2025 has been a packed year so far, but it isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. Next up on the conveyer belt is DOOM: The Dark Ages, which is promising a slower, more methodical, but no less brutal and bone-busting first-person shooter experience with its medieval sci-fi setting and the promise of a grand new prequel tale. id Software’s highly anticipated FPS is releasing not long from now, and as we count the days down to its launch, here, we’re going to go over a few key details that you should know about it.
22 LEVELS
Let’s start with one of the more recently revealed pieces of info revealed for the game- and a pretty crucial one, at that. id Software has confirmed that DOOM: The Dark Ages is going to have a total of 22 levels, many of which, as previously confirmed, will be expansive, open levels that will encourage exploration and offer up plenty of optional content. In comparison, DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal both had 13 missions apiece, so we’re definitely in for quite a massive game, particularly by DOOM standards.
COSMIC REALM
One of the multiple worlds that the Doom Slayer will rip and tear his way through in The Dark Ages is the Cosmic Realm, an entirely new world that game director Hugo Martin says id Software has wanted to add to the DOOM universe for a while. Described as a Lovecraftian world, the Cosmic Realm has allied itself with the forces of Hell, and will offer up “cyclopean architecture,” as Martin puts it, and plenty of twisted enemies- including a gargantuan Cthulhu-like foe.
COSMIC BARON
Speaking of the Cosmic Realm’s twisted enemies, another that the Slayer will lock horns with is referred to as the Cosmic Baron. id Software describes him as a “twin-bladed brute” who can unleash psionic attacks from range, attack with relentless pressure up close, and more. The Cosmic Baron will also be joined by other dangerous new foes, such as the Cacodemon, a cross between Hell and the Cosmic Realm and designed from scratch for The Dark Ages.
AGADON HUNTER
The Marauder was many people’s worst nightmare in DOOM Eternal, and The Dark Ages is going to have its own version, in a sense. Speaking to PC Gamer, game director Hugo Martin spoke about the Agadon Hunter, calling him the upcoming shooter’s very own Marauder equivalent. Martin said, “He’s not based on the Marauder. He’s not like, ‘Big Marauder,’ it’s Dark Ages, so it’s very different. But he’s similar in that a lot of the bosses they’ll challenge you in different ways. It’s all about pushing: parry, dodging and weaving between projectiles.
“We take everything that you’ve been doing in the game up to that point. It’s like it’s exam time, everything else is a quiz. When you get to the boss, it’s the final exam.”
NEW TOOLS TO MASTER
In addition to a roster of new enemies, DOOM: The Dark Ages will also tout plenty of new weapons for players to use. In fact, many of the returning weapons from previous games are also going to feel almost entirely different, according to Martin. Speaking to PC Gamer, Martin said, “I think only the shotguns are the same. The plasma is so different, so the rest are brand new. That was by design, really making sure that we were giving you new tools to master.
“You got to have your classics, it’s a Doom game. You got to have a plasma rifle. You got to have the shotguns. But then what else can we make? So we started every gun from scratch.”
REAVER CHAINSHOT
One particular new weapon that players will get their hands on in the aforementioned Cosmic Realm is the Reaver Chainshot, described as a “a brutal ballistic iron mace of death.” Lightly pressing the trigger quickly fires light attacks, while holding it down will charge the weapon’s so-called Chaos Sphere, which will send a chained iron mace shooting out as a deadly long-range attack. According to Hugo Martin, the Reaver Chainshot “brings Doom: The Dark Ages’ fantastic melee combat to a whole new merciless level of bone-breaking destruction.”
GORE SYSTEM
DOOM does gore and violence better than almost any other game out there, and sure enough, id Software is looking to continue kicking things up a notch in that department with The Dark Ages. Game director Hugo Martin calls the prequel’s iteration of the widely beloved DOOM gore system the best there is in the industry, and says weapons like the new Skullcrusher will proudly display it in the best possible light. Speaking to PC Gamer, he said, “At this point, it’s destructible demons version three, from 2016 to Eternal to now. We’ve got, I’d like to think, the best gore in the industry. Our gore system is really where we spend a lot of money. So that, coupled with the falters, the incredible animations, the physics, the sound design, the blood squibs, we really create that [Robocop] moment. It feels so good with the Skullcrusher, because you’ll run up to a bunch of fodder, and you’re just holding them in place as their limbs come off and their bodies shake and they don’t drop until you let go of the trigger.”
