In the age of games as a service, a game like Doom: The Dark Ages is a strong signal for the first-person shooter genre, says Kevin
The trailer premiere forDoom: The Dark Agesis just pure heavy metal.
When the video played at theXbox showcaseI found myself involuntarily nodding my head to the beat of the electric guitar while the Doom Slayer on screen pulverized demons with his new buzzsaw shield.
If you missed it, be sure to catch up on these two brute minutes here:
But the new Doom prequel not only looks insanely cool, it also sends a signal. A signal that was long overdue in the world of AAA first-person shooters: single player is not dead!
The hunt for the CoD killer
For years, the trend in the shooter sector in particular has clearly been moving towards the service concept.Classic solo campaigns are increasinglydisappearing from the scene, while everything seems to revolve around new seasons, battle passes, events, updates and the like.
Big publishers are trying with all their might to find the formula for the next Escape from Tarkov, a new Counter-Strike or the big CoD killer. Handcrafted stories for solo players fall by the wayside.
In the meantime, the indie scene has almost completely taken over the genre of single-player shooters, as you can see from gems like Selaco or Prodeus!
In contrast, the AAA sector is dominated by deafening cricket chirping. And if someone does dare to try something creative like Immortals of Aveum, it often ends in financial disaster
We’re still here!
Doom: The Dark Ages is therefore not just heavy metal, but a glimmer of hope on the horizon. It’s proof that big companies like Microsoft are still willing to throw experienced (and expensive!) studios like id Software at pure single-player projects that aren’t purely focused onthe profit machine of skin stores, DLCs and battle passes
Doom: The Dark Ages is Morpheus in The Matrix, so to speak, who stands militantly before the assembled Zion and shouts: “We’re still here!”
It’s wonderful that first-person shooters like this can and may still exist today. Shooters that I can play at my own pace – without constant FOMO mechanics, because in four hours the next Daily Challenge will pop up or the selection in the Item Shop will rotate.
I don’t know much about Doom: The Dark Ages yet, except that it’s a prequel about the prehistory of the Doom Slayer.
But one thing is certain for me: Here I don’t have to worry about SBMM, about the server’s tick rate or about annoying cheaters ruining my round.
It’s just me, a bunch of demons and a rattling circular saw shield. And sometimes that’s just enough
