The Dark Ages Controls Are Designed to Not Be a Button-Smasher Like Eternal

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The Dark Ages Controls Are Designed to Not Be a Button-Smasher Like Eternal

If you’ve ever played Doom Eternal, you know the finger gymnastics required to survive its ****** hordes. Between weapon swapping, dashing, flame belching, and glory killing—often within milliseconds—it sometimes felt like you needed extra fingers.

But now, with Doom: The Dark Ages mere days away (early access starting later today for Premium Edition owners), id Software has completely reimagined how players interact with the Slayer’s arsenal.

Instead of spreading abilities across every button on your controller, the team has built a more intuitive system around three core mechanics that work together harmoniously. It’s a bold departure that might just make this medieval hellscape more accessible without sacrificing the depth that made Eternal so rewarding.

How Doom: The Dark Ages discards the idea of button-mashing

The most significant change in Doom: The Dark Ages is how id Software has consolidated multiple actions under a single button. According to director Hugo Martin in a recent

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interview:

Yeah, ’cause it’s adding depth. There’s a lot of depth in Eternal, but there’s also a lot of buttons to press. So rather than spreading out, we kind of stacked it. So it’s a more streamlined, ergonomic control scheme.

This approach means fewer buttons to remember but just as many tactical options. Rather than having separate commands for different defensive or offensive maneuvers, the game contextually determines what you need based on the situation.

Martin elaborates:

It’s all about these three primary actions you perform, which are the shield, the melee, and the guns. There’s a synergy amongst those. We’re encouraging you to use them, to use those attacks in combination with each other.

The shield exemplifies this brilliantly. With a single button, you can block incoming attacks, parry projectiles, bash enemies, or throw it Captain America-style to decapitate demons. In Eternal, these might have been four separate commands. Now they’re all contextually triggered through one intuitive control.

This streamlining actually enhances the power fantasy. By making controls more intuitive, you spend less time remembering button combinations and more time feeling like an unstoppable ******-slaying tank. It’s a design philosophy that prioritizes player experience over mechanical complexity.

Finding the sweet spot between accessibility and depth

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The changes to The Dark Ages’ control scheme reflect a broader philosophy about game design. Martin touched on this balance in the same interview:

It’s that sweet spot… The game is asking you to do what you want to do, and doing the right thing is intuitive and it’s fun. That’s the key. When we watch you guys play, right now, it’s just catching those little edge cases, those cracks in the fun zone, where people are slipping.

Instead of the aerial acrobatics of Eternal, The Dark Ages plants you firmly in the dirt—a medieval wrecking ball that crushes demons through brute force rather than acrobatics.

The shield charge gives you that rush of closing distance without fumbling for the Super Shotgun, and it works with every weapon in your arsenal. Melee attacks now function as a precious currency—spend three powerful strikes, then earn them back through aggressive gunplay. It’s not simpler—it’s smarter.

id Software has somehow preserved the trademark speed without relying on double jumps or dashes. Between the shield bash and the throwable death disc, you’re still a blur of violence across the battlefield.

They didn’t dumb down their formula—no, they’ve distilled it to its purest form, giving newcomers a fighting chance while veterans discover entirely new ways to paint Hell’s walls red.

Have you had the chance to play Doom: The Dark Ages yet? Please let us know in the comments if you find the new control scheme more intuitive than Eternal‘s button-mashing.

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