Technologies

Doom The Dark Ages Review: Blood, Steel and Burnout

Guns and heavy metal weren’t enough this time around.

Doom: The Dark Ages is the third game of the new «Doom» era since the franchise was rebooted in 2016 and was followed up with a second game, Doom Eternal, in 2020. While this newest title makes some big changes to the game, and I do mean «big,» it does feel like it’s lost a bit of that Doom charm that made me giddy whenever I saw the phrase «rip and tear.»

For this latest go-around, developer id Software tweaked the Doom formula to go beyond just shooting enemies and is far away from the platforming that was found in Doom Eternal. The result is a blend of action that really sings when everything is timed right but also falls flat outside of the action. There’s just a lack of areas where my adrenaline starts pumping compared to the previous Doom games.

To lay the groundwork for Doom: The Dark Ages, the game takes place before the events of the 2016 reboot. Doomguy, referred to as the Slayer throughout, was transported to Hell following the events of Doom 64 in order to fight the hordes of monsters. Some point after battling demons for billions of years, he’s transported to Argent D’Nur, a different realm inhabited by humans who fight against the hordes of Hell in this epic war with futuristic weapons with a medieval motif. As the Slayer, he’s there to help the humans win and what follows is a very dramatic, almost Game of Thrones-type story but it feels shallow.

And I get it. Doom wasn’t ever really about the story but it has been since the reboot. What I love about the reboot is that I’m playing as the same character as I was 20 years earlier in my high school computer lab. A character who had returned from the depths of Hell and was being used as a living weapon to defeat the army from Hell once again. Then, in Doom Eternal, we learn how Doomguy was a mythical hero in that other realm and traveling to that realm was this satisfying experience that felt like the equivalent of a heavy metal album cover.

In Doom: The Dark Ages, I didn’t feel that same excitement to learn more about Doomguy’s past. The attempt at intrigue just didn’t work, so making my way through the chapters was a slog at times. Don’t get me wrong: The action was exciting, most of the time, but it takes a while to get to that pinnacle of where all the new elements of the game fit into place.

Doomguy’s New Toys (and Tricks)

Of those new elements, the most significant is the addition of a shield. It’s weird playing a Doom game with a shield but it’s part of id’s attempt to redefine the gameplay by adding some depth. The shield provides four kinds of actions that are important while playing, including the most obvious one, defense.

Some of the enemies have particularly big guns that can tear you apart if you don’t use your shield. As you might expect, there’s a shield throw, a la Captain America, so you can use it as a weapon. This throw can be an instakill for weaker enemies or a stun for tougher ones as it tears into their bodies.

Doomguy also has a shield bash that does some damage but acts as a way to quickly dash at enemies as well as break open barriers throughout the levels. Lastly, there’s the shield parry. Some enemies shoot out green projectiles that can be parried back at them, which is required to defeat some enemies. I appreciated that there’s an option to make the parry window more generous or tighter, depending on what works for you.

Another change is the arsenal available to Doomguy. Doom Eternal introduced a few new weapons along with the franchise mainstays like the Chaingun and BFG 9000. But in Doom: The Dark Ages, it’s all new weapons with the exception of the shotgun that you start with. The new guns are pretty intense but they do have a similar feel to other weapons like the Accelerator in comparison to the Plasma Rifle.

Each gun has an alternate fire that makes it act like a new weapon. For example, the Shredders feel like a standard machine gun that shoots bolts into enemies. Later in the game, you can unlock the alternate version, called the Impaler, that fires big spikes and acts almost like a non-scoping sniper rifle because it deals huge damage with headshots. Another weapon, the Pulverizer, is most notable for its design, which crushes skulls and shoots out bone pieces in a spread to take out multiple enemies at once. Guns weren’t the only new weapons for Doomguy, as there are also new melee weapons, the most notable being the Flail.

The shield and every weapon can be upgraded via gold, rubies and wraithstones found throughout the levels. This is where the action can get fun because upgrading weapons in a certain way can have different effects on enemies, from dealing damage to nearby enemies to having a longer stun or making enemies drop more ammo or armor. There’s a combination of upgrades that creates this fantastic harmony between the shield and the weapons. There’s a lot of experimentation available for players to make their favorite weapon even more fun to use.

