DOOM: The Dark Ages will feature levels much larger than what we’ve seen from the franchise in the past. In an interview with EDGE (via GamesRadar), game director Hugo Martin has revealed that, despite its massive levels, players won’t end up spending “two hours” on just exploring.
Martin spoke about the player’s moveset in DOOM: The Dark Ages needing plenty of room for tactics like circle-strafing to avoid demon attacks. Because of this, he has described the levels in the upcoming shooter as “the largest spaces we’ve ever made.”
He spoke about the design philosophy that went into this idea since players would want a game like this to feature fast-paced action without too much downtime. Since the levels are so large, Martin has also said that more completionist players will have plenty of options to spend more time exploring.
“I don’t know that you want to play a single Doom level for two hours,” said Martin. “You want them to be nice, contained experiences, so around an hour is about the sweet spot. But if you’re a completionist, you could certainly extend that.”
He went on to talk about the kind of variety we can expect from DOOM: The Dark Ages, with levels broken up into various themes. An example he provides has players kick things off in a dungeon before getting thrown into a much more open-ended zone.
“You might start in a dungeon-like space, then open up in the second half of the level into a more open-ended portion,” Martin explained. “We’re trying to make sure the player feels there’s a good amount of variety.”
Martin, along with executive producer Marty Stratton, has previously referred to DOOM: The Dark Ages as developer id Software’s most ambitious game so far. He also referred to the game as “really long” and featuring optional content.
“I think it’s gonna be mostly about secret hunting,” he said about the game’s side content. “If you explore all the secrets and you’re a completionist, you’re certainly gonna make it a much larger experience for yourself.”
Martin had also spoken about finding the sweet spot for the length of a level in the same Q&A, where he said that about an hour is the ideal amount of time that a level should take for a player.
“We don’t want it to be too long. We don’t want a single level to overstay its welcome,” he said. “I think the sweet spot is right at about an hour, no more. So a lot of honestly what we’re doing right now is refining it and making sure that we stay in that space. But it is a massive campaign for sure.”
While it follows in its predecessor’s footsteps of providing a brutal first-person shooter campaign, Stratton has previously confirmed that DOOM: The Dark Ages will not feature any multiplayer modes. He said that the decision to forego multiplayer was made right from the beginning of development, allowing more time to focus on aspects like mini-games and the mech experience.
DOOM: The Dark Ages is in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is coming out on May 15.
