantasies with springboards, but overall the level design is more plan-plan than the previous opus. Unlike his predecessors, there is no momentum in the adventure, a rhythmic one, but perhaps too generous. From the first levels, we are already in califourchon on our company dragon, then at the controls of a mecha, as if The Dark Ages I didn't want to bother the player. Only real question that will be trotting in the heads of purists who will have finished the campaign in Nightmare +++, could id software have proposed the same type of gameplay to the shield with the verticality of the last Doom? The mystery remains complete and we are already wondering if DLCs as muscular as those of The Ancient Gods are already planned.
Only true black spot of the title, the OST has not been able to match those of the old games since Mike Gordon left the Texas studio In bad terms. We don't go four ways, we miss her absence terribly. Certainly Finishing move does the necessary but never touch the quality of Doom Eternal. Unfortunately we have the impression of a single score without necessarily giving the illusion of evolving according to the intensity of the gameplay. Same reproach for the care given to the lore of the game which seemed less inspired. The big naughty not beautiful is not the most charismatic of the series and the cinematics are certainly sympathetic, but lack emphasis, again certainly because of a more generic OST. Well, there's still a matter of some panoramas that lurk on Lovecraft's side, which is a real artistic success on this point. Finally, honorable mention for the engine of the game that runs without sunk at 120 FPS constant with a 4070 Ti. No graphic slap in perspective, even though id software has given the best of itself in terms of destruction of enemies. He's a real paramenter!
Is Doom The Dark Ages really more static? The answer will differ significantly depending on whether or not you have put your hands in the game's difficulty settings. Boosted to the maximum, the experience gives to see the best of the franchise and the most nervous Doom ever released. On the contrary, without increasing the speed of play, the adventure will probably seem closer to the « stand and fight » claimed by id software. One thing is for sure, the developers have thought about all the players by not forgetting those who finished the DLC The Ancient Gods. Less bursting than the previous opus, due to a lack of general surprises and an OST bleeded by Mike Gordon's withdrawal from the bar, The Dark Ages remains a very high-flying fast FPS for anyone who will please break their teeth. The Doom Slayer has given well since 2016 and perhaps after a decade, it is now time to take the torch to Quake. But can we really retire a million seller like Doom?
For
- Difficulty à la carte
- Full-bodied Challenge in Nightmare
- Effective Bestiary
- Arsenal inspired
- Sudden & visceral Flow
- Quality panoramas
- Fluidity to the test
- Adjustable HUD
- The feeling of the shield
- The mechanics of parades
- More successful mini-boss
- The most nervous episode by boosting stats
Against
- No Wow effect
- A little slow without touching the stats
- Less inspired arenas
- Nice dragon phases but without more
- Same for mechas
- Final a little too agreed
- Observable and non-existent NPCs
- Double jump missing
- Lack of verticality
- More varied gameplay possibilities
- A little bit of redite
- Observable OST (Mike back!)
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