There's a lot of hype surrounding Doom: The Dark Ages, especially since the release date was announced, and we were treated to more ?footage recently. Evidently, id Software continues to move?? forward with the franchise. Though, where's the harm in holding onto the past?

As I've proven time and time again, Doom will never cease to be relevant so long as people keep modding it. This time, we're looking at a blend of old and new, as ModDB user duskredy brings us Darkfall, a mod for Doom 2 that adds in the weapons from The Dark Ages.

Currently in Early Access, it aims to seamlessly mar??ry the two together. We still get the overall visuals of classic Doom, but the modder has incorporated the weapons from the upcoming game in an attempt to "match the official gameplay closely."

Yes, the Shield Saw appears to be present

Obviously, Darkfall can only do so much to match the energy and spirit of Doom: The Dark Ages, seeing as the actual game isn't out yet. As such, the mod is proba??bly r??elying heavily on the trailers we've been getting, which is still something.

It's nice to see the Shield Saw has made it into Doom 2, as well. This was one of the stand-out items (for me, at least) when we first got a glimpse. It must have made something of an impact, because another modder added the shield to Doom back in June of last year.

If you haven't been keeping up, The Dark Ages is due to release on May 15 and will be coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5. And yes, if you are wondering, it will be available on Game Pass from day one. It's also going to be a prequel. Whether it will equal (or surpass) the success of the 2016 reboot and 2020's Eternal remains to be seen at this stage.

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In the first big game showcase of 2025, Microsoft kicked things off with the Xbox Developer's Direct Show case highlighting four AAA titles all set to release this year. Let's take? a look at all four games that w?ere part of the January 2025 Xbox Developer Direct showcase.

Ninja Gaiden 4

Xbox kicked things off with the reveal of the return of Raiden in Ninja Gaiden 4, being developed in coordination by Team Nin??ja and PlatinumGames. If it feels like it's been a while since we've had a Ninja Gaiden game, well, you're right. A decade, to be exact.

Ninja Gaiden 4 takes place after the events of Ninja Gaiden 3 in an abandoned Tokyo that has been taken over by d??emons. Players will step into th??e role of the longtime series' main character master ninja Ryu Hayabusa as well as a new protagonist, Yakumo.

Team Ninja also revealed Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, an upgraded remaster of the Xbox 360 title Ninja Gaiden 2 rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox ?Series X|S, and Ninja Gaiden 4 will be released on the same p??latforms in Fall 2025 as well as be available on on Day One on Game Pass.

South of Midnight

Next up, Compulsion Games showed off more of the story from the upcoming action-adventure title South of Midnight from the creators of We Happy Few. A hurricane rips through the town of Prospero, whisking away the main ch??aracter Hazel, and pulling her into a Southern Gothic world where reality and fantasy connect and ancient folklore creatures emerge.

We also got a release date for South of Midnight, and the third-person adventure title is now set to release on April 8, 202,5 on PC, Xbox Ser?ies X|S, ??and Day One on Game Pass.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

This debut title from developer Sandfall Interactive looks great. The third game highlighted in the showcase was the upcoming RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, featuring turn-based combat mixed with real-time mechanics. Players face off against the Paintress in a Belle Epoque-inspired fantasy world hosting an expans??ive world, and lots of secrets and side quests. Revealed in the showcase, players will be able to set up and customize their own camp where they can reinforce weapons, bond with Expedition teammates, and plan their next course of action.

We also got the release date for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 which will releas??e on April 24, 2025, on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It too, will also be ava??ilable on Day One on Game Pass.

Doom: The Dark Ages

Microsoft wrapped things up with Doom: The Dark Ages, showing off its fast-paced brutal gameplay with tons of bone-shattering and decapitating weapons. The showcase highlighted the open-world aspects of the medieval-themed fight agai??nst the forces of Hell as well as a handful of the arsenal of weapons players can wreak havoc with. We also got a look at two new badass tools we can use in the fight against Hell: a flying mecha dragon and a colossal Atlas mech.

Doom: The Dark Ages is set to release on May 15, 2025, on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbo?x Series X|S. It will also be available on Day One on Game Pass.

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During today's Xbox Developer Direct, Microsoft and developer id Software showcased the fast-paced and action-packed gameplay of the upcoming Doom: The Dark Ages. It was also announced that Doom: The Dark Ages has locked down a release date of May 15, 2025.

Doom: The Dark Ages serves as a prequel to 2016's Doom and Doom Eternal, and tells the origin story of the Doom Slayer's rage. Set in medieval times, players jump into the role of the Doom Slayer, the ultimate super weapon of Gods and Kings to fight, tasked with fighting the forces of hell in a dark and sinister medieval war. Despite being a prequel, Doom: The Dark Ages will also be a perfect entry point for players n??ew to the series.

