simpleDOOM: The Dark Ages | Gameplay Sizzle | Coming May 15, 2025
More info in the 11 minute developer direct for the game: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGFuaVUI6_E
DOOM: The Dark Ages | Developer_Direct 2025 (4K) | Coming May 15, 2025
dual_sport_dork š§š”ļøThat recycled yank-the-keycard-off-the-corpse animation, thoughā¦
It doesnāt look like they learned much from Eternal. I think Iām going to give this one a miss. All Iām seeing is more mechanic overload, and a really annoying parry system thatās just going to result in about 1/3 of the monster roster being, āThe only way to deal with this guy is to wait for his green attack and parry it, then you get to hit him once. Other than that heās functionally invulnerable.ā Yeah, because the Marauders were totally the highlight of Eternal, and absolutely didnāt grind the entire game to a tedious three minute halt every time you encountered one and played its silly song-and-dance.
I will happily don my asbestos underpants and declare that I really donāt like the direction the new Doom games are taking. Whatever this is isnāt Doom; they could have just as well slapped a new original IP over top of it without any difference.
fistac0rpseTotally agree with you. I was a huge fan of Doom 2016 but couldn't get into Doom Eternal. Will reserve judgement until this is released, but I get the feeling I won't like this one either.
I couldnāt get myself to finish 2016 but I really loved Eternal. Iām on the fence about this one though. Iāll probably just wait till itās cheap down the line. No big rush.
They did learn a lot from Eternal. Mainly that people loved it and people complaining about the Marauders just need to git gud.
I already have a job, thanks.
Congratulations?
Thank you
Someday Iād like to hope our game design sensibilities evolve enough that we can stop deflecting every negative review with āgit gudā. There are absolutely things that hard games can design badly that donāt add to the overall enjoyment of the game.
Marauders were one of those things.
Except theyāre not. Most people like them and agree that they do add to the overall enjoyment of the game. Hell, I loved that part in the DLC when you fight two of them. Itās literally just a couple of people who are mad about them. So, yeah, git gud.
And hereās the thing with the Marauders, too. They were just in the wrong game.
If having to play silly distance and timing games with solitary enemies were Doomās jam ā If this were ever Doomās jam ā it would be one thing. But itās not, and it never has been. The fuckers would fit right in the Dark Souls universe and nobody would even notice. But thatās just not how the rest of the game is structured.
The telltale heart thumping under the floorboard here is that the game feels the need to literally give you a popup that pauses the action the first time you encounter one for the explicit purpose of teaching you how to work the fight. If your mechanics are so non-discoverable that this is necessary, maybe thatās a clue that a stop and rethink is in order.
Doom Eternal was actually really bad at that across the board. You will recall that almost every new mechanic was preceded by an action stopping popup and in some cases an incongruous teleportation to a tutorial room to force-feed you the correct course of action (and the only correct course of action, which is my other gripe) for that monster or situation. Very few of its mechanics beyond stick-shotgun-down-monsterās-throat-pull-trigger are organically discoverable, and even the ones that could have been arenāt because of the tutorial popups.
I guess at least you can turn them offā¦ If you know about them in advance.
I maintain it was more an issue with basing their fight around spacing, than teaching via popups. I didnāt even mind the many enemies that had unintuitive concepts like feeding them grenades. Once you attune to them, theyāre simple enough.
Even after they teach you all that about Marauders, itās not just a matter of how to shoot them, and when - but when NOT to. Plus hoping for their AI to act reliably as described.
I can beat the Marauders no problem, and I can even cheese them with the shotgun trick. That doesnāt magically make them good game design.
Nope. The fact that everyone but like 4 people loves them makes them good game design.
The fact that everyone but 4 people like Taylor Swift make her music great. The fact that all but 4 people use Tik Tok make it a great social media app. The fact that all but 4 people voted for Trump makes him a great president.
Orā¦
Maybeā¦
Doom has a history and is shifting further away from it in an attempt to capture a larger audience, like the skibidi toilet crowd that needs 24/7 overstimulation and nearly has a stroke when they need to use more than two neurons to perform an actionā¦
2016 was good enough. More of that wouldnāt alienate anyone.
Yes. Taylor Swift music is great. Donāt you think itās about time youāve grown out of your teen angst?
Oh the ironyā¦
We can agree on that.
Wooshā¦
You really think you did something, huh?
Git gud
āgit gudā is honestly never a good defense against any given criticism. Saying this as someone whoās reasonably gud
Iām not really trying to defend anything, though
Thatās right, forgive my french
Regrettable_incidentYeah, it also puts off people like me who are crap at games but still want to enjoy them. I am in my 50s and missed a couple decades of gaming. Recently got a steam deck and been trying to catch up. Recently finished bioshock! And Iām about halfway through doom 2016, enjoying it a lot. But I know Iām shit, Iām playing on little bitch difficulty and I still got stuck on a boss for two frustrating weeks.
My point is that some of their market is going to be people like me who donāt have time to put hundreds of hours into learning the mechanics but just want to have fun for an hour here or there and blow up some monsters.
Absolutely, I can relate. How well does Doom 2016 run on the steam deck ?
Iāve not played it on another platform for comparison but it seems to run great.