A decade ago, id Software rebooted its most popular franchise with the very good Doom (2016). Since then, id has released Doom Eternal, a bigger and (mostly) better sequel, some DLC for Eternal, and then last year put out Doom: The Dark Ages, a medieval-esque prequel to those recent entries.
Now, 10 years since bringing Doom back and following a recent, large series of layoffs at id Software and the rest of Xbox, the studio has released Revelations, a meaty expansion for The Dark Ages that continues the story and brings the franchise closer to where it began in 2016. Revelations feels like a culmination of everything the studio has been doing with Doom, good and bad. It’s a bittersweet ending for not only this era of Doom but also id Software, a bombastic and exciting finale made by a lot of people who no longer work at the legendary studio.
In Revelations, the Doom Slayer goes on a mission to take down the High Council of Hell, the most evil bastards around and the ones in charge of all the demons. They quickly foil his plan, break his cool chainsaw shield, and toss him in purgatory, where he’s meant to remain forever. But a mysterious demon helps the Slayer recover, grants him a cool new chain spear, and gives him a task of collecting some magic stones to unlock a portal to get out of purgatory and take down the real person pulling the strings.
On paper, it’s a fairly simple story. But, as has been a growing trend with each of id’s modern Doom games, there’s a ton of cutscenes and dialogue in Revelations.
While I enjoyed the flashbacks to the Slayer’s past and how they connect with some older OG Doom lore, for the most part I found myself bored to tears by the cutscenes. They look great and are well-acted; I just don’t care about all these characters and the various factions of Hell and the other realms. Too much lore. Not enough shooting.
The opening hour or two of Revelations just didn’t click with me at all. The spear isn’t much fun to use as a weapon; it feels finicky compared to the shield, and using it as a grappling hook feels out of place following the combat in the original Dark Ages, which was more grounded and heavy. I actually stopped playing Revelations for a bit because I just didn’t like it. But I pushed through earlier this week, and I’m glad I did. Once you get your repaired shield back and start exploring more of the various realms of purgatory, Revelations starts to kick a lot of ass. It helps that during this middle section of the expansion, the narrative takes more of a backseat as big fights against thousands of monsters take center stage.
Combining the spear and shield is a blast. I’d primarily use my shield during fights to easily block attacks, but swapping to the spear and using its dash and grapple-chain abilities helped give the Slayer more mobility in larger areas, which was handy. And weirdly, some of the puzzles in Revelations that use both shield and spear are surprisingly complex. Moving boxes and platforms and doors felt close to doing some Portal puzzle-solving at times.
Meanwhile, the addition of the spear also means the introduction of a whole new skill tree to deal with, and I’m just so over this part of modern Doom. Each game has added more skill trees and upgrade resources and other faff and guff to mess about with. The Slayer shouldn’t be doing this shit. He should be killing. Also, he should be wearing a helmet. Come on. Dude appears so often in cutscenes that he felt like a family member instead of a powerful badass killing machine.
Sadly, once I got to the end of the DLC, the lore-filled and narrative-heavy cutscenes returned and soured the ending. I know some people love the lore of the new Doom games, but personally, I’m just here to kill demons in big, well-made levels with cool guns. Thankfully, Revelations has all of that. I just wish it had a few fewer skill trees and cutscenes.
Ultimately, Revelations is a pretty good way to end Dark Ages. The ending ties neatly into the beginning of Doom 2016, though I imagine there’s more story between the final moment of the DLC and when the Slayer wakes up at the start of the reboot.
Unfortunately, due to a different council of evil demons with no care for the lives of others, we might not get another Doom game for a long time. And what id Software will look like at that point is a question that nobody, not even those running Xbox, seems to know the answer to.
But Doom, like the Slayer himself, is hard to kill, and the hard-working artists and devs who put this DLC together are tough as nails, too. I know one day they and the Slayer will return. Maybe not together. But they’ll be back. You can’t keep awesome people down. You can’t stop the Slayer. You can’t kill Doom. Only fools think they can.