According to id Software, Doom: The Dark Ages will feature open-world areas and massive boss fights as players progress through the story while gaining access to a plethora of new badass devastating weapons like the Shield Saw which not only lets players block proje?ctiles but gives them the opportunity to hurl it at enemies like a deadly boomerang and even pull of well-timed parries to devastate attacking demons.

We also got a look at two cool new tools of war against the forces of hell: the Mecha Dragon and a massive Atlan mech. The first is a fire-breathing beast that allows you to take to the skies and rain hellfire on flying demons and enemies below. The colossal Atlan mech is the side of a building and allows you to take on the largest titan demons in style. id Software also pointed out that both tools weren't gimmicky one-off additions to Doom: The Dark Ages, but rather full-fledged features that have their? own?? extensive uses throughout.

Doom: The Dark Ages i?s set to release on PC, Xbox ??Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 on May 15, 2025.

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The Xbox Developer Direct event is a chance for Microsoft to showcase some of its first-party games. Last year, we got to see the likes of Avowed, Hellblade 2, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Given that Microsoft owns some of the?? biggest franchises in gaming, there's usually a little bit of hype around it. This year is unlikely to be an exception, with the 2025 showcase kicking off in just a few hours (at the time of writing). It's scheduled to go ahead at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK.

If you want to check out Xbox Developer Direct, there are plenty of ways you can do this. For example, if you're on YouTube, you can go to either the official Xbox or Bethesda channels. If Twitch is more your style, again, you can either favor Xbox or Bethesda. There's also the ASL version of the Xbox Twitch channel as well.

Don't fancy either of those websites, well, the event is also being streamed over on Facebook, as well as on Steam. It's even ??coming to th??e Bilibili platform, if you're watching from China. Basically, you won't be stuck for places to check it out.

What can we expect from Xbox Developer Direct 2025?

As mentioned above, Developer_Direct (as it's typically stylized) promises to show off games that are coming up. According to a recent post on Xbox Wire, we'll be getting insights into Compulsion's third-person action game South of Midnight and Sandfall Interactive's RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

However, I'd wager the one that many will be looking forward to the most is Doom: The Dark Ages, the third entry in the reboot of id Software's legendary franchise. A release date for the new Doom game has already been leaked ahead of the showcase, with it possibly coming in May. But we'll know in due time how accurate this information ??was.

Additionally, Xbox is planning to reve??al details about a mysterious fourth game. One can only speculate on what this will be. I'd wager you have your own theories. Again, all in good time.

Xbox Developer Direct will be airing in English. However, the event will support live captions for other languages, includi??ng:

Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Czech, French, Canadian French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese, ??Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Castilian Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese

Do note that some of the languages listed above may not be available at the time of the ??broadcast going live. However, Xbox says it will add them to YouTube ?"at the earliest opportunity."

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Doom: The Dark Ages represents the third installment since the reboot of the iconic series back in 2016. I know, I know. Game #3 can be a tricky one to pull off. However, both Doom and Doom Eternal were pretty stonkin' shooters, breathing new life into id Software's classics while maintaining the o??riginal spirit.

Now, we know the new game is coming in 2025, at least according to the release info on Steam, but we have yet to have a full date. However, according to a recent leak, we could be seeing Doom: The Dark Ages melting our collective faces off come May 15.

The information has been shared by user Alexzan over on Resetera (also reported by Eurogamer), which comes from the French website Gamekult. The words used in the original article say the game "will decimate the infernal legions on May 15, 2025" (as translated Google).

Déchirez et déchirez!

It should be pointed out that the leaked release date, as noted by Gamekult, has since been taken down, but the screenshot Alexzan took remains. As such, we should temper expectations on what we've been presented with. Ho??wever, it is interesting to note that the Doom reboot did launch in May of 2016, while Eternal was released in March of its respective year.

Also, this leaked information comes just one day before the Xbox Developer Direct showcase. The Microsoft-led event is set to take place tomorrow, January 23, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT. We also do know that of the games being featured, Doom: The Dark Ages will be one of them.

Does this mean Bethesda/id Software will officially tell us when we can expect it? It's a poss??ibility. I??t also seems possible that Gamekult could be correct about the leaked information, whether it was intended or not. Sure enough, we'll know within the next 24 hours or so.

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From speedrunning to interesting mods to porting the games in unusual ways, Doom persists because it transcends the pixelated world built by its original developers. Now that The Dark Ages has been announced, id Software's?? iconic series is o?nce again in the public eye.

