The modern Doom games have been a master class in reviving a beloved retro gaming series. Both 2016’s Doom and 2020’s Doom Eternal paid homage to both the look and feel of the original Doom titles without being slavishly devoted to older gameplay conventions that can feel dated decades later.
Yet by the end of Doom Eternal, you could feel the modernized gameplay system threatening to burst at the seams a bit. Managing your limited ammo, health, and armor resources in Eternal meant expertly juggling a bewildering array of chainsaws, flamethrowers, grenades, and melee-based staggers into powerful, pre-animated “glory kills.” That was all on top of the frequent weapon-switching needed to take advantage of the weaknesses of the varied enemies surrounding you and the double-jump-and-dash movement system that required expert use of all three dimensions.
Something had to give. So for Doom: The Dark Ages, the team at id Software has committed to a more streamlined, back-to-basics system that limits complexity while maintaining the same overall difficulty level. That means a “fewer strings on the guitar” approach to controls that narrows almost every action down to just three context-sensitive buttons, as the developers discussed in a hands-off virtual preview session attended by Ars Technica.