Fine-tuned difficulty controls, slowed-down gameplay, and a jettisoned multiplayer mode tell us something about modern triple-A game design.
The Doom series is something of a measuring stick for the state of big-budget game development. Since id Software's seminal 1993 title Doom, the first-person shooter franchise has been a defining reflection of both what audiences are looking for in the first-person shooter genre, and what developers are doing to meet those demands.
Doom broke down doors with its fast-paced shooting with an array of alien weapons, and Doom II showed how that formula would evolve with advancing computer graphics technology. Doom 3 introduced a "story-centered" campaign—a design choice that would persist through the 2016 Doom and 2020's Doom Eternal. Eternal sped up its predecessor's gameplay and sported a murderer's row of titanic demons to test player's skills, making one think Doom: The Dark Ages would follow that trend...but it's not. It's slowing things down for a visceral feel and to reintroduce the "projectile dodging" of the 1990s.
In a preview of Doom: The Dark Ages before today's Xbox Developer Direct, id Software executive producer Marty Stratton and game director Hugo Martin broke down the thinking behind this next-generation Doom, and their comments shone a light on how the famed Texas studio approached another multimillion dollar behemoth.
Stratton and Martin explained that work on Doom: The Dark Ages began after work ended on Doom Eternal's DLC packs in 2020, meaning the game has been in the works for about 4-5 years before launching on May 15 2025. A foundational design choice in that period was the decision to expand the game's difficulty settings beyond "Hurt Me Plenty" ("normal" difficulty) and "Ultra-Violence" ("hard" difficulty). In The Dark Ages, id Software joined studios like Respawn Entertainment and Naughty Dog in allowing players to fine-tune specific game mechanics like "parry windows" to fit their comfort level.
This feature doubles as both as an accessibility measure (players with disabilities that slow down their response time can now adjust timing windows to take on greater challenges) and preference-setting tool to potentially expand the game's audience. That's an important requirement, as Stratton and Martin said this game is partly targeted at newcomers to the Doom series.
They also let players create "custom difficulties" to challenge themselves on replays. "We've got some pretty hardcore players out there, [this] allows them to ramp it up and create these ridiculous experiences for themselves," said Martin.
The "parry window" mentioned in there might be a surprise to developers, as Doom: The Dark Ages is joining the ranks of combat games adding "parry" mechanics that reward perfectly-timed blocks, made mainstream with the success of FromSoftware titles like Elden Ring and Bloodborne. Parrying demon attacks is a feature that comes with new melee weapons, and are part of a fascinating "slow-down" of the series' combat, a sharp change from the fast-paced, frenetic battles of Doom Eternal.
Image via id Software/Microsoft.
Stratton told attending journalists that he ultimately feels Eternal's combat was "too complex" thanks to a somewhat unwieldy control scheme thrown up against the speed of gameplay ("It almost sounds like I don't like the games we ship," he joked, noting he's deliberately "self-critical" about the studio's prior work to keep making better and better Doom games).
Slowing down the speed of The Dark Ages also opened up creativity for the design, art, and narrative teams. The game is a prequel to 2016's Doom, and follows the silent protagonist known as the Doom Slayer in a medieval war against the forces of hell, rather than the sci-fi apocalypse of the prior games.
If players play the games in "chronological" order, they'll go from a slower Doom Slayer, to a faster one, to one fighting at blazing speed.
Martin and Stratton repeatedly said the studio faced the challenge of following up Doom Eternal with a Doom game that could have been the same kind of game over again, but knowing that doing so wasn't a safe bet. Players often think they want more of the same, but to sell the millions of copies needed to turn a profit on The Dark Ages, innovation was still a key priority.
The pair pointed out that "classic Doom" isn't built on weaving in and out of cover—it's often about dancing around slower-moving projectiles in open spaces while landing their own shots. Stratton called this a "three-dimensional shmup (shoot-em-up) pattern," which resembles design choices seen in Housemarque's hit game Returnal. Designers narrowed the range of weapons to be "medium-to-short" range to accommodate the slower speeds. In the video shown during the Developer Direct, the player is seen walking between projectiles in the described fashion.
The pair also noted that the team has faced the challenge of continuously expanding the series' art direction, which still supports the well-mined territory of the hellish imagery mixing with cybernetic technology of its predecessors. Keeping that interesting isn't easy. "This is an entirely invented world," said Martin. There is no Googling "hey I want to see a mecha dragon...it's having the vision and then communicating that vision to people who are just masters [of] the iterative process."
(Was "I want to see a mecha dragon" a shot at generative AI tools? It's certainly easy to search the internet for existing mecha dragon designs...)
The "mecha dragon" Martin referred to is one of two other gameplay additions to The Dark Ages' gameplay. Players will have the option to soar on the back of such a beast and get in the robot pilot a skyscraper-sized "Atlan" robot to punch other giant demons in the face.
Our ears perked up as Stratton and Martin discussed these feature. The pair said id Software could only invest time in these modes because of the decision to not release a multiplayer mode for the game. Taking that passing statement at face value, it sounds like id Software's previous need to design locomotion, combat, and animation systems that work for both single-player and network-connected multiplayer was a variable that narrowed what kind of campaign they could create. But with online multiplayer games now requiring an extensive live service structure to compete with heavyweight franchises like Call of Duty and Fortnite, it may have been a tall order to prioritize development on such a feature.
Some might see that choice as id Software (and by proxy its parent company Microsoft) as leaving money on the table, but with the multiplayer live service market being so calcified at the moment, it could be seen as a cost savings. The mecha dragons and Atlan mechs are a nice bonus.
After a strange start to 2024, Microsoft began to find its footing last year with the releases of Activision's Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Machinegames' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This year it will first be tested by the releases of Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed, Compulsion Games' South of Midnight, then Doom: The Dark Ages.
The success of these games will be closely watched, as the game industry has yet to figure out if the company's Xbox Game Pass-focused strategy is a financial win. Expensive triple-A games like The Dark Ages are competing for players' time, and Doom's appeal to an older audience may narrow who buys it or plays on Game Pass after launch.
But however you feel about the game's financial prospects, the id Software team has clearly built a technological and game design marvel worth studying for the future of first-person shooters. Let's face it. There's no dollar value you can put on some good-old-fashioned "Rip and Tear."
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