Summary
- Revelations is the first major DLC for DOOM: The Dark Ages, adding 10-12 hours of demon slaying, including a story campaign, arenas, and new content for the Ripatorium.
- The expansion’s centerpiece is the Chain Spear, a versatile new weapon that can swap in for the shield, adding a variety of new attack and movement tech.
- DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations releases on July 7 for XBOX Series X|S and XBOX on PC, with support for XBOX Play Anywhere.
Ever since the original DOOM blew minds in 1993, the series has always been about tempo. After the lightning-fast acrobatics of DOOM Eternal, DOOM: The Dark Ages carved out its own identity within the franchise by slowing down, giving the Slayer a shield and innovating a tankier, parrying, stand-and-fight style of combat. Its first major DLC, Revelations, expands upon that powerful-feeling foundation by adding more kinetic movement options back into the mix with the versatile new Chain Spear as the expansion’s centerpiece.
“It kind of plays like the culmination of 35 years of DOOM,” said Game Director and id Software Studio Co-Director Hugo Martin during a recent virtual event with both a video presentation and live Q&A. “It adds movement tech to Dark Ages combat, complete with a dash and grapple hook. We’re going to make the tanky Dark Ages Slayer fly. You’ll feel like a monster truck with a jet engine strapped to your back.”
Early in the Revelations story campaign, the Slayer’s shield is broken, and he acquires the Chain Spear to replace it in his left hand. Eventually the player will be able to swap freely between them (and some endgame skills even benefit from doing so in the heat of combat), but at first they are forced to use it, and Martin encourages players to stick with it, even if it doesn’t quite click at first, because its depth unfolds the more you play with it and unlock abilities: “There is a ton of skill expression in the DLC, and it’s all through the spear, so it’s worth your time and investment.”
The Chain Spear has a wide variety of attack modes, each of which has its own skill tree. It can stab, be thrown like a sniper shot, slam down like Eternal’s DLC hammer, and slash widely (breaking armor, killing fodder for resources, or parrying incoming melee and projectile attacks). “There is a ton of freedom and weapon tech to discover here,” according to Martin.
Perhaps most exciting are the movement options that the Chain Spear adds. The tip of the spear can be shot out on a chain like a grappling hook, pulling the Slayer in toward enemies or up through the air and around the environment. It builds on the Meat Hook attachment to the Super Shotgun in DOOM Eternal, but with more refined movement control and, most importantly, the freedom to pair it with any gun in your right hand.
In addition to pulling the Slayer in, the Chain Spear can also be used to Orbit, rotating around enemies up in the air, tethered by the radius of the chain while unloading gunfire into them like a furious little moon. Martin compared it to Z-targeting, which gamers of a certain age will remember as the innovative camera lock-on system developed for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and now common in games like Elden Ring, and is obviously very powerful in the context of a first-person shooter.
All of these abilities develop in complexity over the course of the 10 to 12 hours it will take to complete Revelations, which Martin said is larger than Eternal’s two DLC combined. That content comprises roughly 60% story campaign and 40% endgame, including an extensive hub area to scour for secrets between levels with Metroidvania-like exploration (including levels from original DOOM games, rendering classic designs with modern materials and effects). The endgame will have you going back through the campaign’s levels again with added challenges and puzzles, eventually leading to an uber boss and then master arenas for the ultimate test of skill, which will ask you to truly demonstrate mastery over every part of the Slayer’s kit in concert—including both the shield and the spear. All of the game’s existing difficulty sliders are also intact, which means that all of the DLC’s content is accessible to players of any skill level.
The Chain Spear sounds like an exciting additional to the arsenal for DOOM: The Dark Ages. Modern DOOM is all about how the different combat systems naturally flow into and support one another, and the versatility of the Chain Spear really embodies all their learnings from developing under that ethos for over a decade now. We’ll be zipping around and skewering demons with it soon when DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations releases on July 7 for XBOX Series X|S and XBOX on PC, with support for XBOX Play Anywhere.
DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations
Bethesda Softworks
*DLC availability to be provided at a later date.
DOOM: The Dark Ages
Bethesda Softworks
$69.99
$55.99
DOOM: The Dark Ages is the prequel to the critically acclaimed DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal that tells an epic cinematic story worthy of the DOOM Slayer’s legend. In this third installment of the modern DOOM series, players will step into the blood-stained boots of the DOOM Slayer, in this never-before-seen dark and sinister medieval war against Hell.
DOOM: The Dark Ages is a dark fantasy/sci-fi single-player experience that delivers the searing combat and over-the-top visuals of the incomparable DOOM franchise, powered by the latest idTech engine.
STAND AND FIGHT
As the super weapon of gods and kings, shred enemies with devastating favorites like the Super Shotgun while also wielding a variety of new bone-chewing weapons, including the versatile Shield Saw. Players will stand and fight on the demon-infested battlefields in the vicious, grounded combat the original DOOM is famous for. Take flight atop the new fierce Mecha Dragon, stand tall in a massive Atlan mech, and beat demons to a pulp with the newly enhanced glory kill system. Only the Slayer has the power to wield these devastating tools of mayhem.
REIGN IN HELL
Bound to serve as the super weapon of gods and kings, the DOOM Slayer fends off demon hordes as their leader seeks to destroy the Slayer and become the only one that is feared. Witness the creation of a legend as the Slayer takes on all of Hell and turns the tide of the war.
DISCOVER UNKNOWN REALMS
In his quest to crush the legions of Hell, the Slayer must take the fight to never-before-seen realms. Mystery, challenges, and rewards lurk in every shadow of ruined castles, epic battlefields, dark forests, ancient hellscapes, and worlds beyond. Armed with the viciously powerful Shield Saw, cut through a dark world of menace and secrets in id’s largest and most expansive levels to date.
https://eulas.bethesda.net/doom-the-dark-ages
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