Doom: The Dark Ages Releases New Update for May 2025

Summary

A new update is now available for Doom: The Dark Ages.
The update controversially nerfs the Super Shotgun.
Plasma weapons' ammo capacity increased; Accelerator gives more ammo for Heat Blast kills.

A new balancing update has dropped for Doom: The Dark Ages, adjusting a variety of weapon variables and introducing some minor quality-of-life tweaks as well. Doom: The Dark Ages has seen a variety of balancing updates like this one over the past week, with the development team behind the game eager to perfect the feel of the game's combat flow as soon as possible following the game's official launch.

As was the case with Doom Eternal after it was released back in 2020, the team behind Doom: The Dark Ages have been keeping a close eye on player data and feedback over the first couple of weeks post-launch. Although a few small changes have been delivered to improve the game's balancing across all difficulties, players may have noticed that these tweaks were pushed without the need for them to download any patches via the internet. This is thanks to the "tunables" system implemented in Doom: The Dark Ages, which allows the dev team to update many of the game's difficulty, weapon, and enemy values. These variable adjustments are checked and applied automatically by the game as long as it's connected to the internet.

Doom: The Dark Ages Solves a Time-Worn Weapon Problem

Doom: The Dark Ages posits a unique workaround or tweak to its weapon wheel, enabling players to swap between several weapons fluidly.

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By Jared Stewart

A new batch of tunable updates recently went live for Doom: The Dark Ages, with the official update notes being shared on the official Slayer's Club website. One of the biggest changes made was thanks to an update to player forgiveness mechanics, with lethal enemy attacks made on players from behind now occurring less frequently on higher difficulties where the damage to player slider is set to either 250% or 500%. Killing blows made from outside the field of view has proven to be a persistent issue for players since the game's launch, largely due to Doom: The Dark Ages' considerable enemy density, as well as the fact that reinforcement demons spawning in from behind can be tricky to notice during a heated fight.

A rather controversial change brought in the latest balance update, though, is a nerf to the legendary Super Shotgun. It's not the first gun to be nerfed in Doom: The Dark Ages, and although nothing too major, the Super Shotgun now deals reduced damage to certain enemy types' armor, and also less damage to Hell Knights specifically. On the bright side, both the Plasma Accelerator and Plasma Cycler guns have received a blanket increase to ammo capacity, and the Accelerator now rewards more ammo when players kill demons with its heat blast function.

An issue that caused certain Whiplash attacks to parry incorrectly has also been solved, which stood out as a pretty noticeable inconvenience before. As the developers at id Software continue to work on future balance changes, it's important to keep in mind that the team can't fix any major code or content-related issues via tunables. The team is aware of several commonly reported issues, including a bug affecting Doom: The Dark Ages' Berserker achievement, and is working to resolve these problems in a future downloadable patch.

Doom: The Dark Ages Update Patch Notes

Adjustments to player forgiveness systems to decrease the frequency of "from behind" attacks resulting in death on the highest damage sliders (250% - 500%)
Reduced effectiveness of the Super Shotgun against the Hell Knight and certain enemy armors
Increased the ammo count for both Plasma class weapons
Increased the amount of ammo the player receives from killing demons with the Accelerator Heat Blast
Fixed a bug where parrying some of the Whiplash's attacks was not providing the intended rewards

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