Believe it or not, Doom: The Dark Ages returns to the series’ PC roots

digitaltrends.com:

Revealed during today’s Xbox Developer Direct,Doom: The Dark Ages will release on May 15. Developer Id Software shared an extended new look at the upcoming shooter during the showcase and Digital Trends learned additional details on what the studio describes as a return to form that takes cues from the original Doom.

Doom: The Dark Ages was first revealed during the Xbox Games Summer Showcase in 2024. It’s a prequel to 2016’s Doom reboot that reimagines the shooter as a medieval fantasy. We haven’t seen much of it since then, but Id just unleashed a more comprehensive look at the project, detailing its design philosophy, new weapons, and more.

Rather than iterating on Doom Eternal‘s mobility-heavy gameplay, The Dark Ages is focused on raw power. Id says that it took inspiration from 1993’s Doom this time, with a more grounded approach to combat. The Developer Direct presentations notes, for instance, that players will find that strafe dodging enemy projectiles is more viable this time. In a Q&A session ahead of today’s reveal, Director Hugo Martin explained how The Dark Ages connects to the original Doom.

“I think I spent more time playing classic Doom on this project than I did in any other one,” Martin says in response to a question from Noclip. “There was a real deep dive. There is at the beginning of every project, but just realizing that the original Doom and why it’s stood the test of time is that it’s really one of the most accessible shooters, first-person single-player campaigns, ever made … When it comes to combat, it’s incredibly streamlined and that’s why it’s still fun to the day. The first thing I say is that it’s a more powerful and grounded over the acrobatics of Doom Eternal, and that’s what that means. When I say that when you’ll see when you play it that it’s really a return to form, that’s what I’m saying. It feels more like classic Doom than