Doom: The Dark Agesis taking the franchise in a new, yet familiar direction. A prequel to the other post-2016Doomgames,Doom: The Dark Agespromises to be a fresh take for the modern titles that emphasizes the series' classic gameplay.
Doom: The Dark Ageswill be releasedon May 13, five years after the last entry in the franchiseDoom Eternal. Promising a medieval war on Hell, with all the ancient spectacle of dragons, Atlans, and other titanic forces,The Dark Ageswill offer fans both shake-ups and throwbacks in story and gameplay. Following a hands-on preview of the upcoming title, Game Rant sat down with game directors Hugo Martin and Marty Stratton, who spoke more about what fans can expect fromDoom: The Dark Ages.This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Where Doom: The Dark Ages Fits in the Post-2016 Series
Q: Can you give an overview of what’s happening with the Doom Slayer when the game starts?
Martin:Part ofthe lore fromDoom Eternalis that, at some point, the Maykrs bless you with superhuman speed and strength. WhatDark Agesdoes is expand on that stuff, go into detail, and tell you a deeper story around that stuff.
Before the events ofThe Dark Ages, you were blessed by the Maykrs, but with that blessing came a certain amount of control. You are now tethered to their will, as we say, and there’s an actual physical tether that’s placed on the Slayer’s armor (of Maykr design—it doesn’t belong there). They use that to control the Slayer because he’s the most powerful weapon in that universe; of course, the Maykrs think it’s better if he’s under their control. I think there’s a little bit of fear on all sides because of the power that he has and that he’s an Outlander and not from that world. It’s also revealed in the opening cinematic that Novic actually agreed to allow this to happen.
If you just play the opening level, that’s all in there. In the preview build, it just says that before he was a hero, he was the super weapon of Gods and Kings, which is a super high-level way of describing what I just said. In the actual game, there’ll be a little bit more text around that as a bit more of a setup, providing just a touch more context. The story is all about control and people trying to control the Slayer.
Q: Is the goal with the narrative to lead intoDoom (2016), or are you leaving some room for additional games to fill in those gaps?
Martin:Just to set proper expectations, it doesn’t end with the beginning of 2016, and the narrative absolutely has a satisfying conclusion. This is a contained story with a beginning, a middle, and a satisfying end. It’s not some attempt to trail things on and get people to purchase more content post-launch, not at all. This is a contained and complete experience. I think that’s what fans expect, so that’s what we made for them. While there is a satisfying ending, it doesn’t lead directlyinto the 2016Doom—that doesn’t happen.
Q: Can you tease out any potential questions fans may have had fromDoomandEternalthat might be explored inThe Dark Ages?
Martin: Oh yeah. I think they want to know more. They’ve only heard about most of these characters or read about them in the lore, so Novic, Valen, his son, and other characters like that are now featuredin the narrative ofDark Ages. We also introduce a lot of new characters. The lore entries are pretty brief, so this is a chance for us to explore that world and go into much more detail. We get to explore the nuance of the relationship between the Sentinels, the Slayer, and the Maykrs in their war against the demons.
There’s conflict on all sides—the Slayer is feared by all, given how powerful he is. Players will be able to meet a lot of the characters that they’ve only been reading about for the last two games and meet a lot of new characters as well.
Stratton:They’ll do a lot of things that have been hinted at as well, outside the lore. InDoom Eternal, you see the remnants of these massive battles between giant mechs and huge Titan-class demons, the wreckage on different battlefields in hell, and throughout the world. In this game, you get to play through that by piloting the best Atlan and taking on those giant demons. There’s the dragon, the command station that Thera is on (which is a floating island castle), and the tie to what you saw as the Doom Slayer’s hub inDoom Eternal.
People who’ve been with the game for a while will see all of these kinds of things. Those things tie into things that they’ve seen, and they’ll get to do things that they’ve previously only seen in the world. Even just the locations you explored inDoom Eternal—they were empty in that game, but now you’ll see what was happening at the time. You don’t need to have any of that experience to enjoy the game, but forpeople who’ve playedDoom EternalandDoom (2016), seeing these things come to life inDoom: The Dark Ageswill be really satisfying. Even for us making it, bringing these things that got put in place in these past games to life is just super fun.
Doom: The Dark Ages' Gameplay Will Be More Classic Doom
Q: Regarding gameplay, the shield dash seems like an essential tool for combat. Can you talk about the development of that movement tool and how you iterated it and landed on the version seen in the preview?
Martin: Well, people think when we say ‘stand and fight’ and ‘grounded’ that it’s going to mean that the game is slower, which is not the case. It’s every bit as fast, if not faster.
The shield charge locks onto demons at great distances, allowing you to teleport across the arena, delivering a huge amount of AoE damage when you slam into an AI, killing several enemies at a time. It feels really strong, and you can upgrade it and make it even stronger. You can also throw the shield and kill as many demons as you can hit with it (lower-tier demons, I should say), so it is a primary tool in your kit. It’s in your left hand and up on the screen the whole time you’re dual-wielding. It’s really the Swiss Army Knife tool for the player, and it feels like web slinging in a Spider-Man game. That’s how I would best describe it.
When you lock onto a target and shield charge across the arena, you could use it to escape or to close the distance, so it has offensive and defensive capabilities. And that’s just the charge. The shield does several things with just two inputs. Most of it is contextual, so it just depends on who I throw the shield at and whether or not they have steel armor, plasma armor, no armor, etc.
The mechanics evolve as the game progresses based on how you’ve upgraded it and the materials you use, as well as whatever it is you’re throwing it at. We spent a lot of time pumping as much depth as we could into as few inputs as possible.
