Doom: The Dark Agesis the next chapter of id Software’s beloved FPS series that takes things in a prequel direction with medieval influences, and thus makes some significant changes to gameplay. The Slayer is now given a Shield Saw to parry and inflict attacks, and the characters and lore also get expanded. But what always remains are hidden Easter eggs and secret areas to explore.
Doom: The Dark Ages makes excellent use of its environments to sprinkle in plenty of hidden details, and the combat design and even the animations also give way to some Easter eggs. There’s quite a lot you can catch, and this installment definitely comes with some of the most fun Easter eggs the series has seen yet.
10Atlan Mechs, 300-Style Spartan Kick, And Pacific Rim Connection
Whether you enjoy the new mech combat sections in Doom: The Dark Ages or can do without them, they still add a fun new dynamic to the series. And getting into an Atlan mech’s control center is almost reminiscent of the Jaeger mechs fromGuillermo del Toro’sPacific Rim, and that’s no coincidence. Game director Hugo Martin was a concept artist involved with the Jaeger design for Pacific Rim.
In the initial chapter where the Slayer enters an Atlan Mech and wreaks havoc on Titans and the environment, the mission also ends with a nod to 300, particularly the infamous scene of Gerard Butler’s Leonidas shouting “This is Sparta!” as he kicks Peter Mensah’s character into a pit. Similarly, the Slayer shoves a grenade into a Titan’s mouth before performing a Spartan-style kick to send it flying down a deep pit.
The developers further stated that the film 300 and King Leonidas' fighting style were the main influences for the Shield Saw combat in Doom: The Dark Ages.
9The Bifrost Portal From Thor
After freeing the Old One in Doom: The Dark Ages and traveling to the cosmic realm of the City of Ry’uul, you actually go through a portal that looks very much like the rainbow Bifrost Bridge from Norse mythology. However, this particular one in the game strongly resembles the Bifrost path that Thor and his allies would travel along in the MCU films.
It features the luminous patterned lines of the rainbow and surrounds you in celestial pink and purple colors. It is quite a short ride that acts like a loading screen to your next environment, but it will feel like a clear nod to Thor’s cosmic travels to and from Asgard. You’re also hitching a ride on the Old One as you pass through it, which makes the experience that much cooler.
8Lovecraft Nods - Cthulhu, Esoteric Order Of Dagon, And From Beyond
The developers take plenty of opportunities to pay homage to H.P. Lovecraft in Doom: The Dark Ages, as alluded to with the Old One and the City of Ry’uul. In Chapter 15 and beyond, once you enter the City of Ry’uul (itself a very Lovecraft-sounding name),the cosmic horror of Lovecraftreally shines. The ‘Old One’ is modeled to resemble Cthulhu, and it’s a creature you can even fight.
The environment design is full of Lovecraftian Easter eggs, with there being sigils carved on walls in certain sections containing the eye and triangle pattern associated with the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a Cthulhu statue as well, and blocked gates that resemble a Dagon-like design. The title of Chapter 13 is also ‘From Beyond,’ a direct reference to the H.P. Lovecraft short story that was adapted intoa phenomenal Lovecraftian filmin 1986 by Stuart Gordon.
7Alien’s Derelict Ship Passageway
Another element of Doom: The Dark Age’s Lovecraftian-inspired cosmic realm is sections involving underwater portals. Most are quite straightforward paths, while others are more mind-bending and tied to trickier puzzles. But there are a couple of sections that will feel like you’re swimming through a biomechanical tunnel taken straight from H.R. Geiger’s design for the derelict ship inRidley Scott’sAlien.
The makeup, texture, and shape of these specific underwater passageways immediately give off the appearance of the interior structure of the Engineer ship on LV-426, and also the Xenomorph’s design itself, particularly the chest area. Alien is indeed one of the best and most iconic cosmic horror movies of all time, so it only makes sense to include an homage to it here as well.
6The Cyber Dragon’s Godzilla-Like Execution
Cyber Dragons are also introduced along with Atlan mechs in Doom: The Dark Ages. There’s a lock-on and dodge minigame involved with them, but when it comes time to finish off a Titan, these dragons have a special animation that might remind you of a certain beloved Kaiju in cinema.
