Summary
Doom: The Dark Ageshas released its first full update since launch, making adjustments to the Doomslayer’s dragon, Atlan, and more. While there have already been two hotfixes forDoom: The Dark Ages, mostly centered around bug fixes, id Software is utilizing the feedback it has been taking in from players to tailor the game to their needs.
A prequel to the original 1993Doom,Doom: The Dark Ageslaunched on May 15, placing the Doomslayer in defense of a technologically advanced medieval-style kingdom. Despite some near-release controversy over the physical edition’s massive download requirements, the game has performed quite well among fans, withDoom: The Dark Agesbreaking recordsfor id Software as the biggest launch in the developer’s history, sporting a player base of 3 million within a week of its launch.
Now, with a full three weeks since the game’s release, the development team is poised to address some of the game’s earliest gameplay issues. A big part of this adjustment update has been aimed atDoom: The Dark Ages' dragon, with changes aimed at speeding up the action of dragon-related combat by buffing its autocannon skills. Empowering the autocannon should be easier, as enemies will now only fire Hell Surge projectiles at the beast, and the empowered effect will last for a longer duration. Additionally, firing an empowered autocannon shot after performing a perfect dodge will allow the blast to penetrate enemies' projectile shields.
The dragon isn’t the only combat system that’s getting some big changes. Atlans, the game’s massive, melee-focused mech suits, are being simultaneously buffed and nerfed, as two previously tunable features have now been fully incorporated into gameplay. After a late-May hotfixmadeDoom: The Dark Agesharder, players will now have to struggle a little more to keep up their health while piloting an Atlan, as health drops will disappear more quickly. This will be balanced out by an Atlan combat system adjustment that makes it easier to perform repeated finishers, which the developers hope will expand the combo system and enable more strategic tactics.
Aside from those changes, the remainder of the update notes are dedicated to bug fixes for improving gameplay, visuals, audio, and more. There has been a lot of praise forDoom: The Dark Ages' graphics, and one bug fix should improve them further, eliminating blurry visuals that some players had been experiencing. Other problems that have been fixed include voiced dialogue cutting out at the end of cutscenes, music pausing unexpectedly between levels or dropping out during cutscenes, and subtitles appearing at the wrong time across different language tracks.
Doom: The Dark Ages Update 1 Patch Notes
Improvements and Adjustments
General gameplay balance refinements (some of these were previously Active Tunables that have been removed from that article and committed to the game in Update 1). These are denoted below as: (*PT) for “Previous Tunable”
