“Before he became a hero, he was the super weapon of gods and kings.”

So reads the text slate that opens DOOM: The Dark Ages. It’s an absurdly badass mission statement for the game that follows. But, playing just the opening stretch of the game, it pays off multiple times.

This section showed off the most familiar form of DOOM. A cutscene (yes, there are cutscenes for the story now, not just codex entries) introduces the demon-beleaguered planet of Argent D’Nur, the questionably benevolent god-race known as the Makyrs, and our familiar lead character kept captive to be unleashed on hellish threats. And from there, I’m handed a shotgun and a shield, and told to do what a DOOM Slayer does best.

You’ll feel right at home with this, until you don’t. Levels remain tightly knotted, oscillating from cramped corridors to wide-open arenas built for athletic combat. Your guns sre, of course, hideously powerful and there’s still a focus on attack being the best form of defence, with specific moves rewarding health and ammo, forcing you to fight to survive.

If you’ve watched the trailers for The Dark Ages, then you know you’ll be getting a mech along the way. The Atlan, as it’s known, allows you to take an earthquaking step into the battlefield to take on Hell’s biggest threats – and in practice, it’s a way of transforming the on-foot experience into something new.

As you might expect, this is a slower, but stronger approach to DOOM combat. Your Atlan trades mostly in melee – basic attacks involve throwing punches at titanic demons, building up a combo meter that can be traded in for one of two special moves, a stunning stomp, or a knockout blow.

You’ll need to balance those combos with dodges – taking one hit from an enemy sets your combo meter back to zero so, with a rhythm familiar from the parry system, you’ll need to avoid what you can to keep the punishment coming.

And, just as I was getting used to all this, an orbital drop delivered me a set of Empire State Building-sized miniguns, to add some truly berserk flair to the end of the level. It’s ludicrous, in the best possible way. Think of the mech as a side dish to The Dark Ages’ main meal – it’s a complement to the regular on-foot combat, mixing things up while feeling similar enough not to feel out of place.

Dragon Mission

Here’s where things took an even less expected turn. My next mission involved me summoning a cybernetic dragon, hopping into a saddle equipped with heavy ordnance, and taking to the skies. In this section of the game, I’m defending a flying city under attack from a demon fleet, with the goal of taking down four separate Hell Carrier ships.

Your dragon is a free-flying beast, equipped with dodges and afterburners, able to maneuver through the skies however you see fit. Like, the mech, it’s strong enough to take on titans – but how you do it is quite different. After locking onto an enemy, you can strafe around them. Your basic attacks do a small amount of damage, but each successful dodge supercharges your guns, letting you stun your prey, before sending your dragon to perform a gruesome finisher.

Initially, it feels like this is another Atlan-like diversion, a way of providing a different kind of combat – but when it comes to the flagships themselves, it goes further.

Each ship needs to be taken down in a specific way – first you take out its various gun batteries, and subsequently its shield generator with your dragon’s moveset. This then opens up a landing spot. With a click of the right stick, your dragon lands, the Slayer hops off, and you realize that each ship is a miniature level to progress through on foot. You barrage through the innards of the ship, eliminating the demons inside, before reaching its engine. Shield charging the engine destroys the ship, and sees you skydiving through an explosion and back onto your dragon to repeat the feat.

This mix of flying and on-foot gameplay feels incredible – and each new ship changes the make-up enough that it doesn’t fall into a predictable pattern. I’d call this the most revolutionary change to DOOM’s make-up, if it wasn’t for the next section.

Sandbox Mission

This is where The Dark Ages truly breaks free from expectation. In my final (and longest) section of the demo, I’m placed into id’s take on a sandbox open zone and told to approach it however I’d like. My solitary goal is to close five demon-spewing portals, but how I do it, and what diversions I take, are entirely up to me. Over the course of an hour, I’m repeatedly reminded that I’ve never played a DOOM game like this before.

As you’d hope for, this sandbox sequence is stacked with optional goals – heavily protected artillery batteries to take out, caches of gold to spend on upgrades, and more. At one point, I’m simply running somewhere, when a cathedral-sized tentacle bursts out of the ground and begins to attack – this isn’t a scripted moment, or even an objective I’m given, it’s just another surprise hidden along the way.

But the core objectives themselves hold surprises, too. In that first story mission, closing portals was simply a case of clearing an arena, but it’s never quite the same in this case. Some portals transport me to a dungeon, requiring me to solve puzzles in order to find my way to the energy source powering them. Others introduce Leader enemies – overpowered beasts who are invulnerable to my attacks until I kill enough of their followers, and come with permanent upgrades after your victory. Along the way, I find new guns, augmenting my armory with new options. It’s restlessly, relentlessly inventive, as if id has been waiting for an opportunity to transplant new ideas into the DOOM format.

And that’s the key takeaway from my full session with DOOM: The Dark Ages – this feels like a developer brimming with enthusiasm, not just for DOOM itself, but for what DOOM could be. I was expecting a new story, new guns, and new demons – I wasn’t expecting new genres. I cannot wait to find out what else this team has in store.

DOOM: The Dark Ages launches for Xbox Series X|S, PC (via the Xbox app for Windows PC, Steam, and Battle.net), PlayStation 5, and cloud on May 15, 2025. It will be available day one with Game Pass.