MELEE-ONLY RUNS
DOOM: The Dark Ages is a first-person shooter, of course, just like its predecessors, though the game does also have a vast amount of melee options available. There’s a new flail, the Shield Saw, an electrified gauntlet, and other new weapons such as the aforementioned Reaver Chainshot. In fact, finishing the entire game with just melee weapons could be possible. In a PC Gamer interview, Hugo Martin said, “If people could beat Dark Souls with no damage and pistol-only Nightmare runs on [Doom 2016], I’m sure people will figure out how to do it with the shield and the melee, because they’re pretty powerful, but you’d have a hard time, that’s for sure.”
LENGTH
id Software has made it abundantly clear that DOOM: The Dark Ages boasts the largest campaign the studio has ever crafted by quite a margin, with a lot of side content on offer, 22 levels to play through, and several semi-open world maps to explore. What exactly is its runtime going to be though? Though id hasn’t mentioned any specifics, it’s entirely likely that, depending on your play style, The Dark Ages ends up being twice as long as DOOM Eternal.
WHY IT DOESN’T HAVE MULTIPLAYER
DOOM: The Dark Ages is going to be a exclusively single-player game, unlike both DOOM (2016) and DOOM: The Dark Ages, and though multiplayer has never really been the biggest draw with DOOM, many will obviously be disappointed by its complete absence in the upcoming prequel. That said, id Software did have a pretty good reason for making that significant decision. Executive producer Marty Stratton explained in a Q&A, “We made that decision really from the jump. We wanted to basically free ourselves to create things like the Atlan and the mech experience and the dragon experience. Those are both almost like mini-games within the game. We know that our campaigns are to a great extent what people come to the modern DOOM games to play, so we decided to put all of our efforts behind that and really create the biggest and best DOOM game we’ve ever made.”
ENGINE IMPROVEMENTS
id Software has always prided itself on being technically ahead of the curve, with the idTech engine making huge strides with each new DOOM entry. DOOM: The Dark Ages will keep that going, with the game touting fully dynamic lighting, ray tracing, and performance improvements. On the PlayStation Blog, Hugo Martin wrote, “The innovations in this latest version of idTech allow us to have more content visible on-screen than ever before—bigger spaces with longer views; more enemies to fight; more destruction; better feedback; a better overall gaming experience.”
COULD GET DIRECT SEQUELS
DOOM: The Dark Ages is pausing the series’ ongoing story in order to wind the clock back and tell a prequel story set a good bit of time before DOOM (2016)– and it might not be the last game to do that. When asked in a PC Gamer interview if The Dark Ages will end with the Doom Slayer getting sealed in a sarcophagus – which is how we find him at the beginning of 2016 – Martin confirmed that that won’t be the case, and suggested that The Dark Ages’ ending will leave the door open for more medieval fantasy prequels following up on it directly. “Not yet,” Martin said. “I mean, that would end the Dark Ages, the medieval chapter of the Doom saga. This is kind of like the Chronicles of the Slayer.
“So if we took it all the way to that point, then that would mean that we couldn’t tell any more medieval stories. And I’m not announcing projects or anything other than to just say it’s better to leave it open.”
POSSIBLE SWITCH 2 RELEASE
DOOM: The Dark Ages is currently officially announced only for Xbox Series X/S, PC, and PS5, but there’s a good chance that it ends up coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 as well. For starters, there’s the fact that DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal both eventually wound up on the Nintendo Switch, so clearly, there’s an established audience for id Software’s shooters on Nintendo’s platform. Meanwhile, prominent leaker extas1s has also claimed that The Dark Ages is indeed in development for the Switch 2, so there’s that.
DLC PLANS
Like DOOM Eternal before it, single-player post-launch content is also planned for DOOM: The Dark Ages. Little is known about the expansion just yet- we don’t know what it’ll be called, how it’ll add to the base game’s story, how expansive it’ll be, or even when it’ll come out. We do know, however, that it is in the works.
PC REQUIREMENTS
DOOM: The Dark Ages’ system requirements on PC are also available, and unsurprisingly, they’re quite demanding. Minimum settings, which will run the game at 1080p and 60 FPS, will require either a Ryzen 7 3700X or an i7 10700K, along with either an RTX 2060 Super or an RX 6600, and 16 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, recommended settings, which will target 1440p and 60 FPS, will need either a Ryzen 7 5700X or an i7 12700K, as well as either an RTX 3080 or an RX 6800, and 32 GB of RAM. Either setting will also require 100 GB of free storage.