Summary
- DOOM: The Dark Ages will focus solely on a single-player campaign to deliver the best experience possible.
- DOOM 2016's multiplayer was overshadowed by its campaign, leading to the decision to exclude multiplayer in the upcoming game.
- The decision to skip multiplayer in DOOM: The Dark Ages will allow for a bigger and more narratively significant campaign.
With the upcoming DOOM: The Dark Ages confirmed to be a purely single-player experience, Creative Director Hugo Martin explains why the team behind the game believes it will be better off without the inclusion of a standalone multiplayer function. The news of DOOM: The Dark Ages' lack of multiplayer features neither surprised nor disappointed the DOOM fanbase all that much, with the multiplayer modes in recent installments attracting very little attention over the years.
DOOM 2016 represented the franchise's glorious return to power almost a decade ago now, and although it redefined what a modern single-player FPS campaign could be, it also came packaged with a largely overlooked multiplayer mode. Despite the vast success of its campaign, DOOM 2016's DLC focused exclusively on its multiplayer content, adding a plethora of new weapons, maps, and playable demons to the mode. The title's multiplayer is centered around a variety of standard game modes such as team deathmatch and king of the hill, but DOOM 2016's sequel, DOOM Eternal, tried something new. DOOM Eternal's Battlemode instead involves one player as the Slayer himself, with the opposing side playing as demons attempting to destroy him.
Doom: The Dark Ages Game Directors Talk 'Stand And Fight' Approach to Combat
In a The Best War Games interview, Doom: The Dark Ages' game directors speak about how the title evolves the franchise while also respecting its roots.
Although DOOM: Eternal's Battlemode is typically viewed as a fun and refreshing take on the multiplayer medium, like its predecessor, the mode never neared the popularity of DOOM Eternal's campaign. Hugo Martin, Creative Director of the modern DOOM games and the upcoming installment, DOOM: The Dark Ages, discussed in an interview with GamesRadar+ why the team decided not to include any kind of multiplayer component for the upcoming title. Martin explained that the decision to forego a multiplayer mode was made right from the start of the game's development, stating that the team "made the decision early to just focus all of our energy on trying to make the best campaign we could."
DOOM: The Dark Ages' Campaign Will Benefit At The Expense of Multiplayer
Martin went on to add that the team had many ideas they wanted to include in DOOM: Eternal, which never saw fruition, partly due to the game's Battlemode inevitably consuming valuable development time and resources. He continued to provide an example of such scrapped content, stating that "with Eternal, we wanted to put mechs in the game." Trailers for DOOM: The Dark Ages have confirmed that the game will finally see the concept of playable mechs fully realized, giving players the chance to pilot the vehicles that could only be found as wrecks in DOOM Eternal.
Martin went on to explain how adding a multiplayer mode to Triple-A games is typically no cakewalk in the present day, stating that "you can't just do a little multiplayer." Multiplayer modes tend to thrive nowadays under the live-service model, a direction that, according to Martin, the team behind DOOM: The Dark Ages consciously wished to avoid. This is likely good news for fans of DOOM's iconic, fast-paced single-player action, with DOOM: The Dark Ages shaping up to feature a huge and more narratively significant campaign that promises to capitalize on everything that makes DOOM so great.
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
