In a surprising twist, the recent hands-on demo of *Doom: The Dark Ages* evoked memories of *Halo 3* for me. Halfway through the session with id Software's gothic prequel, I found myself astride a cyborg dragon, unleashing a barrage of machine gun fire upon a demonic battle barge. After taking out the vessel's defensive turrets, I landed my beast on the ship and stormed through its lower decks, reducing the crew to a mere puddle of red. Moments later, the warmachine was obliterated, and I burst through its hull, leaping back onto my dragon to continue my relentless assault on the machines of Hell.
Fans of Bungie's iconic Xbox 360 shooter will immediately recognize the similarity to Master Chief's assault on the Covenant's scarab tanks. While *Doom: The Dark Ages* swaps the helicopter-like Hornet for a holographic-winged dragon and the giant laser-firing mech for an occult flying boat, the essence of the experience remains—a thrilling aerial assault followed by a devastating boarding action. Interestingly, this wasn't the only moment during the demo that echoed *Halo*. While the combat core of *The Dark Ages* is unmistakably *Doom*, the campaign's design bears a distinct "late-2000s shooter" vibe, complete with elaborate cutscenes and a focus on gameplay novelty.
Over the course of two and a half hours, I played through four levels of *Doom: The Dark Ages*. The first level, the campaign's opener, mirrored the tight pacing and meticulously designed maps of *Doom (2016)* and its sequel. However, the subsequent levels introduced a colossal mech to pilot, a dragon to fly, and expansive battlefields dotted with secrets and formidable minibosses. This represents a significant departure from *Doom*'s traditional focus on mechanical purity, instead resembling the likes of *Halo*, *Call of Duty*, and even old James Bond games like *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 cancelled *Doom 4* was set to resemble *Call of Duty* not only in its modern military aesthetic but also with a heavier focus on characters, cinematic storytelling, and scripted events. After years of development, id Software decided these ideas didn't suit the series and scrapped them in favor of the more focused *Doom (2016)*. Yet, here we are in 2025, with *The Dark Ages* bringing these elements back into the fold.
The campaign's brisk pace is punctuated by new gameplay ideas that draw parallels to *Call of Duty*'s most notable novelties. My demo began with a lengthy and detailed cutscene that (re)introduced the realm of Argent D'Nur, the opulent Maykrs, and the Night Sentinels—the knightly brothers-in-arms of the Doom Slayer. The Slayer is portrayed as a terrifying legend, a nuclear-level threat on two legs. While this lore will be familiar to *Doom* enthusiasts who have delved into the prior games' codex entries, the cinematic approach feels fresh and reminiscent of *Halo*. This theme extends into the levels, where NPC Night Sentinels are scattered throughout the environment, much like UNSC Marines. Though they don't fight alongside you in the levels I played, there's a stronger sense of being part of an army—similar to Master Chief leading the charge.
The introductory cutscene features a lot of character work, and it remains to be seen whether this is necessary for *Doom*. I'm a fan of the more understated storytelling in the previous games, and I would prefer if *The Dark Ages* continued to tell the Slayer's story through environmental design and codex entries, reserving cinematics for major reveals, as seen in *Eternal*. However, the cutscenes in *The Dark Ages* know their place—they set up missions and then disappear, ensuring they don't disrupt the game's signature intense flow.
Yet, there are other interruptions. After the opening mission, which starts with pure shotgun action and ends with you parrying Hell Knights using the Slayer's new shield, I found myself in the cockpit of a Pacific Rim-inspired Atlan mech, wrestling demonic kaiju. Then, I was soaring on a cybernetic dragon, attacking battle barges and targeting gun emplacements. These highly scripted levels introduce significant shifts in gameplay, reminiscent of *Call of Duty*'s standout sequences, like *Modern Warfare*'s AC-130 gunship mission or *Infinite Warfare*'s dogfighting sections. The Atlan feels slow and heavy, making Hell's armies resemble Warhammer miniatures from the skyscraper-high perspective. The dragon, on the other hand, is fast and agile, providing a very different experience with its wide-angle third-person camera view.
Many of the best FPS campaigns thrive on this kind of variety, with *Half-Life 2* and *Titanfall 2* setting the standard. *Halo* has endured thanks to its mix of vehicular and on-foot sequences, adding rich texture to the experience. However, I'm unsure if this approach will work for *Doom*. Like *Eternal*, *The Dark Ages* is a wonderfully complex shooter that demands your full attention every second as you weave together shots, shield tosses, parries, and brutal melee combos. In contrast, the mech and dragon sequences feel somewhat simplistic and almost on-rails, with combat engagements so tightly controlled they resemble QTEs.
In *Call of Duty*, switching to a tank or firing from a circling gunship works because the mechanical complexity of these sequences isn't far removed from the on-foot missions. However, in *The Dark Ages*, there's a noticeable gap between gameplay styles, akin to a middle school guitar student trying to play alongside Eddie Van Halen. While *Doom*'s core combat remains the star, when I'm battling a giant demon with a rocket-powered mech punch, I shouldn't be longing for the simplicity of a double-barreled shotgun.
My final hour of play introduced another shift, but one built on a more solid foundation. "Siege" is a level that refocuses on id's best-in-class gunplay but opens up *Doom*'s typically claustrophobic level design into a vast battlefield. Its geography shifts between narrow and wide, offering numerous pathways and combat arenas. The objective, to destroy five Gore Portals, echoes *Call of Duty*'s multi-objective missions, but it also reminded me of *Halo*—the grand scale of this map compared to the tighter routes of the opening level evokes the contrast between *Halo*'s interior and exterior environments. Here, the excellent core shooter systems are given new context in much 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.
The downside of expanding *Doom*'s playspace is the potential for things to become unfocused—I found myself backtracking and looping through empty pathways, which disrupts the pace. I would have loved to see *The Dark Ages* incorporate the dragon more akin to *Halo*'s Banshee, allowing players to fly across the battlefield, rain down fire, and divebomb into miniboss battles, helping maintain the pace and integrate the dragon more seamlessly into the experience. If such a level exists beyond what I've seen, I'll be thrilled.
Despite these concerns, I'm fascinated by the resurrection and reinterpretation of ideas once deemed unsuitable for the series. Little of the cancelled *Doom 4* was made public, but a 2013 Kotaku report described it as having many scripted set pieces, including an obligatory vehicle scene—exactly what we see in the Atlan and dragon sections of *The Dark Ages*. These sequences hark back to the novelty vehicle levels of Xbox 360-era shooters. In a 2016 interview with Noclip, id Software's Marty Stratton confirmed that *Doom 4* was "much closer to something like [Call of Duty]. A lot more cinematic, a lot more story to it. A lot more characters around you that you are with throughout the course of the gameplay." All of this was scrapped, yet it's fascinating to see so much of it return in *The Dark Ages*, with its big boarding action setpieces, lushly rendered cinematics, a broader cast of characters, and significant lore reveals.
The core of *The Dark Ages* remains its on-foot, gun-in-hand combat. Nothing in the demo suggested this won't be the central focus, and everything I played confirms it's another fantastic reinvention of *Doom*'s core. I believe this alone could support an entire campaign, but id Software has other plans. Some of the studio's new ideas feel mechanically thin, and I worry they might feel more like contaminants than fresh air. However, there's still much more to explore, and only time will tell how these demo missions fit into the broader context. I eagerly await May 15th, not just to return to id's unparalleled gunplay, but to satisfy my curiosity. Is *Doom: The Dark Ages* a well-crafted late-2000s FPS campaign or a disjointed one?