Although, it never really stopped being part of the wider gaming conversation. As a series, Doom has not only survived against an ever-changing industry, but has stayed relevant and continues to be successful??. Sure, there was a period where it felt like it may not ever make a glorious comeback, but it's stuck around because somebody needs to keep the demons of hell at bay.

With the new game on the horizon, I thought it was time to remind ourselves just where it all began. This brief history of Doom aims to reflect on the ?early days and how it's managed to remain impactful after three decades. And for once, I will make sure I don't talk about how old all this makes me feel (this sentence notwithstanding, of course).

The beginning of an era

Let me say this first to just get it out the way: the original Doom was not the first ever FPS to be developed and released. That title doesn't even go to Wolfenstein 3D, which came out the year before and was also created by id Software. You need to go way further back than the 90s. According to Guinness World Records, the first ever first-person shooter was Maze War, which came out in 1973. Much of what came during this period has largely been pushed to the wayside thanks to time, but it's a fascinating read if you're ever in the mo??od for a gaming history lesson.

The genre has only been growing ever since those heady days, but it was the original Doom (and, to some extent, Wolfenstein) that popularized 3D gaming, especially in the guise of a newfangled thing called an "FPS". IGN referred to the 1993 release as the "father" of the modern shooter, noting its fast-paced action and mindless violence, which would eventually catch the attention of fans and the media (see also: Mortal Kombat).

A sequel �Doom 2: Hell on Earth �was released in 1994, which kept much of its predecessor's aesthetics and mechanics, but added in new monsters and weapons, including the now-legendary Super Shotgun. An expansion called Master Levels was released in 1995, as was an updated version of the first game called Ultimate Doom.

While the two main entries alone solidified their place in PC gaming history, it was arguably the 1993 OG that had the most impact. Since then, these classics have been ported across many platforms over multiple generations, which also includes some pretty gnarly ports of the original Doom. As such, getting hold of a copy of the old Doom game??s is not exactly hard. Accessibility is probably one of the reasons we're still talking about these retro titles to? this day.

That wobbly bit in the middle

Had Doom stopped in the mid-1990s, with two critically acclaimed releases under its belt, it would still have left its mark on the industry, given how influential it's been. It led to the evolution of the first-person shooter, which seemed to tie in nicely with advances in gaming technology. Without it, we probably wouldn't have Quake (another banger from id Software), which implemented full 3D models, Half-Life, which changed the way FPS narratives were told, or Unreal, which brought about visuals that were seen as unprec??edente?d at the time.

But Doom carried on. In 1997, a Nintendo 64 game was released. Because it was locked to a single console, it didn't have as wide an impact as its predecessors at the time. It has, however, gone down as something of a cult hit. It also wasn't developed by id �instead being helmed by Midway, which was also responsible for bringing Quake to the N64 �but it wasn't a port, either. Instead, it was its own standalone release wi??th a new story that aimed to carry the baton for the original entr??ies.

Then things went quiet for a few years, until Doom 3 launched in 2004. Now, technically Final Doom (released in 1996) was the third ma?in installment, but you can class that as part of the first era of the series. I do, at least. Also, it was developed by the now-defunct Tea??mTNT. So for argument's sake, we'll say the third game was the early 2000s one.

Things had moved on in the FPS genre at this point. Half-Life 2 was yet to come out, but Halo had been kicking about the place for a few years and was something of a game-changer. As such, Doom 3 had to be pretty special to stand out. And stand out it did, but maybe not to everyone's tastes, for it swapped out the high-octane action for something more horror-based (though it still had action). Maybe not everyone liked this direction the series had gone in (personally, I did), but it kept the Doom name in the limelight. At least for a little while. It also made use of the then-new id Tech 4 engine, so it had some prett??y advanced vi?suals for the time.

The great comeback

Look, for the sake of brevity, I'm skipping a few details here. In the interim before the big reboot, we got Doom Resurrection �which was an attempt to turn the franchise into a survival horror �as well as a couple of Doom RPGs (yes, seriously). But outside these, there wasn't a lot going on until Doom 2016 made an appearance.

Many of you are probably aware of this already, but for those who aren't, we very nearly got a Call of Duty-style Doom game at one point. During the development of a fourth installment in the mid-2000s, parent company Zeni?max pulled the plug and instead asked the studio to do a reboot of the series. And that was what we got in the end. You can see early footage from the cancelled project below.

Doom 2016 was such a success because it was a return to those glory days of the 90s when it was all about the insane action, the brutal violence, and the sheer chaotic spectacle of it all. Sure, it was visually on par with the modern era, but it retained a lot of that fast-paced shooting that many of us?? grew up with thanks to the classics. It was also nice t??o play something where you felt like the most dangerous one among a horde of bloodthirsty monsters. Power fantasies, man.

