Doom: The Dark Ages might be the series' boldest reinvention yet

Doom: The Dark Ages promises a bold new take on the legacy of the long-running shooter. Revealed in a short but loud trailer as part of the Xbox Games Showcase, it features dragon riding, mech battles and a much darker, more “metal” visual palette. But these dark ideas are not the only new elements, nor the most significant. Because in the left hand of the Doom Slayer is a shield to protect him from demons. And in his right hand is a flail, the blunt chain weapon of the Middle Ages. Yes, Doom goes into melee.

It must have been a challenge for developer Id Software to figure out where to go next after seemingly perfecting the Doom formula with the deeply intelligent and relentlessly energetic Doom Eternal. The answer, of course, is to do what Doom has always done: reinvent itself. So while the medieval setting and melee combat of Doom: The Dark Ages was something few of us expected, it wasn't really a surprise. Of course, Doom was going to take a big step forward for the sequel.

“It’s a medieval war against Hell,” Hugo Martin, studio creative director at Id Software, told IGN Live. “You say the word medieval and you must have melee weapons.” So the Doom Slayer's chainsaw replacement is a flail and a shield, both of which seem to be integral parts of the reforged combat loop. The shield, a shield similar to Captain America's, has chainsaw teeth around its entire circumference and can be thrown through enemy hordes. The Bane, on the other hand, can strike enemies from their demonic mounts. The Doom Slayer's body joins them, since his kick is as effective a weapon as a mace. While guns are clearly still the key part of the toolset, it seems like close combat has moved from “additional” to “primary.” It's a strong new approach for the series that lives and breathes guns.

Of course, this isn't the first time Id Software has taken a bold step. In fact, the entire story of Doom is a series of energetic creative leaps. The 1993 original may have been built on the fundamentals of Wolfenstein 3D, but Doom's big breakthrough was the inclusion of network multiplayer – the very mode that coined “deathmatch” as a term video game immortal. The following year's Doom 2 was certainly more conservative, but it brought the Super Shotgun; the powerful double-barreled buckshot launcher that proved that a single weapon could reposition an entire game. The Super Shotgun is now arguably the most iconic weapon to ever exist in a video game, even though it can only fire two rounds per reload in a game that never lets go of enemies.

However, it was 2004's Doom 3 that truly proved Id Software's mettle. The vibrant reds and oranges of its formative games were replaced by darkness and shadows as the series experimented with survival horror. Although too action-packed to live comfortably alongside Silent Hill, Doom 3 was strange and occult unlike its predecessors. His most fascinating mechanical innovation was a flashlight that could only be used while your gun was holstered, forcing you to choose between seeing what horrors lurked in the pitch darkness and being able to blow their heads off. The system gave Doom 3 a distinct tone and unique pace, forcing you to be slower, more methodical, and more scared. It was a controversial mechanic, one that would be quickly removed by modders and officially eliminated in a re-release in 2012. But it was also emblematic of what I thought Doom could be.

For the next regeneration of Doom, whose development began in the late 2000s, the studio naturally turned to Call of Duty. The FPS giant's film campaigns proved attractive models, but as production progressed, the Doom 4 team recognized that none of these ideas worked for either their series or themselves. It was bold, true, but not the right taste of bold. And so a back-to-the-drawing-board approach ultimately resulted in 2016's critically acclaimed Doom. Its name said it all: it was the definitive version of what Id Software had achieved years ago. all these years. But that certainly doesn't mean he was conservative or nostalgic; it was a shooter with a huge emphasis on pace and speed, combining gameplay and music in a way that '90s developers could never have dreamed of. The result was practically a heavy metal album with frenetic, fluid combat. Before Titanfall 2 arrived, Doom made it clear that movement was the fabric of the next generation of shooters.

If Doom's main trait was his speed, then his quietly revolutionary trait was how he dealt with health. The scrapped Doom 4 prototype had stolen Call of Duty's regenerating hit points, a system that required you to take cover to repair yourself. Doom 2016 rejected this idea entirely; if you wanted to heal, you had to kill in return. This philosophy gave rise to Glory Kill executions, which tore enemies apart like pinatas to reveal the health kits inside. And in Id Software's most recent experiment, 2020's Doom Eternal, that simple idea became the core.

“Ballistic Resource Manager” might not be the sexiest thing to call your hyperkinetic FPS, but that's exactly what Doom Eternal is, not so secretly. Forget financial economics, it's bullet economics: you kill to harvest what you need to kill even more. This results in a chain of rapid-fire kills where each kill is a decision: you must not only select the right weapon for the enemy you're facing, but also eviscerate that enemy in such a way as to produce the required items. Need armor? So inflame your enemy. Need bullets? Chew them with a chainsaw. Need health? Rip and tear with your fists.

With this approach, Id Software has rethought all the fundamentals of not only Doom, but the arcade shooter as a whole. For a series and genre historically considered “insane,” Eternal appeals to intelligence. It rejects your wish to just relax and blast away, forcing you to the edge of your seat with its demands for speed, precision, and anticipation. It's a design encapsulated by Eternal's most polarizing foe: the Marauder, a beast that is surely the progenitor of what comes next in Doom: The Dark Ages.

The one aspect that surprised me the most in the new trailer was seeing the Doom Slayer parry a Hell Knight. I was immediately reminded of how battles with the Marauder required far more precision and timing than a classic Doom shootout, with split-second dodges and perfect reactions to his telegraphic eye flash needed to defeat him. This unusual change in tempo meant that many didn't like the way the Marauder interrupted their flow, but I enjoyed its challenge. Doom: Dark Ages' use of a parry suggests that it has found a way to reinvent the fundamentals of the Marauder, using these split-second reactions to turn the tables on enemies.

What we don't see in the trailer are any Glory Kills. And the combat itself feels much more dynamic, rather than the enemy-on-all-sides battle arenas of the previous two games. So it seems like The Dark Ages could be an even more significant departure from what was intended in Doom and Doom Eternal, beyond just the melee factor. We'll have to wait to see exactly what all the components of this new, darker iteration of the series are, but whatever they are, I'm glad it's more of the same; more of Doom's insatiable appetite to reinvent himself every time.

Matt Purslow is IGN's senior features editor.