Upcoming Games Include More Xbox Sequels - and a Medieval 'Doom' (polygon.com) 32
Announced during Microsoft's Xbox Games Showcase, Doom: The Dark Ages is id Software's next foray back into hell. [Also available for PS5 and PC.] Doom: The Dark Ages is a medieval spin on the Doom franchise, taking the Doom Slayer back to the beginning. It's coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one, sometime in 2025.
Microsoft's first trailer for Doom: The Dark Ages shows the frenetic, precision gameplay we've come to expect from the franchise — there's a lot of blasting and shooting and a chainsaw. Oh, and the Doom Slayer can ride a dragon?
"Before he became a hero he was the super weapon of gods and kings," says the trailer (which showcases the game's crazy-good graphics...) The 2020 game Doom Eternal sold 3 million copies in its first month, according to Polygon, with its game director telling the site in 2021 that "our hero is somewhat timeless — I mean, literally, he's immortal. So we could tell all kinds of stories..."
Other upcoming Xbox games were revealed too. Engadget is excited about the reboot of the first-person shooter Perfect Dark (first released in 2000, but now set in the near future). There's also Gears of War: E-Day, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, State of Decay 3, and Assassin's Creed Shadows, according to Xbox.com — plus "the announcement of three new Xbox Series X|S console options." [Engadget notes it's the first time Microsoft has offered a cheaper all-digital Xbox Series X with no disc drive.] "And on top of all that, we also brought the gameplay reveal of a brand-new Call of Duty game with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6."
Meanwhile, Friday's Summer Game Fest 2024 featured Star Wars Outlaws footage (which according to GamesRadar takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, featuring not just card games with Lando Calrissian but also Jabba the Hutt and a frozen Han Solo.) Engadget covered all the announcements from Game Fest, including the upcoming game Mixtape, which Engadget calls a "reality-bending adventure" with "a killer '80s soundtrack" about three cusp-of-adulthood teenagers who "Skate. Party. Avoid the law. Make out. Sneak out. Hang out..." for Xbox/PS5/PC.
Microsoft's first trailer for Doom: The Dark Ages shows the frenetic, precision gameplay we've come to expect from the franchise — there's a lot of blasting and shooting and a chainsaw. Oh, and the Doom Slayer can ride a dragon?
"Before he became a hero he was the super weapon of gods and kings," says the trailer (which showcases the game's crazy-good graphics...) The 2020 game Doom Eternal sold 3 million copies in its first month, according to Polygon, with its game director telling the site in 2021 that "our hero is somewhat timeless — I mean, literally, he's immortal. So we could tell all kinds of stories..."
Other upcoming Xbox games were revealed too. Engadget is excited about the reboot of the first-person shooter Perfect Dark (first released in 2000, but now set in the near future). There's also Gears of War: E-Day, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, State of Decay 3, and Assassin's Creed Shadows, according to Xbox.com — plus "the announcement of three new Xbox Series X|S console options." [Engadget notes it's the first time Microsoft has offered a cheaper all-digital Xbox Series X with no disc drive.] "And on top of all that, we also brought the gameplay reveal of a brand-new Call of Duty game with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6."
Meanwhile, Friday's Summer Game Fest 2024 featured Star Wars Outlaws footage (which according to GamesRadar takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, featuring not just card games with Lando Calrissian but also Jabba the Hutt and a frozen Han Solo.) Engadget covered all the announcements from Game Fest, including the upcoming game Mixtape, which Engadget calls a "reality-bending adventure" with "a killer '80s soundtrack" about three cusp-of-adulthood teenagers who "Skate. Party. Avoid the law. Make out. Sneak out. Hang out..." for Xbox/PS5/PC.
Medieval Doom? (Score:2, Insightful)
We had that, it was called Quake
Re:Medieval Doom? (Score:4, Informative)
Wasn't it called Hexen or something like that?
I'm not a fps player but I recall my friend running around in a doom/quake style game with a mace firing magic blasts.
Re:Medieval Doom? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. Hexen.
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Heretic had the egg that you could throw to turn an enemy into a chicken. You could also type "cockadoodledoo" as a cheat to turn yourself into a chicken.
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I thought it was Heretic.
Hexen (Score:4, Informative)
Hexen, then Heretic. Holy cow that game was fun, though it was really just Quake as you had a magic staff that shot fireballs at your enemies.
Re:Hexen (Score:5, Informative)
Other way around: Heretic, then Hexen. Heretic was a "Doom 1.5" - based on the Doom engine, but with enhancements including Doom II-like features.
Re:Hexen (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. To make things a bit more confusing, the numbering went like this:
Heretic -> Hexen -> Hexen II -> Heretic II
Heretic was essentially just Doom in a fantasy setting. I didn't find it too convincing or as enjoyable as plain old Doom.
