ADEPTUS CRITICUS GAME REVIEWS

Developer: ID Software.

Publisher: Bethesda.

Purchased the collector’s edition.

Platforms available on: PC, Xbox, PS5

Played on PC.

It is no secret to the people that know me on a personal level that Doom is my all-time favourite franchise. I absolutely love it the endless hours of fun from the original Doom games and of course all the fan creations for those games as well. Doom Eternal for me is one of the best FPS games ever made but will Doom the Dark Ages match it or better it lets find out.

The gameplay for this Doom is not the gameplay you love in Doom Eternal it is closer to Doom 2016, and Doom 3, Doom 3 gave us a slower paced game focused more on horror and narrative through some NPCs at the beginning and data slates. Doom The Dark Ages has done away with the data slates and now tells the story through cutscenes which is something I really enjoyed. The gameplay is slower than Doom Eternal but then this should come as no surprise as the developers have said on numerous occasions that they want you to feel like a tank and believe me you certainly do feel like a tank.

We also get to use a mech which is fun to use but the attacks are very limited you have a mele attack which you need to chain together to charge up a finishing attack and you will be given a weapon as you progress through the map which does feel decent especially when you see chunks of flesh being ripped off the demons.

The weapons are great to use as expected in a Doom game and of course they can be upgraded along with the shield and the gauntlet by finding Gold, ruby and wraithstone throughout the maps.  The weapons are the flail which has a cool down limit, Shield Saw, Combat Shotgun, Super Shotgun, Shredder, Accelerator, Pulverizer, Impaler, Cycler, Chainshot, Grenade Launcher, Rocket Launcher, Ravager, Ballistic Force Crossbow (BFC) all of which are satisfying to use especially that Super Shotgun.

Doom The Dark Ages boats 22 chapters taking around 12 hours to 20 hours to complete. Something that I commend ID software for is having no multiplayer and concentrating on bringing us an excellent single player experience as to be honest I wasn’t much of a fan of the multiplayer in Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal, the maps are larger with more enemies on screen than in previous Doom games. There variety of levels is brilliant starting with the Village of Khalim a mining settlement under the assault of hells demons at night, to Hebeth fighting your way through a mega complex to reach the mech to then go onto fighting through the Barracks to be able to reach The Holy City of Aratum where we get our first taste of dragon flying and combat. To then reaching the first real large area to explore in Siege Part 1 a city under attack from the hordes of Hell the action and the share amount of enemies on screen with air battles going on around you really get the heart rate up, this is the theme through out the game.

The sound track I really enjoy as well I like my metal music to be heavy and I mean heavy and this does not disappoint on the music front. The weapons sounds great with the impacts sounding extremely meaty especially with the flail and Chainshot connecting.

Performance wise I have not had an issue with the game I have run this on my gaming laptop that is a I9-13900H, 2600Mhz 14 cores 16gb ram, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 on high settings.

And on my desktop – Ultra 9 285k processor, 64gb Ram, Nvidia RTX 5090 32gb on Ultra Nightmare settings.

Value for money, now like I stated earlier in the review I paid £200 as I wanted the collectibles and after all it is my favourite franchise, for me personally The Dark Ages is worth the asking price as I will play this game through multiple times through all the difficulty settings trying to get all the achievements.

In conclusion Doom the Dark Ages is a must play for the die hard fans of the franchise and if you have not played a Doom game before this is also a great entry point. I have waited a long time for this game to release, and it did not disappoint as for whether it is on a par with Doom Eternal I would say yes, it is. I am really looking forward to seeing what the team at ID Software do next with this wonderful franchise.

As always this is just my opinion on the game I fully suggest you try the game out for yourself especially if you have gamepass, or check out gameplay footage to help you make up your mind on whether you want to give Doom The Dark Ages a chance.