Weight in the Hands
The controls hit your fingers with direct, heavy feedback right from the opening fight. Walking speed is noticeably lower than Eternal. You do not spend your time double-jumping over floating platforms or scrambling across monkey bars. You plant your feet on stone slabs and trade blows face to face. The key presses register clean on mouse and keyboard with zero deadzone slop, and bringing up your guard feels immediate.
That immediate response matters because defense is baked into your basic rhythm now. You are not constantly running away to replenish armor stacks. When a demon swings at your head, your primary answer is to stand firm and check the blow directly. The English interface and voice work keep callouts simple and clear, meaning you can focus completely on the visual tells of incoming attacks without parsing noisy text mid-swing.
The Meat of the Shield Saw
The Shield Saw is the centerpiece of this entire combat loop. Tap the button and you get an instant defensive block with a crisp, generous active window that deflects incoming physical swipes. Hold it or throw it and the motorized teeth bite into demon flesh, tearing through trash mobs and staggering heavy brutes. The contact frames on the blade feel meaty, locking the target in place with solid hitstop that lets you know the hit registered cleanly.
It changes how arena spacing works. In previous games, moving backward was survival. Here, backing up just gets you cornered against castle masonry. You push forward, parry a claw swipe, and saw through the ribcage before the recovery animation on the enemy can reset. My only real gripe is that dense scuffs sometimes crowd your peripheral vision. When three armored enemies bunch up, the wide spin of the saw can obscure the wind-up of a second attacker standing right behind them.
Guns That Kick Like Mules
Traditional firearms still hold down half of your arsenal, led by the reliable Super Shotgun. The spread on the double barrels is wide and unforgiving at range, forcing you to sprint straight into point-blank range before pulling the trigger. When both shells connect, the impact staggers demons backward with immediate knockback that creates breathing room. Swapping between blade throws and buckshot happens without hitching, keeping your inputs responsive even when the screen fills with blood and rubble.
The latest idTech engine keeps performance locked down tight. Frame pacing stayed smooth on my rig during wide-scale courtyard brawls, which is critical when you rely on tight parry timings to survive. Dropped inputs or stutter during an incoming heavy smash would ruin combat like this. id Software tuned things well enough that dodging and blocking remain rock solid even when explosions and blood fill the screen.
Corridors and Clutter
The campaign sticks strictly to single-player action across dark fantasy battlefields, pitting you against hordes of aggressive monsters in ruined fortresses and blasted trenches. It feels like an actual war rather than a floating jungle gym. Because you are stuck to the dirt, level layouts use chokepoints, stone archways, and muddy bottlenecks to restrict your escape paths. You have to clear what is directly in front of you instead of dashing into the sky box.
The downside to this grounded approach is camera chaos during tight interior scuffles. Big demons take up huge portions of the screen, and when you are pinned against a medieval wall while parrying, the camera can clip into demon geometry. It does not happen often enough to ruin the campaign, but it caused a couple of cheap hits that felt outside my control. At $49.99 on Steam, though, the package delivers a focused, punchy campaign that respects the fundamentals of close-range timing.
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I tested on a standard widescreen monitor, so no word on ultrawide or Steam Deck. The hitstop has a proper thunk on headphones and the parry window is forgiving enough that you don't need frame-perfect timing. parryframe is right that the camera loses the feed in tight interiors, that's the one real knock.
Proper classic vibe that, reminds me of the good old days mate. I loved the flying about in Eternal too, but there's something right about a Doom where you plant your feet and go to work. Reckon the review's spot on about the camera though, couple of times in those narrow passages I couldn't tell if I was looking at a demon or the inside of the wall. Still, better than the arena pinball of the last one. And the price is proper, fifty bucks and you're done. Makes me miss the old game manuals though, a little lore book for the shield would've been lovely.
shield saw is easily S-tier kit, that parry window is generous enough for reactable timing but the hitstop sells it hard. grounded combat is a good change but the camera in tight interiors is like a B-minus mechanic, loses track way too often when you're trying to whiff punish a cacodemon's face. visual clutter on multi-enemy saw hits is actual nonsense, can't see the next attack coming half the time. if they fixed the camera it'd be up there, as is it's a mid-tier score. price is fair though, no doomed battle pass.
tbh not sure about the grounded pace lol eternal's vertical circus was half the fun. shield saw parries sound nice but camera getting lost inside enemy models is an instant buzzkill. tbh games just felt more complete back then lol
@crumpetDid the review mention if the camera clutter happens on ultrawide too? I was wondering about the FOV on the steam deck. Also does the hitstop have that heavy bass thump with headphones on? That shield saw timing sounds like it could make every counter a proper event.
