What Doom: The Dark Ages Proves For Accessibility
While I’m sure 2025 will offer me tons of surprises, Doom: The Dark Ages was the last game I was truly frothing at the mouth for. I’ll never forget the unique “high-like” feeling I got when I first played Doom 2016. I had never experienced anything like that before. An orchestral massacre waiting for me every five seconds. Exploding my way to and through enemies like they were nothing. In a world filled with demons I was the true menace. Doom 2016 was love at first sight for me.
Doom: Eternal proved to be a much more of a complicated love for me. I hated it for years. Instead of giving me the power fantasy of my dreams; in Eternal you have to earn the power fantasy. I was playing it totally wrong. You can’t just rip and tear like the good ol’ days. You won’t get far into this game if you can’t balance your resources well. I went back to Doom: Eternal in late 2024 and finally fell in love with it. I always knew the design was impeccable, but I just hated the way it forced me to play. But once I got over that hump, I found an amazing video game.
And now we have Doom: The Dark Ages. id Software warned players that The Dark Ages would be a much heavier and tankier game. I’ll keep my full thoughts for an upcoming collaboration video. Instead I’d like to focus on one very special aspect of this game.
One thing that caught my eye during the previews was the extensive accessibility options available to the player. Accessibility is a never-ending debate within the gaming community, and to some extent I get it. There are certain games with enough accessibility options to make them essentially play themselves. It’s like buying a $70 YouTube let’s play of a game.
But this newest Doom title offers enough versatility within its accessibility that I feel like I can have the exact FPS experience I want. Do you want the game to feel more like Eternal? You can increase the speed of everything (enemies, enemy projectiles, you) within the game. You can also lower the amount of resources you get and how much they’re worth. Are you crappy at parrying like me? You can increase the window for parries. Do you want a more Sekiro-style parry window? You can shorten it. Do you want to feel like a god? You can increase the damage you do to enemies and decrease the damage they do to you.
I knew from the previews that I would love this game no matter what. Because if I didn’t like the way it felt right from the start, I could tinker with it to suit my needs. First thing I did was increase the game speed by two notches. I also increased the parry window by one notch because I’m notoriously bad at parries. This allows me to play the game in a way more preferable to me without sacrificing the identity of the game. I’m still dying. I’m still switching weapons on the fly. I’m still ripping and tearing.
Now of course, there’s going to be some people who argue that “if you turn all the sliders down to the easiest setting then the game becomes a cake walk”. To which I’d like to show you a famous tweet from the Doom twitter account:
Don’t like the accessibility options? Don’t use them.
These accessibility options not only allow more people to have fun here, they also increase replay value.
I’m already imagining a second playthrough of this game where I increase the game speed even more and make resources scarcer.
I’m not an accessibility historian so I’m sure something like this has been done before in games. But nonetheless, I’d like to thank id Software for the freedom given to players here and I hope more developers follow example. I will always love the oldschool design philosophy of “Here’s the game, good luck.” But if you’re going to give me difficulty options you might as well make them fairly customizable.
