With the Xbox showcase coming up in June, several hints toward a new Doom game have popped up, implying that id Software might reveal the next entry in their revitalized Doom series. And now, it looks like we might have a name.
Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson has the scoop. According to him, the new game, which once went by Doom: Year One, will be called Doom: The Dark Ages and is indeed set to be revealed at this year’s summer showcase event, which lines up with what Tom Warren of The Verge hinted at a few weeks ago.
“Last year, I heard of early details of the next entry into the DOOM franchise, which was described to me as a ‘medieval inspired doom world’.” writes Tom Warren. “While that doesn’t necessarily give much information to go on, ‘year zero’, ‘the dark ages’, and ‘medieval inspired’ starts to paint a vivid picture of where the series could be going next. Perhaps we’ll be taking more of an early look at the Doomslayer’s life during the medieval times? A prequel of sorts?”
Henderson’s information actually fits with a few other snippets of information from across the years. id Software’s Hugo Martin, who directed Doom Eternal, talked in a Twitch stream about an idea for a female Doomslayer starring in a medieval Doom game.
In 2019, Hugo Martin also spoke to Shack News where he described Doom: Eternal as “our Evil Dead 2.
” When asked about influences for Doom: Eternal, he said: “This is our Evil Dead 2. That’s what I think,” he said. “2016 was Evil Dead 1, in terms of the video game being like, really really good, and the fans love it. We’d like to think that it’s going to stand the test of time and be around for a couple of years, but when Evil Dead 2 came out, you were like Evil Dead 1, respect, Evil Dead 2 is really Evil Dead, you know? We just feel like this is a great expression of what Doom in the modern age can be.”
This is notable because the third Evil Dead movie, which was actually called The Army of Darkness, took the series backwards in time, dropping protagonist Ash Williams (along with his shotgun and a chainsaw) into a medieval setting. If Doom: Eternal really was id Sofrware’s Evil Dead 2, perhaps Doom: The Dark Ages is going the Army of Darkness route.
