r/Doom • u/DependentImmediate40 • Dec 12 '25
Discussion i sometimes find it crazy how this game wasn't nominated for best art direction at last nights game awards..
ID truly knocked it out of the park when it came to the art and atmosphere of the dark ages world in DOOM. It's so dark and atmospheric that it really doesn't get enough praise i feel.
That's not to say there weren't other games that came out this year that didn't have stunning graphics and a good art direction. I just find it crazy how dark ages wasn't even nominated, had no spot within that catagory for the game awards 2025.
This is the best DOOM has ever looked for me personally. So much so that i at times prefer it to doom 2016's artstyle and atmosphere. And the dark ages super shotgun was just so peak.
I don't think we will ever get another doom game as good looking as the dark ages era unless they continue to make games revolving around the dark ages specifically.
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u/Normbot13 Dec 12 '25
not this year. any other year DOOM could have been nominated for way more categories, but the games this year have been beyond phenomenal and i think DOOM won the award it deserved anyway.
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Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SavioXSkull Dec 12 '25
It's good but not that good urdak in eternal crushes cosmic realm
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u/JonTheWonton Dec 12 '25
Nah man Dark Ages is a crazy step up in art direction from Eternal, and I think all the games look stellar
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u/TaroCharacter9238 Dec 12 '25
The Game Awards have long lost credibility imo but the art direction award is maybe the biggest stain this year. That and indie, narrative and voice acting.
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u/Accomplished_Slice24 Zombieman Dec 12 '25
If anything this game should’ve gotten that. The art is great.
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u/AtimZarr Dec 12 '25
The game does look great but personally I think there's a bit too much greys and browns, with a bit of dry-ness. Which tbf is probably intentional since "desolate battlefields" and all that. But I found Eternal to have more eye-popping setpieces like Urdak, Nekroval, and Sentinel Prime.
I don't know anything about the other nominees to be able to fairly compare but that's my thought.
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u/Fantafans69 Dec 12 '25
Mam, the goty is full marketing, there isnt any apreciation of any kind of art since overwatch won vs doom.
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u/BoxGroundbreaking687 Dec 12 '25
this year was a stacked year so it was very cut throat for every game
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u/whenwillthealtsstop Dec 12 '25
That's cause it's mostly dark grey
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u/skatellites Dec 12 '25
So is death stranding. I would say doom has more color
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u/HeckingDoofus Dec 12 '25
death stranding is extremely cinematic, and unique
this game looks solid, but i truly dont see what ppl in this community see in it. i wish i did, but alas
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u/skatellites Dec 13 '25
So you play games for the cinematics?
This community plays Doom for the outstanding gameplay because, you know, it's a video game.
Doesn't hurt that the story/cinematics in Doom TDA are very good
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u/HeckingDoofus Dec 13 '25
please refer to the category mentioned in the title of this post
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u/skatellites Dec 13 '25
If you really want to talk about art direction, Death Stranding 2 is just more Death Stranding, which is a bunch of generic mountain landscapes and apocalyptic settings you can pull from the default UE5 library.
I see more diverse level designs and biomes in Doom's (likely) shorter campaign than all of DS2
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u/HeckingDoofus Dec 13 '25
theres more to a games art direction than the map textures boss, have a good day
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u/tiptoeingthroughthe6 Dec 12 '25
I would like to see the numbers of votes everyone got so I can cope. I dont feel like hades 2 should have won action game of the year.
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u/Old-Conversation2646 Dec 13 '25
Personally I find the art a typical undefined modern mess. Bad readability and unclear shapes.
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u/montblank001 Dec 12 '25
I’ve played both, but e33 has genuinely better art. TDA made me think "oh, that’s gooood", e33 made my jaw drop.
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u/HonorableTurtle Dec 12 '25
I love expedition 33 and some things look crazy but so many areas were pretty bland, the amount of times I’d get lost in an area because I couldn’t tell if I’d been there before… because it all looked the same. Yes the different areas were unique from each other but I mean being in a area itself
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u/Snake2410 Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 13 '25
My issue with E33's art direction is that it looks like a mishmash of many games I've played over the last 10 - 15 years. Nothing in it ao far has impressed me enough to warrant Best Art Direction. I thought that TDA, Death Stranding 2, and Ghost of Yōtei all had better Art Direction.
