It’s Shouldn’t Be a Surprise, but Doom: The Dark Ages Looks Metal as F*ck

Over the weekend, Microsoft ran its annual Xbox Showcase and there was a number of banger announcements. New footage from highly anticipated games like Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater and Perfect Dark was cool and all, but let’s be real — the trailer for Doom: The Dark Ages was metal. as. fuck.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock since 2016, you know that the Doom reboot and its sequel Doom Eternal are some of the most metal games ever made. Touting insane first-person shooter action and ludicrously heavy music composed by Mick Gordon, it fast became a staple among metal heads. I mean seriously, watch this and tell me it’s not badass.

And while the previous iterations take place on Mars and Earth, respectively, this new version takes place in the past. The Doom Slayer (that’s you, the player) is tasked with demolishing all of Hell’s legions. This time, you’ve got more melee attacks, a fucking chainsaw shield that you throw like Captain America, and what looks like a chaingun that uses crushed up skulls for the shrapnel it shoots. And while it doesn’t seem like Mick Gordon’s handling the soundtrack, it still sounds pretty badass.

After watching the trailer, all I can think is that if the first two games were industrial metal and djent, this new one is that with some power metal mixed in, because the scenes look like something straight out of a heavy metal album cover. Everything looks medieval and I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

There’s no release date as of yet, though we know it’s coming out some time in 2025 for Xbox GamePass, Xbox Series X|S, PC or PlayStation 5. In the meantime, I’ll be smashing demons in the last two games.