Doom: The Dark Ages: idTech 8 dazzles with graphics and physics 🔥
Doom: The Dark Ages launched in May, but last week I had the chance to play it for several hours on a high-end PC. 🔥 What I can share is limited, but the latest modern Doom installment and its idTech 8 foundation already look impressive 😮. There's a lot to praise here, as well as some aspects worth noting. 🎮✨
First, the engine. Machine Games' Indiana Jones demonstrated just how capable modern versions of idTech have become, and The Dark Ages shares the same extremely realistic visuals—albeit in a completely different setting. Everything feels alive, with an impressive amount of secondary animations: waving trees and flags, falling rain, and storm clouds.
While I didn’t get a chance to check out the game at max settings—or in its upcoming ray-tracing mode—the game was running with standard RT enabled, including both RT reflections (like in Doom Eternal) and RTGI (like in Indiana Jones). This looks great, with aquatic levels displaying RT reflections complete with atmospheres overlaid using SSR. There are plenty of reflective surfaces despite the transition to more naturalistic environments, but it’s precisely that shift in tone that allows the RTGI to shine. This allows for much more accurate and dramatic lighting across a vast space, which is almost entirely lit by natural sources like flames and the sun.
It works very well, just like in Indiana Jones, but here there's a much greater focus on dynamic, physics-driven destructible objects. By removing the baked-in lighting, these objects blend much more naturally into the environment, allowing for a Crysis-style destruction that wasn't present in the previous two games.
Wooden structures can be destroyed until they collapse under their own weight, leaving behind remains that you can hit to break into smaller pieces 🪵💥. This makes the game arenas sit much more alive and active, with elements changing and structures crumbling as you face enemies.
Later sequences featuring a massive Doom mech take this experience to the next level, as you can smash and destroy a massive urban environment – super cool! 🤖🔥.
There are also more realistic water effects, like proper geometric ripples when you run through a body of water that perfectly complement the RT reflections. Plus, there's an interesting effect when you swim below the surface, which I really liked 😊.
In addition, there seems to be a virtualized geometry system Similar to Unreal's Nanite, though I can't confirm this yet. In short, you won't see large chunks of the scene changing in terms of visual complexity as you move around the world, with more fluid changes that avoid perceptible pop-in. That said, this doesn't seem to work with grass and certain types of foliage, but it's still an interesting development—and we hope to have more details in the final game.
Aside from the level geometry itself, the number of enemies on screen has increased dramatically – to levels not seen since the original sprite-based Doom games. Right at the start of a mission, for example, I counted over 30 enemies on screen, with more appearing as you fight. 😱🔥 It's incredible to consider that idTech 8 can handle dozens of enemies thus, while offering a world with virtualized geometry, full RT lighting, and robust physics simulation, all while targeting 60fps 🎮⚡.
I haven't played the game on consoles, but given id's previous work, I have every confidence they'll nail it at 60 fps. The point is, The Dark Ages combines cutting-edge technology with very high performance. Just how high it will be remains to be seen, but this demo suggests we're in for a real treat. 👾✨
Beyond the technology and visuals, it's worth noting how different the gameplay is compared to Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal. 🔥 In this final game, as you progress, battles can become quite lengthy, often trapping you in a single space while enemies swarm you relentlessly, until you reach a certain level of destruction that allows you to continue. 💥
You spend a lot of time keeping an eye on the cooldown meters of various power-ups, and you need to make the most of the system of glory kills and the chainsaw to keep your health and ammo maxed out. 🩸🔫 This means you see these animations repeatedly, losing some control during those moments.
I love the movement and flow of the game, but there are some pacing issues that really stand out. ⚡️
In Doom: The Dark Ages, this has completely changed. 🔥 Smaller enemies go down much faster, sometimes in just one or two shots, though they're still real threats that can drain your health. ⚔️ You can also take out multiple opponents at once, for example, with the shield that can crash into a crowd and explode 💥.
