There’s a very significant through-line between the three newest Doom games (which we collectively sometimes refer to as ‘nu-Doom’). His name is Hugo Martin; a games industry veteran who was also a key player in the art department during the creation of Pacific Rim (2013).
He has been the ‘lore-master’, so to speak, behind the rebooted games; expanding upon established lore that’s been present in the series since its inception in 1993, and introducing new elements with more cinematic flair. Doom 2016 served as a reintroduction to the nigh-immortal Doom Slayer, with a lot of story beats told through more implicit means; buried in codexes and hidden in menus.
Doom Eternal did a little more to bait this lore into the foreground, giving us less obtuse cutscenes, and doing a bit more ‘showing-not-telling’ so we could follow what was going on with a bit more clarity. Now, Doom: The Dark Ages is seeking to refine that storytelling art a little more, and with two triple-A Doom games behind him, Martin feels more confident than ever in delivering on the fantasy of the Doom Slayer.
“After 10 years of making modern Doom games together, the hope – the goal – is to give players an experience that’s as fun to play as it is to make,” smiles Martin in a roundtable interview ahead of the Xbox Showcase.
The story of Doom (2016) reached its conclusion in its direct sequel, Doom Eternal. So Dark Ages – which is confusingly the third game in the series – will go back in time, and act as a prequel to the events of 2016’s Doom . Martin said frequently during the roundtable that this is the most ambitious Doom game id Software has made to date; and that’s in terms of combat depth, world size, and implementation of story.
And to tell that story, Martin looked to comics. The comics of one Frank Miller, to be precise. “The story was originally called Doom Year One!” laughs Martin when he talks about how much Miller’s tale of Batman turning from man to myth inspired him. “That’s an homage to Batman: Year One, of course. There’s this specific line that Frank Miller writes [in the arc] where Batman says ‘this isn’t a mud pit, it’s an operating table… and I’m the surgeon’. I wanted to make a [Doom Slayer] like that, a heavier, more powerful Slayer.”
Batman: Year One is so esteemed because it rewinds back to Batman’s origins – which, yes, I know have been told ad naseum – but Miller treads this ground with a deft hand. It’s violent, heavy, wearing its noir genre trappings like a cowl. It shows a Batman that hasn’t quite learned as much restraint as he would go on to internalise, and isn’t scared to show the ugly face of what brute force looks like when it’s done in the name of ‘good’.
Martin is clearly cribbing on this for Dark Ages. Here, we have a Doom Slayer that is heavier, slower, designed to take punishment and dish it back tenfold.
“Eternal and 2016 stand on their own in how they play”, explains Martin, “but this is a standalone power fantasy that’s big, powerful, and feels awesome. [In Eternal], you felt like a fighter jet. In Dark Ages, you feel like an iron tank. Doom 2016 was run and gun, Eternal was jump and shoot, Dark Ages is stand and fight – the shield saw lets you go head-to-head with the biggest, baddest demons. The iron flail, spike mace, and gauntlets let you rip them apart.
“So it’s all a balance between enemy projectiles and player movement speed, just like classic games. But innovation comes up against nostalgia, and that’s in how the guns work, in how the melee works, and in how the sawshield works.”
That last element there is the glue that seems to knit the narrative realisation of this nastier, harder, Doom Slayer with the mechanics Martin is talking about. The sawshield will be key in how you stand and take enemies on; parrying melee chains, deflecting projectiles back at them, and deploying it at the right time in order to carve a hole in the onslaught and take out your foes with brutal prejudice. I can see the Batman analogy there, I really can; it makes you apply tactics to brutality, and know when to endure and when to strike.
“[Dark Ages] is the best entry point for the series, frankly,” adds id Software’s studio director, Marty Stratton. “It’s a very approachable game; the story, the way the story is told, the way the game feels, the way we’re handling difficulty… we’ve learned a lot of lessons over the past, and they’re all injected into this.”
It’s all looking pretty good. The developers talk a lot about “moving the narrative out of the codex and into the cutscenes”. They talk about Dark Ages “being a summer blockbuster with everything on the line.” They say “the balance of power between good and evil is shifting, and how time is running out.” They’re pushing all the right verbal buttons to get me interested. Let’s just hope the final product is as iconic and persistent in the public consciousness as Miller’s Batman Year one when it launches later this year.
Doom: The Dark Ages launches on May 15, and it’ll launch on Xbox Game Pass for PC and Xbox Series – but it’ll also come to PlayStation 5.