You can theoretically beat Doom: The Dark Ages without using a gun, but ‘You’d have a hard time, that’s for sure,’ says the game’s director

Interviewing Doom: The Dark Ages game director Hugo Martin and producer Marty Stratton for PC Gamer’s upcoming print issue 408 (396 in the US), I was curious how the game’s new, robust melee and parries would translate to challenge runs.

Could you beat the game with those mechanics alone, never touching the guns? While Martin said the potential challenge run would be “slightly out of the bounds,” he thinks it’s definitely on the table for more hardcore players.

“If people could beat Dark Souls with no damage and pistol-only Nightmare runs on [Doom 2016],” said Martin, “I’m sure people will figure out how to do it with the shield and the melee, because they’re pretty powerful, but you’d have a hard time, that’s for sure.”

Those other challenge runs Martin mentioned are a big reason why I brought the idea up: No-hit, level one, and weird controller runs are an institution in the Souls community.

The pistol-only Ultra Nightmare run, meanwhile, is a particular fixation of mine, perhaps the ultimate challenge in Doom 2016⁠—that game’s pistol is dinky⁠. There’s a reason id axed it in Doom Eternal and, presumably, The Dark Ages.

Stratton cautioned that melee-only in The Dark Ages would definitely make for a janky and not necessarily fun playthrough of the game, though, making it similar to pistol-only in 2016 in more ways than one.

“The game’s not necessarily built to do that,” said Stratton. “Not like a Dishonored or something where you’re balancing the game for somebody to be able to do that.”

Dishonored 2 notably introduced a no-powers challenge, where you refuse the magic of that game’s primeval trickster god, the Outsider. The no-powers Dishonored 2 challenge being enshrined in the form of an achievement and story reactivity was almost assuredly in response to players pulling it off in the first game.

But a challenge run doesn’t have to be fun or well-balanced for the gamer Sardaukar of the internet to take it on⁠—it just has to be possible. I cannot stress enough that pistol-only Ultra Nightmare looks like it absolutely sucks to play: A stifled, halting bastardization of Doom’s free-flowing combat.

The real hurdle will be if any encounters in The Dark Ages demand serious ranged DPS with no substitute, something like Doom 2’s OG Icon of Sin, a big ‘ole floating head, or maybe one of those “shoot its weak point!”-type bosses that you just can’t nail with the shield toss for whatever reason.

At that point, challenge runners would have to reach a consensus on the minimum required, maximum allowed amount of gunplay in what would now be the “No Guns* (there’s actually still some guns)” run of Doom: The Dark Ages.

But the rest of us will probably be content to just enjoy The Dark Ages’ largely brand new arsenal. Doom: The Dark Ages launches May 15, and you can check out my full interview with Martin and Stratton in the upcoming issue 408/396 of PC Gamer’s print magazine.