The glory kills have almost disappeared on normal enemies, with similar prompts that may appear but without taking control of the game away from you. 🎮 Only rarely will you get the full experience of a glory kill, and it's usually reserved for big bosses — so much so that I don't even think the term is used. 👹
Plus, you don't need to use the chainsaw to recover ammo from enemies. ⛽🚫
As a result of these changes, battles flow more smoothly ⚔️. You'll have to change your strategy against different types of enemies 🧟♂️, but you don't lose control like you did in Doom Eternal. In fact, it feels like a marriage of classic Doom combat with modern combat, which really impressed me 😲.
Similarly, the abilities available on cooldown feel more optional, though still fun to use 🎮, and the game feels more freeform. There are fewer moments where you're trapped in a room 🚪, and you can run past some enemies 🏃♂️ – though they can follow you or just hang around to annoy you the next time you enter a given area. One thing that doesn't really return is aerial movement and platforming, which are minimized here 🚫.
The shield mechanics are also very interesting. You can hit enemies, throw your shield in combat, or to solve puzzles, and there's also a block and parry system that doesn't feel mandatory but is fun to use. Some parts remind me of Returnal, with enemies shooting particles that you can return, but it's not a scripted animation, and you retain control.
The options menu is also incredible, with settings to tweak gameplay exactly how you like it. You can modify things like game speed, enemy aggression, particle speed, and much more. I played most of the demo at 150 percent speed, and it was a lot of fun 😄.
The game also changes quite a bit from level to level. 🎮 The opening stage, which I couldn't capture, had a loop of classic Doom game – all about finding keycards to unlock new areas – and it still works well. 🔑 There are also levels with mechs, where you smash city buildings 🏙️ and fight giant demons. 😈 I don't know how often they'll appear in the game, but I quite enjoyed the sequences. 🚀
There are also dragon missions 🐉, where you can fly freely in 3D space, locking onto and destroying enemies, or land to fight on foot for a while. It reminded me of the vehicle missions in Halo or Titanfall 2. 🚁
There's also a large open map. 🌍 The marketing materials deliberately don't say "open world," and that feels reasonable – it's a larger level with objectives, additional encounters, collectibles 📦 and even new weapons scattered throughout the area for the player to find. 🔫
I still have a lot of questions about how the game will play out. There seems to be more of a focus on the story here, with cutscenes at the beginning and end of the missions I played. This isn't The Last of Us by any stretch of the imagination, and everything is action-oriented, but what I played is very promising.
I have some minor criticisms about certain elements of the game while playing. For example, due to the focus on shield mechanics, there is no option to have a weapon centered on the classic Doom styleThere's also no real focus, which is what I prefer. The soundtrack also doesn't seem to reach the same intensity as Doom and Doom Eternal, with individual tracks that are quite good and don't seem to have much impact while you're playing.
Another minor complaint is the intensity of the power-up colors, which obviously need to be easy to locate for gameplay reasons, but could perhaps be optionally lowered to better blend with the environment. The entire screen remaining red as your health drops below a certain level is also annoying. Fortunately, the HUD has a neat touch: a sort of simulation of the original Doom Guy, complete with low-frame animation.
Finally, this is a strange complaint, but the game loads so fast on PC that loading screens seem a bit unnecessary – even faster than Doom (2016), which is crazy. So having an option to disable loading screens altogether and fade to black might make sense instead of requiring a key press after a second or two.
In conclusion, Doom: The Dark Ages represents a significant evolution for the saga ⚔️, combining the power of the engine idTech 8 With significant improvements in graphics 🎮, physics, and gameplay. Its spectacular ray-traced lighting 🌟, dynamic environment destruction 🏰, and fluid combat deliver a refreshing visual and tactical experience that balances classic and modern.
While there are still a few details to be polished 🛠️ and some design decisions may not be to everyone's taste, the title shows great potential to be the most notable of the franchise's recent releases 🚀. It'll undoubtedly be exciting to see how this dark chapter unfolds when it officially launches in May 📅.
