I liked Doom: The Dark Ages when it arrived last year, but I really ought to have loved it. The first two Dooms of id’s modern trilogy are generationally great FPS campaigns with unmatched action, memorable guns, and late-game fights that will grind your teeth down to the gums. They successfully reestablished Doom around speed, hyper mobility, and improvisational gun swapping—ideas that id actively turned away from when it designed The Dark Ages around a shield.
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The Slayer’s shield was a neat multitool, allowing him to block any incoming damage, parry certain attacks, or throw it as a weapon to bisect fodder grunts. But those features came at the cost of mobility and complexity—this Doomguy could no longer jump high or dash around the battlefield, and the new solution to every enemy was to block attacks and blast it in the face with the shotgun.
Revelations, the new Dark Ages expansion that released just hours after id was decimated by layoffs, is a masterful comeback.
The expansion picks up soon after the base game: The Slayer ventures into Hell to take on the very worst it has to offer. He gets his ass kicked, then summarily punted into Purgatory. Beaten and bruised, he has to rip and tear his way out of Hell’s wastebasket, and this time he can’t hide behind a shield.
No really—a big bad guy literally rips it in half in the opening level. Yea, id is not being subtle in acknowledging the feedback to the base game. Revelations is about the Slayer reclaiming his apex status in the mortal realm, but it’s also about id reclaiming the best aspects of Doom. Enter the Chain Spear, a new appendage for the Slayer that immediately upstages the shield on all fronts by reintroducing layers of mobility back into the series.
He can plunge the spear into enemies and geometry to yank himself towards them (similar to Eternal’s meat hook), but crucially, his trajectory is controlled by camera movement. That means he can hook a guy from across an arena, aim up or left or right, and turn demons into his personal catapult. It’s simple, fun, and immediately more expressive than anything I ever accomplished with the shield.
(Image credit: id Software)
At the same time, id has added Eternal’s air dashes back into the mix, which can now trigger a “perfect dodge” that charges a meter for special spear moves. Such are your two options for dealing with enemy fire: The spear can parry green attacks and dashes can evade everything else. There is no block.
The result is a harmonious combat loop that siphons some of Eternal’s brilliance while maintaining The Dark Ages’ weighty, defensive identity. You’re still doing a lot of deflecting green energy blasts back to their senders, but you’re also flinging yourself over hordes to reach the high ground, sniping airborne wraiths with powerful spear throws, and atomizing platoons of demons with a single ground pound. The spear delivers control and options that the shield couldn’t.
(Image credit: id Software)
It’s understandable how id thought the shield would be addition through subtraction—a persistent complaint of Eternal was an overwhelming number of guns, mods, grenades, and melee attacks to juggle—but clipping the Slayers’ wings was an overcorrection.
Doom is best when the Slayer holds all the cards, and in id fashion, you can eventually swap between the spear and shield at any time in Revelations. You’re never required to use both in combat, but the shield is used for traversal puzzles that incorporate both weapons—these, too, are more involved and fun than the base game.
(Image credit: id Software)
By the time I’d reclaimed the shield and filled out the spear’s own ability tree, I did have those Eternal-like moments where the number of guns, moves, and similar-but-different melee attacks at my disposal would occasionally short-circuit my brain. I’d throw my spear when I meant to slash with it, deflect when I meant to stab, or forget for an entire level that I can ground pound. But it’s a hill I eventually climbed, and on the other side was a mastery of Revelation’s moveset. The Chain Spear became a natural extension of my reach—the hand with which I move the pieces of Hell’s armada at my whim. Every piece clicked into place, and Revelations singlehandedly justified Doom: The Dark Ages as an idea.
Do not miss the 10-12 hour Revelations expansion—out now on Steam.
