The cat is out of the bag. Doom: The Darkish Ages will launch on Might 15, 2025, and it’ll be the third ‘nu-Doom’ recreation from esteemed developer id Software program. However this recreation, which is confusingly a prequel to the moment traditional Doom (2016), will eschew a development established each by the primary recreation within the rebooted sequence, and 2020’s Doom Everlasting: it gained’t have multiplayer.
In a roundtable interview chaired by id Software program’s Marty Stratton (studio director) and Hugo Martin (artistic director), the 2 Doom veterans confirmed that there shall be no multiplayer mode, in any respect, for Doom: The Darkish Ages.
“We needed to go all in on the marketing campaign,” defined Martin, when requested why this recreation would ship with no multiplayer ingredient, when each Doom (2016) and Doom Everlasting obtained one. “We’ve been in a position to degree up the single-player ingredient [of Dark Ages] as a result of it’s been our total focus.”
The sport gained’t simply have you ever standing and holding your floor because the nigh-immortal Doom Slayer this time, both. As a direct results of committing extra sources to the single-player improvement, we’re going to have set-pieces involving “a 30-story Atlan mech” and “a fire-breathing, gatling-gun toting cyber dragon”. Sure, actually.
“That’s one thing we’ve needed to do for ages, for the final two video games, actually,” explains Stratton, particularly referring to the inclusion of the Atlan. In case you’re not fully updated in your Doom lore (who can blame you), Atlans have been monumental bipedal warfare machines utilized by the Evening Sentinels of their warfare in opposition to the forces of Hell – you’ve most likely appear inanimate husks of them in your playthroughs of previous Doom video games.
Each Stratton and Martin appeared very excited on the reveal – and inclusion – of the mech in Doom: The Darkish Ages, and counsel that lastly getting the Slayer to pilot one in every of these Evangelion-sized beasts is a direct results of permitting extra dev time on the single-player components of the sport.
Relatedly, the duo additionally boast that that is the “largest play house ever in a Doom recreation”, and confirmed off quite a lot of bonus dungeons, caves, and fights you could have interaction in when you deviate from the overwhelmed path. “You management the tempo of the sport,” grinned Martin. “You management The place you go, who you combat, and the aims your pursue.” As soon as once more, the builders cite with the ability to focus wholly on the single-player aspect of the sport as the rationale id might pump this a lot content material into the story and world.
I’m not complaining; in a world the place we’re seeing multiplayer video games flop at a price of knots, and live-service slop take up increasingly more house on the digital storefront, it’s one thing of a breath of contemporary air to see single-player recreation modes in video games take a lot focus from a prolific developer. Maybe it’s one thing that each Sony and Blizzard can study from within the coming months and years.
Doom: The Darkish Ages launches on Might 15, and it’ll launch on Xbox Recreation Move for PC and Xbox Collection – nevertheless it’ll additionally come to PlayStation 5.
