Summary
- Doom: The Dark Ages director Hugo Martin has responded to complaints about the difficulty sliders in the upcoming game, with some calling the title 'Woke Ages.'
- Alongside a standard difficulty setting, fans will be able to tweak things like game speed, enemy aggression, and the ability to make the player and enemies take more or less damage per hit.
- Martin says that while the sliders can make the game much easier, they can also make it much more difficult.
Doom: The Dark Ages director Hugo Martin is responding to ongoing player criticism regarding the game's difficulty level, with some dubbing the upcoming FPS title "Woke Ages." Less than two months from the game's release, Doom: The Dark Ages remains one of the most highly anticipated launches of 2025, with fans of the franchise eager to step back into the shoes of the Doom Slayer.
The eighth main entry in the franchise, Doom: The Dark Ages is a follow-up to the 2020 title Doom Eternal while also narratively serving as a prequel to 2016's Doom. The long-awaited game was properly announced in June 2024, and a release date for Doom: The Dark Ages was leaked in January 2025, with fans quickly speculating where in the timeline the upcoming title would be set and what hard-hitting weapons they could expect to wield. While most in the community are gearing up for Doom's signature fast-paced combat, some have taken to social media to decry the game's difficulty ahead of its May 15 release, calling the new FPS "woke."
Doom: The Dark Ages Could Leave the Next Game with an Impossible Choice
As Doom: The Dark Ages draws closer, there are lingering questions about what lies in store next for the action-packed franchise.
According to a new report from ComicBook.com, director Hugo Martin has plenty to say about the difficulty settings in Doom: The Dark Ages. Early in 2025, it was revealed that The Dark Ages would take a more novel approach to difficulty settings, allowing players to utilize a series of sliders to customize their experience. Alongside a standard difficulty setting, fans will be able to tweak things like game speed, enemy aggression, and the ability to make the player and enemies take more or less damage per hit. Some have called this decision "woke," claiming that it will take away the challenge. "I don’t agree with that," Martin said. "Really, when you think about options like the sliders, the policy was it has to be good both for the white belts and the black belts. You know, if we’re gonna allow you to slow the game down, we have to enable you to speed the game up." The director also explained that the sliders don't only have the ability to make things easier, but they can make the game much more difficult as well.
Doom: The Dark Ages Director Hugo Martin Addresses Concerns Regarding Game’s Difficulty Level
Since the game's announcement, many longtime fans have worried that the upcoming title would be the last entry in Doom's reboot trilogy. In January, however, Martin confirmed that Doom: The Dark Ages would not be the last game in the series, further commenting that he would be happy to work on the franchise for "a long time." 2020's Doom Eternal saw incredible success, pulling in over 100,000 concurrent Steam users on launch day and earning over $450 million in revenue less than a year after its release.
Recent rumors indicate that Doom: The Dark Ages may also be a Nintendo Switch 2 title, though this remains unconfirmed. Those eager to learn more about the upcoming console will want to tune in to a special Nintendo Switch 2 Direct on April 2 to find out more about the games headed to the system at launch.
DOOM: The Dark Ages
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 86 /100 Critics Rec: 95%
- Released
- May 15, 2025
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence
- Developer(s)
- id Software
- Publisher(s)
- Bethesda Softworks
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- FPS, Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
