Doom: The Dark Ages Strategy Makes Hell Knight Fights Way…

Summary

Doom: The Dark Ages introduces new weapons and abilities for satisfying combat.
Players can pacify demons by disarming them, leading to unique and often humorous outcomes.
Destructibility in the game allows players to strategically disable enemy attacks for a more immersive experience.

Arming players with some totally new weapons and abilities, Doom: The Dark Ages offers a satisfying new approach to combat, and one particularly fun strategy allows players to pacify certain demons by literally disarming them. Although players who preordered the premium edition of Doom: The Dark Ages have been able to play the game in early access for a few days now, the game only just saw its official release to the rest of the world, including Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

Doom: The Dark Ages is, of course, packed full of demons both old and new, and the Slayer is loaded up with new weapons and tools that let players rip and tear in new ways. While Doom Eternal was the first game in the series to implement the concept of destructible demons – meaning that monster models will gradually become more degraded the more players shoot chunks out of them – Doom: The Dark Ages takes things a step further and allows players to blast the limbs off of their foes, debilitating enemy attacks similarly to Doom Eternal's weakspot mechanic.

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By Tiago Manuel

Players quickly began taking advantage of this feature to see what happens if a demon runs out of limbs to attack with, and the result is pretty hilarious. A clip shared online by a player known as Edde799 demonstrates this neat trick in Doom: The Dark Ages by blasting the limbs off a Hell Knight, which results in the demon continuing to follow the player around, but being unable to attack. This calls to mind the old "flood buddies" that players could make in Halo: Combat Evolved, where flood combat forms could have their arms removed to make them passive in a similar way. Some players have even posted clips showing entire groups of armless Hell Knights following them around, with some fans trying to collect as many demon buddies as possible in a single level.

Doom: The Dark Ages Demon Destructibility Makes Melee Attacks That Much More Satisfying

Hell Knights aren't the only enemy types that players can pacify though, with other mostly-humanoid demons like the Imp Stalker and Mancubus being destructible in the same way. The Slayer's iconic Super Shotgun seems to be one of the best tools for dismembering demons, but players should take particularly careful aim with it if they're planning to remove only a demon's limbs, as Doom: The Dark Ages' Super Shotgun can and will cause even a Hell Knight to explode in a single shot at a close enough range.

That said, many of the new shield and melee attacks introduced in Doom: The Dark Ages are also capable of breaking demons apart, making the game's level of destructibility feel both visceral and consistent. Crippling an enemy's limbs and weapons is even necessary when taking on some of the game's bigger monster types, further encouraging players to weave melee attacks into the combat flow.

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