Doom Eternal came in 2020, right before much of the world went into lockdown I hasten to add, and was as well-received as the previous game. Having recently replayed it myself, I think Eternal is great but has a number of flaws that stop it from being on the same pedestal as the 2016 reboot (first-person platforming, anyone?). Whatever your thoughts, Doom was truly back, and we now know it's ??not going away any time soon.

And here we are

I'll admit, I don't quite know how to feel about The Dark Ages. On the one hand, i??t's a new entry in the continued success of one of gaming's most influential series. On the other, a third installment can be tricky to pull off, retaining what made the previous entries special while keeping things fresh. Generally, I like to think I'm keen ?to try it out when it releases next year.

But it represents one more chapter in the Doom saga, a timeline that stretches back t??o the mid-1990s, when fresh-faced developers like John Carmack and John Romero were cutting their teeth in a relatively new industry. Not many other franchises can say they can comfortably keep the lights on for a solid 30+ years. Of course?, id Software is not the studio it was back in the day, with people departing and new teams forming, but it counts itself as one of the big developers.

But the fact is, the story of Doom is one that will live on for a very long time. Who knows for how long, really? But there's a reason why the name crops up in lists of the most influential or most impactful FPS games of all time. That goes for both the clas?sics and the modern reboot. Both o??ld and new are typically amongst some of the best in the business, and that's not an easy feat.

Many of us grew up playing the earlier games, so to see Doom still kic??king it decades later is like a parent watching with pride as their child makes it in the big, wide world. When some young programmers and designers from Louisiana got together to start making games, there's no way any of them could possibly have visualized just how ?far that ambition would take them.

I don't want to get too sentimental or hero worship-y about all this, because it is just a game, after all. Had Doom never come to fruition, would another name have emerged and we'd be talking about that instead? We'll never know, but this is the timeline we're living in and id Software is a studio that will forever be associated with thrusting the first-person shooter into the mainstream. Here's hoping The Dark Ages can continue the legacy.

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Now that we've all seen the trailer for The Dark Ages, the brand-new Doom game that will be taking us back to medieval times, there was at least one ?thing that stood out for me: the Shield Saw. The teaser showed all the usual chaos and demon-slaying we know and love about the series, but the saw-looking shield in the? Slayer's possession is next-level.

Well, if you're intrigued about getting to try it out on the denizens of hell, your chance has already arrived. As spotted by PC Gamer, a modder has already added the "Shield Saw" seen in the Dark Ages trailer into the original Doom.

The mod comes from user Craneo, in which they say they just "kinda ended up trying to make actual decorate [sic] for it." Soon after, they made the .WAD file available, which you can download from Google Drive here.

A slice of violence

You can check out the brief footage above before you decide to download the mod. Essentially, it seems to replace the classic chainsaw from the OG in favor of? the newfangled Shield Sa?w.

We get to see the Doom Slayer hacking a??way at Zombies and Imps as per, but the real USP comes when they throw it at oncoming enemies. Upon contact, it basically turns monsters into a fine paste, so it's a pre?tty beefy weapon.

It's also just one of countless examples of how quickly the modding community can move. Remember, the teaser for the new Doom only went live a couple of d?ays ago, and Craneo's mod was rel?eased less than 24 hours later. Efficient, I'd say.

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As part of the Xbox Games Showcase, Bethesda and id Software have pulled back the curtain on the next game in the storied Doom series. True to rumors, Doom: The Dark Ages is coming in 2025.

The trailer doesn’t show much in terms of narrative but suggests it takes place before Doomguy became a hero. More accurately, judging by the tech on display and how it relates to Doom Eternal, it looks like it will take place during Doomguy’s time as a Sentinel. This happens after Doom 64, and seemingly in ??an alternate universe/timeline from the original �0s games.

That makes it somewhat predictable what the story will be. The worlds of the Sentinels will be invaded by Hell. Doomguy will impress the Sentinels with his sheer rage and hatred for demons. He’ll probably lead the Night Sentinels into Hell. The priests will betray them to the Makyrs. Doomguy will wind up entombed and on ice until the start of Doom (2016).

Not important, I guess. The gameplay shows off a lot of locations on Sentinel worlds like Argent D’nur. Doomguy has a shield that is also a sawblade and a mix of weapons both familiar and more primitive. Many of the enemies are famil?iar.

I’m down. I absolutely loved Doom Eternal. It has some of the most intense combat I’ve experienced in an FPS. While the narrative they have set up isn’t exactly one I’m very interested in, I’m always down for more of the gameplay. I mean, it looks like we'll be able to finally pilot one of those big robot suits that were always hanging around in Doom Eternal.

Doom: The Dark Ages is coming to Xbox Series X|S, PS5,? a??nd PC sometime in 2025.

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