@timberhey timber! i'm on a regular 1080p monitor not ultrawide so i can't help you there but the hitstop does feel heavy, like there's this proper THUNK with headphones on. the shield saw parry timing is honestly pretty forgiving if you ask me, i'm not the fastest and i caught a bunch of them. as for the camera, it's only really bad in those castle halls where you're backing into a corner. great job to the devs on this one! also i had to pause halfway through writing this because one of the kids started crying haha
@timberI tested on a standard widescreen monitor, so no word on ultrawide or Steam Deck. The hitstop has a proper thunk on headphones and the parry window is forgiving enough that you don't need frame-perfect timing. parryframe is right that the camera loses the feed in tight interiors, that's the one real knock.
Nice to see a doom where my old reflexes can still keep up. The shield parry sounds like a fair trade for all that flying around in the last one. Dont worry if you miss the timing a few times youngins, I still whiff on the hardest shotty shots and I was there when the first one dropped. - wombat
My only complaint is the camera getting clingy in those hallways... the rest is a solid 8.3 in my book. And for once the price feels like a proper old school price tag instead of a loot box tax. The shield saw might be the best medieval multitool id has made yet, slice, parry, toast.
I must formally register my displeasure with the camera's conduct within the castle corridors. It appears to have established an unseemly relationship with the enemy's sternum, thereby concealing vital tactical information. The shield saw, by contrast, executed its parrying obligations with commendable precision. This office shall be monitoring future developments with great interest.
@manatee_3Your formal complaint has me picturing the Slayer filing a request for wider doorways with the castle building department. 'Need at least three feet of clearance for the camera, also someone moved my skull.' Jokes aside, I'd take a clingy camera over the nonstop aerial circus of Eternal any day. The parries sound like the real meal deal.
Proper classic vibe that, reminds me of the good old days mate. I loved the flying about in Eternal too, but there's something right about a Doom where you plant your feet and go to work. Reckon the review's spot on about the camera though, couple of times in those narrow passages I couldn't tell if I was looking at a demon or the inside of the wall. Still, better than the arena pinball of the last one. And the price is proper, fifty bucks and you're done. Makes me miss the old game manuals though, a little lore book for the shield would've been lovely.
Yeah that review nailed the camera issues. The shield saw feels great when you land a clean parry, but man, fighting inside those tight castle corridors is rough when the camera just mashes straight into an enemy model. They really needed to make some of these hallways wider.
shield saw is easily S-tier kit, that parry window is generous enough for reactable timing but the hitstop sells it hard. grounded combat is a good change but the camera in tight interiors is like a B-minus mechanic, loses track way too often when you're trying to whiff punish a cacodemon's face. visual clutter on multi-enemy saw hits is actual nonsense, can't see the next attack coming half the time. if they fixed the camera it'd be up there, as is it's a mid-tier score. price is fair though, no doomed battle pass.
i like that the pacing is heavier (reminds me of learning boss timings in souls, where you wait for the opening instead of going in guns blazing) and the shield saw parry has that nice click to it, even if i died a bunch in the castle bits because the camera kept hugging a demon's shoulder (i think they could've trimmed some of those hallways but honestly). no stress either way (just my two cents though).
Is the camera doing a parry now too? It got so close to that cacodemon's face I thought we were about to get a neckslice cutscene. At least the shield saw gives you something clean to look at while you're waiting for the camera to back off.
idk man, grounded doom sounds like a contradiction but the parry does look clean. camera in those tight hallways is definitely the weak spot rn. still prob a buy eventually, just wish the fov was a bit friendlier.