DOOM The Dark Ages was announced last week during the Xbox Games Showcase event and quickly became one of the game’s biggest and most anticipated games. A presentation video shared by id Software, developer of the franchise currently owned by Bethesda (and this Microsoft), It left us pleasantly surprised.

The most important thing about game presentation videos is not so much what they show, but that which is not so obvious, but which we can clarify by doing an in-depth analysis. This requires a real knowledge of a particular game or franchise and a good critical eye that allows us to draw clear and well-founded conclusions from the content in front of us.

As our regular readers know, DOOM is one of my favorite games and I can proudly say that I know quite a bit about the franchise, having been a fan since it debuted on PC in the early 90s. Based on my passion for the franchise and my technical knowledge in the world of video games, I thoroughly analyzed the trailer for DOOM The Dark Ages and I pulled out five important keys that I want to share with you today.

1.- DOOM The Dark Ages completely changes the gameplay

And it will undoubtedly be one of the changes that will generate the most debate. DOOM The Dark Ages maintains its commitment to frenetic action, that’s for sure, but it also brings new elements that enrich it and move away from what we saw in DOOM Eternal. This van revolved around those known as “fame kills” which were execution moves that we could perform when we dealt enough damage to our enemies.

These execution moves were important because they gave us a moment of respite and because they allowed us to get ammo, healing and even armor pieces if the executed enemy were burning. Knowing how to coordinate and time these executions was critical to progressing the game and keeping our health and ammo levels up.

We didn’t see any execution moves in the DOOM The Dark Ages trailer, which means this installment could go back to the classic system of first aid kits and ammo scattered around the map, which was the concept of the original DOOM. On the other hand, the inclusion of the shield gives the gameplay a more defensive feel, and the same can be said for the mount that appears in the video, a type of dragon that adds a bit of variety to the development.

2.- Technically, it represents a huge leap compared to previous deliveries

DOOM The Dark Ages will be an exclusive game for the current generation of consoles, which will allow us to overcome the limits that DOOM Eternal had to assume in order to reach PS4 and Xbox One, where to have significantly improved geometry which significantly increases the level of detail of both the modeling of enemies and objects, as well as scenarios.

The viewing distance has also been greatly improved, and the number of enemies that can appear on the screen at the same time seems to have increased substantially. Light and shadow effectsas well as smoke and particles, they represent a higher level of realism and even dissection has been improved and improved.

I can say with absolute certainty that DOOM The Dark Ages is one of the games that more and better represent a technical leap which represent the console of the current generation, and without having to give up a good level of fluidity, since the trailer also clearly shows that it moves at a speed of 60 frames per second, which is the ideal minimum to play a game like this.

3.- The breadth and dynamics of the scenarios is impressive

And of course it is a consequence of the generational leap. DOOM The Dark Ages was developed as an exclusive title for the current generation of consoles based on much more powerful hardware, both at the CPU and GPU levels. The id Software team had more unified memory available and could take advantage of a high-performance SSD from the start.

It can be seen in the breadth of scenarios. Gone is the corridor and very limited access to scenarios we saw in DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal, now we have much larger maps to roam freely and without the limitations associated with these two supplies.

Transitions when traveling around the map at high speed they are perfect something that would be impossible without SSD-based development, crucial for the graphics engine to be able to stream assets of this level of quality with such large maps without performance issues. We’ve seen this in previous games, Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best examples as it was a cracking and stuttering disaster on PS4 and Xbox One, yet it works like silk with SSD on PS5 and Xbox Series X. S series.

4.- Farewell to the arena-type design: DOOM The Dark Ages is close to the original

Personally, this was one of the things I liked least about the previous DOOM installments. I understand it due to technical limitations Unlike PS4 and Xbox One, the development of the arena type was necessary to offer good fluidity and high graphic quality, but it spoiled the essence of the original DOOM, and the development ended up being too monotonous and unsurprising.

The beauty of the original DOOM was that you could progress at your own pace and that You didn’t know when and where the enemies might come to you. With the sand model and the blood nests, that magic disappeared because you were confined to an area that you couldn’t leave until you killed all the enemies in that particular area, and that happened over and over again. It’s this very approach that kept me from playing DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal again.

With DOOM The Dark Ages, all of this seems to have been forgotten since then we see how the Slayer moves around the maps completely freely while destroying enemies non-stop and without anything stopping him from progressing or forcing him to kill all nearby enemies first. If this is kept in the final version of the game, I think it will be a step in the right direction from id Software.

5.- Looks like it will use ray tracing

I can’t assure you because it’s still very early and I only have one trailer to judge this issue, but there are sequences where you can see the reasoning that They cannot be achieved with classical techniques screen space reflections or with cube maps. In this sense, for example, the reflections that appear on the double-barreled shotgun when the slayer gets it stand out.

As for ray tracing applied to lighting and shadows, I have to say that I don’t see anything that makes me think it could be applied to those two elements of the game as well, but that doesn’t mean we should rule it out entirely. , from the video we saw it does not represent the final state of developmentbut only its stage, which means that there could be changes of greater or lesser importance.

All in all, seeing the technical level that id Software has given to DOOM The Dark Ages, I think it is unlikely that this game will use full ray tracing, and if it does will be limited to PC due to performance, as this technology consumes a lot of resources and this increases depending on the quality and complexity of each given game.