I Was Not Prepared for Doom to Have So Much Lore

The most impenetrable game narrative of 2025

Doom: The Dark Ages has tons of scenes like this in it full of new characters, but they just get in the way of the fun. PC screenshot captured by the author.

I’ve been playing this week’s new video game release Doom: The Dark Ages, and so far I’m in love with both its mechanics and its graphics technology. Any time a story moment graces my monitor’s pixels, it all falls apart. My brain starts to shut itself down as my attention span runs in horror looking for literally anything else to think about. Rather than getting wrapped up in the plot and the excellent character animation, I’m left feeling embarrassed for the creative team.

The Doom franchise isn’t known for its story. The first several installments are different clever takes on the same simple idea of “evil corporation accidentally teleports demons onto the planet Mars, and you’re a dude that has to fight them.”

Not content to just keep doing that over and over again, this most recent trilogy of games tries to have an actual story. However, the more of this new narrative that the developers at iD Software reveal to me, the less interested I become.

The 2016 soft reboot of Doom once again took a crack at that demons on Mars template, but with some little bits of intrigue out at the edges. You were no longer just some normal soldier guy, but instead a weird and possibly ancient dude that came out a mysterious…