Hexen added fantasy game elements like puzzles and quests that involved finding and collecting quest items and traveling back and forth between maps. Now this game had atmosphere! In fact, it was my favorite of the games that used used the original Doom/Doom2 engine. It even incorporated a scripting language that allowed the user to make really unique custom functionality in their own maps.
Hexen II was based on the Quake engine. It was graphically very impressive and had a plenty of atmosphere but was not particularly fun to play. More straightforward bash-em-all aggression than the puzzle/quest-based original Hexen.
Heretic II was 3rd person 3D. Never played it much, so can't comment.
But ID Software already tried to make a "medieval Doom" decades ago...it was called Quake. Or that's what it was supposed to be. In their early marketing pitches, what they described sounded like mixture of Doom and MORPG. Dark fantasy and deals with demons. Only it didn't turn out that way. Yes, you got castles and fantasy monsters...but then you would shoot them with MODERN weaponry, just like in Doom. Nobody is sure what happened here but it seems obvious that this was NOT their original vision. Possibly they just ran out of money or time. Or possibly it was due to massive online backlash the new game was getting from die-hard Doom fans, "I won't be buying it if doesn't have SHOTGUNS in it!" Or possibly both, or something else. But Quake that emerged was something VERY different from what we were originally teased with.
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The #1 thing I remember about Quake's early advertisements was the lightning hammer. It did appear in one of the expansions, but overall, it should have been in the original game.
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Heretic - Doom 1.5 had the killer feature in this case: the ability to look up. The first FPS to allow you to look up and down. It was mind blowing.
Marathon (Score:2)
Technically the first FPS that let you look up was Marathon, but it was only released a few days before Heretic. But, you know, pedantry and all :)
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Technically, Heretic was the one that used the Doom engine. Hexen and Hexen 2 used the Quake engine, and Heretic 2, AFAIK, used something completely different.
Heretic was pretty close to Doom, with an inventory of usable power-ups. Hexen was more of running around, nudging buttons and pulling switches. Hexen 2 was more like the style of Quake with gameplay. Heretic 2 was interesting.
I wish the Raven games had more marketshare, as they were a nice change.
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Wow, that's a hard core detailed description, thanks. As I said, not my genre; I just watched my buddy play for a bit in between rounds of command n conquer genre games we used to play at his place. That was more my thing.
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I don't know why I watched the Doom video... (Score:2)
I did. I was expecting some middle ages related content with Doom on top. Nope, just futuristic Doom combat with nary a villager or village in sight. Huge gothic temple maybe, but middle ages?
Nope.
Would be interesting if they actually played into the concept. I'm sure my son will enjoy it either way...
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The last clip of using a dragon mount to stuff fire down a demon's gullet is probably what may get me to buy that game... eventually. That, and the chainsaw shield. Doom isn't Doom without some form of weapon like that.
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For anyone actually looking for that type of game play, check out Amid Evil, Wrath or Graven. There's a slew of Doom clones and variations out there that are not A-list titles but provide great entertainment for fans of the original genre.
I haven't played Doom in ~ 15-20 years (Score:2)
So I realize I'm old and not the target demographic - but the game I see in that teaser video doesn't look like Doom. Heck, the main character looks more like someone you'd see in Halo.
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So I realize I'm old and not the target demographic - but the game I see in that teaser video doesn't look like Doom. Heck, the main character looks more like someone you'd see in Halo.
I mean, the Doom space marines already look decently close to the Halo Spartans - its not a stretch.
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> Heck, the main character looks more like someone you'd see in Halo.
It's the other way around. What you have seen in Halo looks like something you've seen in Doom, the original one.
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You've forgotten a lot in 15-20 years. The Doomguy has always looked like this, down to the original Doom cover art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. The helmet, upper body armour, exposed forearms, differently covered stomach, gauntlets, etc, all in a shade of green has been there since the start. You didn't even see Doomguy without a helmet until the 3rd game in.
These concepts were copied by Halo, including the concept of never taking off the helmet. Except Paramount+, they shat on that concept with the
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Oh, yeah, you're right - I was completely forgetting about the cover art and such. I was more just remembering how, as you're playing, you always see his (your?) un-helmeted face down in the middle of the status bar.
https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/S... [fandom.com]
But I stand corrected.
I'll probably lose the card games (Score:2)
gay (Score:1)
and ghey
You missed the big reveal... (Score:2)
So there's a blurb from summer games fest and somehow it leaves out Civilization 7?
Slop (Score:2)
More triple-A console port slop. I played both of the new Doom games and didn't enjoy them. I have gotten into speedrunning the original Doom games however, check out the tool [sourceforge.net] I wrote. The originals are just so much fun. I don't think anybody asked for Bethesda to shoehorn this much unnecessary story into Doom and make 1-dimensional levels.