UNCIVILIZED

DOOM: THE DARK AGES is indulgent and deliciously violent, but surprisingly safe

- Morgan Park

In a time when the FPS campaign is so vanishingly rare that the only helping of big-budget shooting we can rely on each year is from Call of Duty, it'd be easy for id Software to kick up its feet and decide “more Doom” is good enough. It'd be good enough for me. But that'd be dereliction of id's duty to the genre it created.

To id, a new Doom is an opportunity to demolish a perfectly good sand castle and start fresh. Doom: The Dark Ages is the trilogy's sharpest zag yet—recasting the Slayer from a meaty fighter jet, dashing past the hordes of Hell, to a stalwart tank, smashing shield-first into the action.

Argent D’Nur vs Prince Ahzrak of Hell, facing off between bouts of bloodshed. Characters and plot have as much nuance as wrestling, setting the stage for the campaign's next set-piece without getting bogged down by proper nouns.

It's appropriately uncomplicated. The Slayer's otherworldly determination and general freakishness are amplified by his proximity to normal, communicative humans. They treat him like an unknowable demigod, inherently dangerous but effective when pointed in the direction of hellspawn. I loved the dynamic, partly because id is paying off years of mythbuilding, but also because this Slayer adopts the role of a deranged Master Chief, more or less following orders as long as he agrees with the mission.

CLOSE GUARD

The Dark Ages' rebooted gun ballet revolves around the Shield Saw. Bound to right-click, the shield blocks all damage from the front and sends green projectiles back to their senders. It’s a change that ripples through every facet of The Dark Ages, anchoring the Slayer to the ground in exchange for survivability.