HEAVY HITTER

Doom looks to the past for its biggest and weightiest iteration yet

- JON BAILES

Defence really is the best form of -attack, it seems or at least the most satisfying. With the Slayer busy focusing fire on its brethren, a burly hell knight flanks him to the right.

Stomping into range in the Slayer's peripheral vision, it launches itself forward for a double-fisted slam. The Slayer rotates, raises his shield and - pang! the hell knight comes off worse from the collision, the Slayer unmoved, shockwaves reverberating, the demon reeling.

To follow, two punches and a dismissive boot that sends the half-ton monster's broken body arcing over a nearby precipice, Parrying is a familiar component of videogame violence these days, but in Doom: The Dark Ages its inclusion is as much about what it communicates as its table-turning effect. The rippling, green shockwave on a timed block or projectile deflection conveys the point that evil simply bounces off you here. Indeed, from the soaring acrobatics of Doom Eternal, this prequel casts you as a hulk. When PR materials suggest this game is more 'grounded; it isn't meant in the sense of a stronger basis in reality - the mayhem in The Dark Ages will have anything but. Rather, it's grounded quite literally - you're stripped of the luxury of a double jump and too bulky to leave terra firma for more than a short hop.