Doom: The Dark Ages Marks Its Halo Moment

During a recent hands-on demo of Doom: The Dark Ages, I was unexpectedly reminded of Halo 3. Picture this: mounted on the back of a cyborg dragon, I unleashed a barrage of machinegun fire across a demonic battle barge. After taking out the vessel's defensive turrets, I landed my beast atop the ship and charged through its lower decks, reducing the entire crew to a mere splash of red. Moments later, I burst through the hull and leaped back onto my dragon, continuing my relentless crusade against Hell's machines.

Fans of Bungie's iconic Xbox 360 shooter will recognize the resemblance to Master Chief’s assault on the Covenant’s scarab tanks. While the helicopter-like Hornet is replaced by a holographic-winged dragon, and the giant laser-firing mech by an occult flying boat, the essence of the experience remains: an aerial assault transitioning into a devastating boarding action. Surprisingly, this wasn't the only Halo-like moment in the demo. Though The Dark Ages retains the unmistakable combat core of Doom, its campaign design echoes the late-2000s shooters with elaborate cutscenes and a push for gameplay variety.

A dragon assault on Hell's battle barge. | Image credit: id Software / Bethesda

Over two and a half hours, I experienced four levels of Doom: The Dark Ages. The first level, the campaign opener, mirrored the tightly paced, meticulously designed levels of Doom (2016) and its sequel. However, the subsequent levels introduced me to piloting a colossal mech, flying the aforementioned dragon, and navigating a vast battlefield filled with secrets and powerful minibosses. This marks a significant departure from Doom's traditional focus on mechanical purity, instead drawing parallels to games like Halo, Call of Duty, and even old James Bond titles such as Nightfire, which are known for their scripted setpieces and novel mechanics.

This new direction for Doom is intriguing, especially considering the series once pivoted away from such elements. The canceled Doom 4 was set to resemble Call of Duty with its modern military aesthetic and emphasis on characters, cinematic storytelling, and scripted events. Id Software eventually scrapped these ideas in favor of the more focused Doom (2016). Yet, here we are in 2025 with The Dark Ages incorporating similar concepts.

The campaign's brisk pace is interspersed with fresh gameplay ideas that echo Call of Duty's most innovative moments. My demo began with an extensive cutscene, reintroducing the realm of Argent D'Nur, the opulent Maykrs, and the Night Sentinels – the knightly allies of the Doom Slayer. The Slayer himself is portrayed as a formidable legend, a nuclear-level threat. This cinematic approach to lore, familiar to Doom enthusiasts from previous games' codex entries, feels fresh and reminiscent of Halo. The presence of NPC Night Sentinels throughout the environment further enhances this feeling, evoking UNSC Marines, though they don't fight alongside you in the levels I experienced. It creates a sense that you're part of a larger force, much like Master Chief.

The introductory cutscene delves into character development, and it's yet to be determined whether this is necessary for Doom. I preferred the subtle storytelling of the previous games, conveyed through environmental design and codex entries, with cinematics reserved for major plot points as seen in Eternal. Despite my reservations, the cutscenes in The Dark Ages serve their purpose well: they set up missions without disrupting the game's intense flow.

However, other elements do interrupt the gameplay. Following the opening mission, which started with shotgun mayhem and ended with parrying Hell Knights using the Slayer's new shield, I found myself in the cockpit of a Pacific Rim-like Atlan mech, battling demonic kaiju. Then, I soared through the skies on a cybernetic dragon, taking down battle barges and targeting gun emplacements. These tightly scripted levels introduce significant gameplay shifts, reminiscent of Call of Duty's standout moments like the AC-130 gunship sequence in Modern Warfare or the dogfighting missions in Infinite Warfare. The Atlan mech feels slow and heavy, offering a skyscraper-high perspective that makes Hell's armies look like Warhammer miniatures. In contrast, the dragon is fast and agile, shifting to a wide-angle third-person camera that offers a vastly different experience from classic Doom.

![](/uploads/88/67eabc3c99176.webp>The mech battles are Pacific Rim-scale punch ups. | Image credit: id Software / Bethesda

Many top FPS campaigns thrive on such variety, with Half-Life 2 and Titanfall 2 setting the standard and Halo enduring thanks to its mix of vehicular and on-foot sequences. Yet, I'm uncertain if this approach will work for Doom. Like Eternal, The Dark Ages demands constant attention with its complex interplay of shots, shield tosses, parries, and brutal melee combos. In comparison, the mech and dragon sequences feel less engaging, almost like on-rails experiences with combat engagements resembling QTEs.

In Call of Duty, switching to a tank or gunship works because the mechanical complexity isn't far removed from the on-foot gameplay. But in The Dark Ages, there's a noticeable gap between the gameplay styles, akin to a novice musician playing alongside a virtuoso. Even while piloting a rocket-powered mech, I found myself longing for the ground combat with a double-barreled shotgun.

The final hour of play shifted into another unexpected mode, yet one that felt more grounded in Doom's strengths. "Siege" refocuses on id's exceptional gunplay but expands the level design into a vast, open battlefield with varying geography that offers multiple pathways and combat arenas. The objective, to destroy five Gore Portals, mirrors Call of Duty's multi-objective missions but also evokes Halo with its grand scale juxtaposed against the tighter routes of earlier levels. Here, the core shooter mechanics are given new context in larger spaces, requiring you to rethink the effective range of every weapon, employ charge attacks to cover vast distances, and use the shield to deflect artillery from oversized tank cannons.

Expanding the playspace can lead to a loss of focus – I found myself backtracking through empty pathways, which disrupts the pace. Incorporating the dragon into these levels, much like a Halo Banshee, could maintain the pace and make the dragon feel more integral to the experience. If such a level exists beyond what I've seen, it would be a welcome addition.

Despite the overall shape of the full campaign remaining to be seen, it's fascinating to witness the resurrection and reinterpretation of ideas once deemed unsuitable for the series. The canceled Doom 4 reportedly featured many scripted setpieces, including vehicle scenes, much like the Atlan and dragon sections in The Dark Ages. Marty Stratton from id Software confirmed in a 2016 Noclip interview that Doom 4 was closer to Call of Duty with its cinematic and character-driven approach. It's intriguing to see these elements return in The Dark Ages, featuring large-scale boarding action, lush cinematics, a broader cast of characters, and significant lore revelations.

The core of The Dark Ages remains its intense, gory on-foot combat. Nothing in the demo suggested that this would not be the centerpiece, and everything I played reaffirmed it as another brilliant evolution of Doom's core. While I believe this alone could carry the campaign, id Software clearly has other plans. Some of these new ideas feel mechanically thin, raising concerns that they might detract from the experience rather than enhance it. However, with much left to explore, these demo missions will only be fully contextualized in time. I eagerly await May 15th, not only to dive back into id's unparalleled gunplay but also to satisfy my curiosity. Will Doom: The Dark Ages be a compelling late-2000s FPS campaign, or will it be a disjointed one?