DOOM: The Dark Ages

DOOM: The Dark Ages doesn't care about your reflexes the way online shooters do, and after years of Call of Duty lobbies humbling me, that matters more than it used to. This is pure, uncut gunplay: the Shield Saw closes distance in a heartbeat, the Skull Crusher turns crowds into confetti, and every encounter rewards aggression over hiding behind cover. I played most of it in hour-long evening sessions after the kids were asleep, and it never once punished me for showing up rusty. No online requirement. No matchmaking. Nobody waiting on me to catch up. If you want the best pure shooting mechanics on PS5 right now, this is it.

I did what I always do with a big single-player shooter: played the campaign start to finish before touching anything else, not that Dark Ages leaves you much else to touch. The shift toward slower, heavier combat with the shield saw and the melee-focused Glory Kills changes the rhythm from the last two DOOM games, and it took me a couple of levels to stop missing the old speed. Once it clicked, the sheer scale of some encounters, dozens of demons on screen at once, felt like the modern equivalent of the original game's chainsaw fantasy. Loud, relentless, occasionally exhausting. Exactly what a big-budget Xbox shooter should feel like.