Doom Enters Its Halo Era with Dark Ages

During a recent hands-on demo of Doom: The Dark Ages, I was unexpectedly reminded of Halo 3. Mounted on the back of a cyborg dragon, I unleashed a barrage of machine gun fire against a demonic battle barge. After taking down its defensive turrets, I landed on the ship and stormed through its lower decks, reducing the entire crew to a bloody mess. Moments later, I burst through the hull, leaping back onto my dragon to continue my relentless assault on Hell's machines.

Fans of Bungie's iconic Xbox 360 shooter will recognize the similarity to Master Chief's attack on the Covenant's scarab tanks. While the helicopter-like Hornet is replaced by a holographic-winged dragon and the giant laser-firing mech by an occult flying boat, the essence of the experience remains: an aerial assault that transitions into a thrilling boarding action. This wasn't the only Halo-like moment in the demo. Despite the combat core of The Dark Ages being unmistakably Doom, the campaign design seems to embrace a "late-2000s shooter" style with its elaborate cutscenes and focus on gameplay novelty.

A dragon assault on Hell's battle barge. | Image credit: id Software / Bethesda

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 tightly paced, meticulously designed levels of Doom (2016) and its sequel. However, the subsequent levels introduced me to piloting a colossal mech, flying the dragon, and navigating a vast battlefield filled with secrets and powerful minibosses. This departure from Doom's traditional focus on mechanical purity felt more akin to the likes of Halo, Call of Duty, and even old James Bond games like Nightfire, which are known for their scripted setpieces and novelty mechanics.

This shift is intriguing, especially considering the series' past rejection of similar elements. The cancelled Doom 4 was originally planned to resemble Call of Duty, with a modern military aesthetic, greater emphasis on characters, cinematic storytelling, and scripted events. Id Software ultimately deemed these elements unsuitable for the series, leading to their abandonment in favor of the more focused Doom (2016). Yet, here we are in 2025, with The Dark Ages incorporating those very ideas.

The campaign's fast pace is interspersed with new gameplay concepts reminiscent of Call of Duty's standout novelties. My demo began with a lengthy, cinematic cutscene that (re)introduced the realm of Argent D'Nur, the opulent Maykrs, and the Night Sentinels—the Doom Slayer's knightly comrades. The Slayer is portrayed as a terrifying legend, a nuclear-level threat. While this lore is familiar to Doom enthusiasts, its deeply cinematic presentation feels fresh and reminiscent of Halo. This extends into the levels, where NPC Night Sentinels are scattered throughout the environment, similar to UNSC Marines, enhancing the sense of being part of a larger army, much like Master Chief.

The introductory cutscene introduces significant character development, and it remains to be seen whether Doom truly needs this. Personally, I preferred the subtle storytelling of the previous games through environmental design and codex entries, with cinematics reserved for major reveals, as in Eternal. However, the cutscenes in The Dark Ages serve their purpose well: they set up the mission without disrupting Doom's signature intense flow.

There are other interruptions, though. Following the opening mission, which transitioned from pure shotgun slaughter to parrying Hell Knights with the Slayer's new shield, I found myself piloting a Pacific Rim-inspired Atlan mech, battling demonic kaiju. Then, I was soaring on the cybernetic dragon, taking down battle barges and targeting gun emplacements. These scripted levels introduce significant gameplay shifts, reminiscent of Call of Duty's notable sequences like Modern Warfare's AC-130 gunship mission or Infinite Warfare's dogfighting. The Atlan mech feels slow and heavy, with Hell's armies resembling Warhammer miniatures from the skyscraper-high perspective. Conversely, the dragon is fast and agile, with the third-person camera offering a distinct experience far removed from classic Doom.

![](/uploads/88/67eabc3c99176.webp>The mech battles are Pacific Rim-scale punch ups. | Image credit: id Software / Bethesda

Many acclaimed FPS campaigns thrive on such variety, with Half-Life 2 and Titanfall 2 setting the standard and Halo enduring due to its mix of vehicular and on-foot sequences. However, I'm uncertain whether this approach will work for Doom. Like Eternal, The Dark Ages remains a complex shooter requiring constant attention to weave together shots, shield tosses, parries, and brutal melee combos. In contrast, the mech and dragon sequences feel less engaging, almost like on-rails QTEs.

In Call of Duty, switching to a tank or gunship works because the mechanical complexity is not vastly different from the on-foot missions. However, The Dark Ages presents a stark contrast between gameplay styles, akin to a middle school guitarist playing alongside Eddie Van Halen. While Doom's core combat will always be the star, I shouldn't be wishing to return to the ground and my double-barrelled shotgun while piloting a rocket-powered mech.

The final hour of my demo saw The Dark Ages take on another unusual form, yet one built on a more solid foundation. "Siege" returns the focus to id's exceptional gunplay but expands Doom's typically claustrophobic level design into a vast open battlefield. The objective—to destroy five Gore Portals—echoes Call of Duty's multi-objective missions, but the grand scale of the map compared to the tighter routes of the opening level reminded me of Halo's contrasting interior and exterior environments. Here, the core shooter mechanics are given new context in larger spaces, requiring you to rethink the effective range of every weapon, use your charge attack to cover vast distances, and employ the shield to deflect artillery from oversized tank cannons.

Expanding Doom's playspace can lead to a loss of focus, with backtracking and looping through empty pathways disrupting the pace. I would have liked to see The Dark Ages incorporate the dragon more, similar to Halo's Banshee, allowing for quick traversal and aerial combat to maintain momentum and integrate the dragon more seamlessly into the experience.

Despite the overall structure of the full campaign remaining to be seen, I am intrigued by the revival and reinterpretation of ideas once deemed unsuitable for the series. The cancelled Doom 4 reportedly featured many scripted setpieces, including an "obligatory vehicle scene," which we see echoed in the Atlan and dragon sections of The Dark Ages. Marty Stratton from id Software confirmed in a 2016 Noclip interview that Doom 4 was closer to Call of Duty, with a focus on cinematic storytelling and a larger cast of characters—elements that were ultimately scrapped. Their reappearance in The Dark Ages is fascinating, as the campaign promises 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, which continues to be the star of the show. Everything I played confirmed that this aspect is another fantastic reinvention of Doom's core. While this alone could carry the entire campaign, id Software is clearly exploring other avenues. Some of these new ideas feel mechanically slim, raising concerns that they might detract rather than enhance the experience. However, with much more to see, these demo missions will only be fully contextualized in time. I eagerly await May 15th, not just to dive back into id's unparalleled gunplay, but to satisfy my curiosity: Will Doom: The Dark Ages be a well-rounded late-2000s FPS campaign or a disjointed one?