Big Maps, Bigger Fights

Arguably, the most noteworthy change in Doom: The Dark Ages is the open levels. Previous games were more constrained, with players having to clear out rooms. In this game, there are big maps with multiple areas that need to be cleared to complete the chapter. This allows for a lot of exploration as there are plenty of secrets to find. Enemies are scattered throughout, but there are areas where a barrier will pop up and you’ll have to deal with hordes of demons in a closed-off space similar to the previous Doom games. Like the rest of Doom: The Dark Ages, these levels have a medieval look with some futuristic accents here and there. This style, which is also shown in Doom Eternal, creates a remarkable presentation on the Xbox Series X when combined with the heavy metal music.

Speaking of presentation, the two «big» additions to the Doom franchise are the dragon and the Atlan mech, which are available on certain levels. The action changes similarly when riding either one. Whether you’re on the dragon or the mech, you progress through the levels and do a combination of attacking and dodging enemies’ attacks. Traveling on both is fun but where the dragon flies throughout the levels and can chase down certain enemies, the Atlan smashes buildings as it fights giant demons. While enjoyable, I have to admit, I didn’t mind them being limited to certain levels; there wasn’t a lot to do with them.

All the new additions id Software introduced in Doom: The Dark Ages are welcome changes to keep a franchise that’s been around for more than three decades feeling fresh. I still can’t shake the feeling that something’s missing, though. It just doesn’t have the same pull as the last two Doom games. Because of that, it never gave me the same rush while playing. There were stretches where it honestly felt boring, which is wild to say about a Doom game. It definitely picks up in places and delivers some great moments, but I kept wishing there was more meat on the bones — just something that made me care more about this adventure.

Doom: The Dark Ages comes out on May 15 for Xbox, PlayStation and PC, and it’ll be available on Game Pass at launch. Players who purchase the Premium Edition of Doom: The Dark Ages will gain access to the game on May 13.

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WWE 2K25 Jumps From the Top Rope Onto PlayStation Plus in September

Subscribers will also be able to play a turn-based strategy Persona game.

«The American Nightmare» Cody Rhodes, son of one of the greatest pro wrestlers of all time, «The American Dream» Dusty Rhodes, is the current undisputed WWE champion. And PlayStation Plus subscribers can bring Rhodes down a peg or help establish a new wrestling dynasty with the champion beginning on Sept. 16 in WWE 2K25.

PlayStation Plus is Sony’s version of Xbox Game Pass, and it offers subscribers a large and constantly expanding library of games. There are three PlayStation Plus tiers — Essential ($10 a month), Extra ($15 a month) and Premium ($18 a month) — and each gives subscribers access to games. However, only Extra and Premium tier subscribers can access the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog.

Here are all the games PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can access starting on Sept. 16. You can also check out the games all PS Plus subscribers can play in September, including Psychonauts 2.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

WWE 2K25

Take control of your favorite superstar from the men’s and women’s divisions in this knockdown, dragout wrestling game. Become one of over 300 wrestlers from today and years past, like Rhea Ripley and Andre the Giant. This entry in the series also introduces intergender wrestling matches, barricade diving and new brawl environments where you can get over or turn heel.

Persona 5 Tactica

Join the Phantom Thieves in this real-time strategy game set in the Persona universe. You and the group wander into a bizarre realm where people are living under tyrannical oppression, and you cross paths with a revolutionary named Erina. Now you’re in cahoots with the rebels as you try to free an oppressed people and find your way back home.

Other games on PS Plus

Those are a few of the games Sony is bringing to PlayStation Plus, and subscribers can play these games as well starting on Sept. 16.

*Premium subscribers only.

For more on PlayStation Plus, here’s what to know about the service and a rundown of PS Plus Extra and Premium games added in August. You can also check out the latest and upcoming games on Xbox Game Pass and Apple Arcade.

Technologies

Little Nightmares 3 Hands-On: a Creepy Co-Op Game Arriving Just in Time for Halloween

The sequel adds cooperative play with all the haunting hallmarks of the earlier games.

After about an hour playing Little Nightmares 3, I’d used a person’s bisected halves to solve a puzzle, gotten a high score in a carnival shooting game and escaped the murderous claws of a deranged baby. As a 2-foot-tall youth trying to survive the morbid dangers of one demented area after another with my co-player, I was terrified and delighted.

I’ve only sampled the first two Little Nightmares games, but in my brief preview of Little Nightmares 3, it felt like a refined version of the series’ premise: small protagonists endangered by a large, grim world filled with traps to evade, puzzles to solve and horrid, lethal enemies to outwit. Take the scale of the animated horror movie 9, mix it with the darkest of stop-motion director Henry Selick’s maudlin settings and let players enjoy the haunting ride, room by perilous room.

