After revealing its next Doom game last summer, id Software is almost ready to release it: the studio announced that Doom: The Dark Ages is launching on May 15th.
The news came as part of Xbox’s most recent Developer Direct livestream, which provided the best look yet at the prequel. As the name implies, The Dark Ages is set in a medieval fantasy realm and takes place long before the events of Doom Eternal and the franchise’s 2016 reboot. The developers say that the new game features a much bigger world with a larger emphasis on story — including plenty of cutscenes — but the most important changes appear to be with how The Dark Ages will play.
A big focus this time around is on melee combat. Since this is a Doom set in medieval times, that means players will get access to brutal new melee weapons like a spiked mace and iron flail. The scale of battles also seems to have ramped up. We already knew that players would get a mount in the form of a cybernetic dragon, but today’s reveal also showed off a skyscraper-sized mech suit so that the Doomslayer can fight enemies the size of kaiju.
Another big change is a greater emphasis on accessibility through a series of gameplay sliders. These let you adjust things like the game speed or parry timing, either ramping them up or down. Essentially, these options should give players the ability to really customize the experience, either making it more approachable or a whole lot harder. There are standard difficulty options as well.
Doom: The Dark Ages is coming to the PS5, Xbox, and PC when it launches in May.