Coming just a year after the base game, DOOM: The Dark Ages – Revelations is a huge story expansion for Id Software’s latest single-player shooter. However, alongside the six-level campaign, metroidvania-style hub and additional challenges, Id has included a few classic levels as little bonuses, but they’re more than just returns to the past.
In a roundtable interview last week, we asked whether these classic levels attempt to retcon or reframe anything as the DOOM Slayer returns to his classic bouts. These aren’t just returns to the past; there are new voice lines and little story snippets that reference the Slayer’s past as UAC marine Flynn Taggart, with game director Hugo Martin keen to note that nothing has ever been retconned with modern DOOM.
“I hate the word retcon,” Martin said. “Whenever we hear that, I always feel like we’re in trouble.” Martin explained that the lore of DOOM has been kept under lock-and-key with stories being additive to the Slayer’s world instead of trying to reframe the past. This applies to the design of the classic levels as well. Outside of fancier lighting, everything is a 1:1 recreation of what fans know with the levels described as “biblically accurate”.
“Actually, it’s very accurate,” Martin continued. “Frustratingly so, sometimes. I think the ceilings are a little low for the Mancubus here and there. Like, his head is like an inch away from the ceiling which visually looks odd. So, yeah, I mean, we tried to stay as close to the originals as we could.”
Martin explained that everything is “connected to the fiction” with the new Nightmare levels being “somewhat associated with 93’s DOOM, but they’re original”. Martin said: “You’ll see it’s more about—I can say this because you all know the Flynn Taggart story—you know, who was he before he was the Slayer? He was a marine.
“As part of the endgame, you’ll unlock Classic Levels, which are kind of retro doors that you can see throughout the space. Everything is locked behind what we call a Master Key. And so you complete each level, you’re building this Master Key, Once you’ve completed all the levels of base game and beaten all the bosses, the Master Key is complete. And then you could re-traverse through the levels that you played via the hub, and those unlock all new paths. So this isn’t just a rehash of existing spaces with new combat.”
The Classic Levels exist as part of this endgame loop, and they may show a little more insight into the story of the original DOOM, but they won’t change anything about the levels you love or the established canon. This exists outside of the classic levels as well. While the team wouldn’t say whether or not Revelations will be the end of The Dark Ages storyline, Martin was keen to press that Id Software has never retconned anything from any of the games with the new series.
“I would recommend for those that are into the lore and storyline to reread the History of the Sentinels from Doom Eternal,” he continued. “God knows we read it a bajillion times during the making of this so that way no one can say that we’re retconning anything.
“I really, really wanted to be super specific about that, you know. Not that we have before either. There’s been a lot of debate online about some of that stuff, like the, the, the planet of Hebeth versus the Lost city of Hebeth. That’s because we call Habeth the planet and the Lost City is an unnamed city in Hebeth. So there’s some things there that we were wrongfully accused of right now, but yeah, I think it [Revelations] definitely moves the story along.”