This time, players aren’t alone. In Little Nightmares 3, developed by Supermassive Games, two players (or one and an AI companion) choose between characters Low (a bird-masked boy with a bow) and Alone (a girl with a jumpsuit and a wrench), who rely on each other and get out of rooms using their unique tools or just good ol’ fashioned teamwork. Sometimes this means pushing a box for the other to jump on, but other obstacles require rather complex puzzle-solving.

In the game, Low and Alone seek to escape the bleak Nowhere and its roulette of dystopian lands. My preview was limited to one of these areas — Carnevale, a demented circus where our small characters had to sneak under the feet of grotesque, ambling workers (or their corpses, tied up or swinging for the sport of their fellows). When we thought we were safe, possessed puppets sprinted after us until we could team up to knock their wooden heads off and crush them. Being noticed by anyone meant our demise, requiring frantic cooperation amid the anxious stakes of rather gruesome deaths.

It’s this tension and the dour setting that sets Little Nightmares 3 apart from other co-op games like the more excitable and dynamic Split Fiction released earlier this year, a rollercoaster flipbook of game genres that made for a breathless if not terribly coherent experience. In contrast, the section of Little Nightmares 3 I played unfolded like a series of grim vignettes that rely on its pleasingly goth trappings as much as working together with your friend (or computer teammate) to progress.

Surviving your little nightmares

While I got only an hour with the game, Little Nightmares 3 seems to iterate on rather than innovate away from its predecessors: Expect more of the same in new, grotesque settings, just with the welcome addition of tightly designed teamwork dynamics. For fans of the series, this is likely a good thing. There’s not much else like Little Nightmares.

The Carnevale stage I played through opened up with rain pelting red-and-white circus tent tops, which I as the masked Low (and someone from Bandai Namco who kindly played as the jumpsuit-wearing Alone) skittered between. Lumbering above us were brutish factory workers seeking escape at the funfair, which very quickly turned sinister as we very shortly saw some hanging tied-up as others took turns beating them like a piñata. We entered one room to find one worker in connected boxes as the subject of a magician’s saw-in-half trick…which was no trick, as we had to separate the halves to climb out of a window. I tried, and failed, to ignore the viscera slopping out of the boxes.

While we hid from the human-size enemies, we had to fight the wooden puppets. Like Geppeto’s most horrid creations, they ambushed us in several rooms, requiring me to knock their heads off with Low’s bow and run away from their decapitated bodies while my teammate rushed forward to crush their heads with Alone’s wrench.

But most of the rooms are about solving puzzles, which could be as simple as moving a box for my teammate to jump up and pull a switch or figure out how a radio plays into a complex solution. While these quiet moments are a nice break from the tense combat or pursuit, they also give time to appreciate the macabre backgrounds: I ran past one room with a circle of empty tall chairs only to come back a few seconds later to find them filled with puppets, unmoving but watching.

And then there are the really, really tense moments. We moved from the carnival to the adjoining candy factory (apparently where all those brutes work) and up to the offices where the boss works, to find him asleep with the TV droning on in the darkness…and his frankly hideous baby nestled next to him. Naturally, we had to make noise, cranking open a grate, awakening the terrifying spawn who ran after us. After many, many failed escapes, my teammate and I discovered we had to scramble for a hiding place after making it past the grate.

This was perhaps the most frustrating part of the preview as we panicked looking for a solution to our deadly woes (as opposed to the slow, methodical gameplay earlier) — but that’s part of the tension, especially when adding a teammate to the mix. Ultimately, it was a hard-won lesson in patience. In the next room, a kitchen, the nightmarish baby banged a bowl on the table until the father walked over to a corpse (presumably his worker) and cut out some meat for his ghoulish child to eat.

In my short time with it, Little Nightmares 3 seems like a cooperative spooky storybook for players and their friends (but not couch buddies, sadly — it’s online co-op only) to experience. How much it lives up to previous games in the series, especially as developer Supermassive Games takes more of the reins from the franchise’s original creators Tarsier Games, is anyone’s guess. (Tarsier’s similar spiritual sequel to Little Nightmares, Reanimal, is coming in 2026.)

But as the air turns crisp and Halloween beckons, it’s the best time of the year for a creepy co-op game like Little Nightmares 3 to land.

Little Nightmares 3 comes out Oct.10, 2025, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.