Our Most Wanted Games of 2025 – #3 Doom: The Dark Ages

Where to next for the Doom Slayer? Having battled against wave after wave of demonic invasion and delved through Hell to defeat even the Dark Lord himself by the end of Doom Eternal, there’s really only one place to go: back to the start. It’s time for Doom: The Dark Ages.

Update: And the time for Doom is going to be 15th May 2025.

Now, Doom: The Dark Ages might be a Bethesda game (and by that virtue a Microsoft and Xbox game), but it’s also a sign of the times within that company that it is coming to PlayStation 5 as well as Xbox Series X|S and PC. Of course, it’s also going to be day one in Game Pass as well.

We’ve just had a fresh look at the game as part of the 2025 Xbox Developer Direct stream, exploring how the game will have a more grounded, old-school tone to it after the acrobatics of Doom Eternal.

Yup, this game is a prequel to the Doom 2016 reboot and Doom Eternal, nipping back in time to the last time that the Doom Slayer was out and about for some demon bashing. You’ll go thoroughly medieval on those demons, which will include a mix of very familiar foes from the series as well as some all-new enemies.

You’ll be just as powerful as in the last couple of Doom games, but the weaponry in your hand will be just a little bit different. Now you couldn’t do without a Super Shotgun, even if you’re this far back in time, but alongside that you’ll be able to whip out a Flail to knock some heads in, or rev up a throwable chainsaw shield, like it’s some kind of Captain America – Warhammer 40,000 crossover.

Doom The Dark Ages chain shield combat

And lets add the Power Rangers into that mix as well? The Slayer will also be able to hop into the cockpit of his Atlan, a huge skyscaper-sized mech that will let you go toe-to-toe with kaiju-sized demons, and there’s also the Mecha Dragon complete with jet engines and a huge amount of weaponry for when you need to take to the skies.

I’m sure that id Software will be able to claim medieval mythology for these additions, with tales and Arthurian legends of dragon slaying and giants, but it’s given an over-the-top twist here.

Doom The Dark Ages Atlan mech

On intriguing facet will be the direction that the latest iteration of idTech will take. After making various compromises through Doom 3, Quake 4 and Rage to meet the platforms of the day, while pioneering various ingenious graphical techniques through the end of John Carmack’s tenure at the studio, 2016’s Doom was a bit of a reset with the arrival of Tiago Sousa to lead development of the renderer – he had previously worked on CryEngine. While still looking fantastic, Doom really put performance first with 60fps achieved on PS4 and Xbox One to enable the ultra-slick FPS action.

But we’re now in an era of ray tracing, an especially costly technology in terms of performance that often relies on machine learning to upscale and enhance lower resolutions and fidelity. Doom Eternal was able to feed ray-tracing effects like flashy RT reflections when upgraded with PS5 and Xbox Series X|S support, while MachineGames have just released Indiana Jones and the Great Circle with a customised version of idTech (branded Motor) that puts more focus on RT global illumination for consoles, but offers full path-tracing on PC. Which direction will Doom: The Dark Ages take? Well from the initial trailer, ray-tracing is subtle at best in what it showed, with a greater emphasis on ramping up volumetric effects and fine detail, but we’d trust id Software to strike the right balance between performance and visuals.

Not that you’ll really have a moment to take in those fine details when sprinting around and blasting enemies. We can’t wait!

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