Combat is ‘Grounded,’ But The Skies Open Up with Dragons and Sandbox Levels
Q: Each of the latestDoomtitles has its own identity in terms of gameplay, likeEternal’s verticality and aerial movement. What do you see asDoom: The Dark Ages’ combat identity?
Martin: Grounded. InDoom Eternal, you were an F22 fighter jet; inDark Ages, you’re going to be an Abrams tank. It’s like going from a Ferrari to a monster truck—so you’re heavier and more powerful, but every bit as fast. That’s really the main shift, and you feel it when you play. That was very much inspired by the originalDoom, which is a very grounded experience. Movement is still a critical part of the game, but it’s more about weaving your way through a maze of projectiles, just like in the originalDoom, than it is flying around a jungle gym arena with multiple platforms. So most of the action in this game happens along the horizon line, the X-axis, while most of the action inDoom Eternalhappens along the Y-axis, up in the air.
We think this gives itmore of a classicDoomfeel, and honestly, it adds a bit of balance to combat. For most of the enemies you’re targeting, you could use strafe to aim like you could in the original game, and it just makes the combat less frenetic, but not in a negative way. It’s still really intense, for sure, but all that intensity is happening along right where your crosshair is, unlikeEternal, where it was happening all around you.
Stratton:I think, in a weird way, it makes you feel more powerful. I was talking to our gameplay systems director last night, and we both agreed on how, when you play the game, the design that Hugo describes makes the Slayer feel heavier than in any of our other games. You think about the Slayer as this heavy, powerful hero, but it’s really this cool thing when you play the game and you feel that weight, where the design that has made the game, from a combat perspective, feel the way it has. All of that comes back and reflects so well in the development of this Slayer as a heavy, badass hero with unbelievable power because you really feel your power in a more grounded way.
Even just the way the mechanics come together, like the shield charge and the shield throw, to have everything on that horizontal axis, on the X-axis—it’s a very consistent thing. If it were very vertical, you wouldn’t have the kind of satisfaction you have when you play and you throw the shield, or the same satisfaction when you shield bash through the world. I think it’s one of those nuanced things that people will see when they play. It’s amazing how the design and feel of the Slayer have unified as well as they have in any of our games.
Q: Is there ever a concern about making such big changes that you might lose a portion of the audience?
Martin: No, I think the key is you’ve got to understand the core ingredients of theDoomexperience. It’s really all about aggression. Every change we made was to make itmore like the originalDoom. I don’t thinkDark Agesis ‘new, but stillDoom,’ it’s ‘new, but moreDoom’—and more than probably any modernDoomgame that we’ve made, I’d say. Like ‘stand and fight,’ for example, is just built around aggression. InDoom, you always want to feel like you’re on your toes coming forward, as opposed to a lot of survival horror games or FPS games, where you might be on your heels.
The shield is as much of an offensive tool as it is a defensive tool, and with most of the mechanics we’ve given you—by giving you a shield, by introducing parrying, etc.—you’re more able to take the fight to the enemy. Where normally you might run away from a charging Baron, delivering damage as you back up, now the best thing to do is come forward and stand with him, toe to toe, which is where ‘stand and fight’ comes into play. ‘Stand and fight’ is what you do against the largest enemies in our game. It feels aggressive, which is really whatDoomis all about.
Doom: The Dark Ages Will Break Things Up With Sandbox Sequences
Q: A larger, open area in the preview offered more freedom than we typically have seen inDoom. Can we expect more of these areas inThe Dark Ages, or was that more of a one-off thing?
Martin: Every few maps, we give you what we would call a sandbox to break up the pacing. There areplenty of traditional, linearDoomlevels that are maze-like, that wind back in on themselves and unlock over time, that are loaded with secrets and are just what you’d expect from a well-crafted, single-player game. Then, every once in a while, we’ll put you in a larger sandbox experience, full of the same kinds of secrets and puzzles, pathways to unlock, and abilities to find. It’s really just about pacing and creating a varied experience. It’s a massive campaign, the largest we’ve made by far, and we wanted to make sure that we broke up the pace for the players, keeping it interesting.
Stratton:With some of those sandbox experiences, there’s a mix of some of them where you just play as the Slayer, but then there’s the kind of sandbox experience where you’re on the dragon. You get a taste of that in the Holy City map, where your freedom is flight; you may go achieve these objectives in whatever order, explore the world, take on these little demon shifts, and then land and have an on-foot experience as the Slayer before getting right back on your dragon. It’s a very dynamic experience when you’re doing those kinds of sandbox-y things, as the dragon—like Hugo says, it varies up the game’s pace.
Q: There’s also dragon gameplay, unlike anything before inDoom. How did you land on the approach of combining traversal with fixed gunplay?
Martin: We wanted to make a dragon and an Atlan in the game for a long time. We’ve hinted at it in several games (like in the DLCs, the Slayer rides a dragon in a cinematic), and we’ve been planning on it for a while. By removing multiplayer from the game and not pushing to have a live service component in our game, we were able to divert resources to the single-player campaign and put things like a dragon and an Atlan in the game, which, as Marty said, really helps with the pacing of the game.
Everything about the Slayer is speed and power, so being able to get on and off the dragon, it’s kind of like your Batwing if you’re Batman—it’s complementary. The dragon experience also has a lot of Slayer combat arenas inside of it, and it just feels great.
Stratton:The Slayer has to have guns attached to his dragon—again, power. It isn’t just about flying around and then getting off because, in combat, you’re taking out Hell carriers with the mounted Gatling guns on your dragon as well. So, a lot of that is just born out of what’s great gameplay and what fits the power fantasy of being the Slayer.
Martin:Yeah, you’re a weapon of mass destruction, you know what I mean? We truly just want to put a dragon in the game because it’s cool.
[END]