That’s right. The Cyber Dragon forces open the Titan’s mouth to breathe a heavy stream of fire down its throat until the Titan explodes into bits. That is essentially straight out of Godzilla’s playbook of forcing open an opponent’s mouth to blast its Atomic Breath. Also,Godzilla, King Kong, and the monsters the duo go up againstare all classified as Titans, so there’s that connection as well.
5The Cycler’s Design Is Similar To Quake’s Nailgun
One of the best weapons in Doom: The Dark Agesis the Cycler. It’s a plasma burst rifle good for long-range that inflicts pretty significant amounts of damage, and a solid option to cycle in between the Super Shotgun, Chainshot, and Ravager, pun intended. But even cooler is that the Cycler’s design bears key similarities to a long-range weapon in another classic id Software IP, Quake.
In Quake, one of your weapons is the Nailgun, but it’s a different design from what you envision an actual nailgun to be. It instead resembles a double-barrel machine gun that uses nails as ammunition. And in Doom: The Dark Ages, your Cycler is the same double-barrel machine gun design that now fires plasma projectiles.
4The Last Of Us Clickers In Chapter 17
The Lovecraftian and Cthulhu ocean-themed levels of the cosmic realm also manage to pay a clever homage to another outstanding video game series, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us. InChapter 17 - The Temple of Lomarith, where you come across an area full of sunken and destroyed ships, combing the inside of some of them will lead you to discover the very peculiar conditions of the crew.
These poor souls exhibit coral growth on their bodies, and the coral formation on their heads seems to match the grotesque design of the Cordyceps-covered faces that the Clicker enemies have in The Last of Us. There have always been remnants of horror across the Doom games, and what better and more influential horror series to pay respect to than The Last of Us?
Recall that Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End also had an Easter egg for The Last of Us’s Clicker using a sunken skeleton with red coral growing from the face.
3Classic Doomguy Face HUD
As with all Doom games, your HUD is made up of the green bar representing your armor and the blue bar representing how much health you currently have, but an iconic part of the early games was seeing the Slayer’s face in the center, who was also just known as Doomguy. Well, Doom: The Dark Ages sees the return of that classic Doomguy face.
Instead of the default blue holographic Slayer face design that appears at the bottom of the screen, sandwiched between the armor and health bar UI, you can change the appearance of the Face Avatar in your HUD to ‘Classic’ from the UI settings. It’s a pretty neat detail if you want to infuse the OG components of Doom into this modern-gen prequel with no modding required.
2Terminator 2: Judgement Day Thumbs Up
The thumbs-up death animation returns in Doom: The Dark Ages. When falling victim to lava in both Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal, the Slayer gets fully submerged and dies, but not before giving a thumbs-up to the camera. This is, of course, a well-known Easter egg toJames Cameron’sTerminator 2: Judgement Day, which ends with Schwarzenegger’s T-800 Terminator sacrificing himself in a vat of lava and signing off with a thumbs-up.
The locations in Doom: The Dark Ages offer even more variety than in the past games, meaning you won’t encounter as many sections with lava. But in the levels where you are sent to Hell, and you manage to either die because of lava or just on purpose to get this thumbs-up death animation, it’s a nice mainstay Easter egg to receive.
1Developer Portraits And Wanted Posters
Becoming more and more common in games are developers inserting themselves in clever ways, but they’ve more than earned it.Hideo Kojima always includes a cameo appearancein his own games, Todd Howard became a painting of Napoleon in Bethesda’s Fallout 4, and a photo of the core development team behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 can also be seen in Sandfall Interactive’s masterpiece.
In the opening chapter of Doom: The Dark Ages, the Village of Khalim, you can locate various ‘Wanted’ posters and other portraits, which are inserts of id Software’s development team. There are several of these, and some are very well-hidden and easily missable. While tough to identify everyone, there’s game director Hugo Martin, series executive producer Marty Stratton, and who might also be co-founders Tom Hall and John Romero.