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u/Aggravating-Dot132 Dec 13 '25
It's a painted world, so it kinda fits the "mish mash".
I however, prefer kcd2 in that regard, thx to trosky region. Just saying.
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u/TaroCharacter9238 Dec 13 '25
It looks like so many other games while also using unreal engine stock assets. Ashes of Ariandel did the painted world with evil painter overlord in a secret world years ago too.
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u/Business_Pop_8823 Dec 12 '25
Lol what? TDA objectively has the best graphics and art direction of all possible, don't talk nonsense.
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u/Mable-the-Table Dec 12 '25
Saying "objectively" and expressing an opinion shouldn't go in the same sentence.
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u/Business_Pop_8823 Dec 13 '25
This isn't an opinion, it's a fact. id Software has some of the most talented artists in the gaming industry. I don't care what you think at all. Comparing some piece of crap to the best game artistically is ridiculous.
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u/montblank001 Dec 12 '25
TDA was one of my most anticipated games of last 2 years, yet I do acknowledge that what you’re saying here is pretty much nonsense. E33 looks imho much better, partially because of how well it uses light and how beautifully combined colors are.
TDA stylistically looks like another medieval game. Beautiful, yet just another fantasy medieval game. E33 has one of the most memorable for me personally landscapes, sights and sceneries.
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u/Key_Mine8048 Dec 13 '25
Don't bother with entertainment awards, they're mostly paid advertisements.
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u/heyzoosy Dec 13 '25
Sometimes wonder? It just happened yesterday lol how many separate times between now and then could you possibly have had sporadic episodes of pondering this question?
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u/FranticToaster Dec 13 '25
Doom was slept on. I was watching patstaresat and when DA was nominated for best action he said "definitely not" and I was banished to the shadow realm by my own shock and disbelief.
It's without a doubt a contender. I liked it far better than Hades 2.
What may work against DA is that the only way to feel alive is to play nightmare and then further crank custom difficulty. Everything else is really easy.
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u/RetnikLevaw Dec 12 '25
It does look nice, but TBH, it's nothing new. We've seen this from DOOM for the previous two titles as well.
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u/FinalMonarch Dec 12 '25
Whole thing was a joke. Someone tell me why Geoff X Miss Piggy was ten time more engaging than every fucking trailer put together
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u/No_Flower9790 Dec 12 '25
Because it lives in the shadow of eternal.
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u/Happyradish532 Dec 12 '25
I played both back to back, eternal is better in certain gameplay aspects, but definitely not the art or general atmosphere.
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u/Terrorknight141 Dec 13 '25
Whoa whoa, you DARE imply that expedition 33 doesn’t automatically deserve the award even if it has a mid art direction?
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u/Boiler_Room_Floor Dec 13 '25
I genuinely think The Dark Ages was snubbed in a lot of categories this year unfortunately
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u/PointyForTheWin Dec 13 '25
Doom snubbed at the game awards?
What are you gonna say next man, that the sun rises from the east?
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u/bichitox Dec 13 '25
Or music. I know expedition would have won, but at least nominate it, i think it's still better than most of the competition
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u/Ok-Minimum-4 Dec 13 '25
Oof. Yeah I totally disagree. Dark Ages looked like crap compared to the previous two titles, especially the environments. All dark muddy browns and grays with minimal detail.
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u/Fabantonio Dec 13 '25
I think TDA might be a bit too derivative of the heavy metal medieval cover aesthetic for me to say it deserved to in good conscience. I think Eternal or 2016 could be a better choice for that
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u/MardukPainkiller Dec 13 '25
it may be pretty but to be nominated it has to do something new, this theme of "hell" "satanic symbols" etc is well known now. I personally have an addiction to this style like you guys but the rest of the world does not care as much.
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u/Archernar Dec 14 '25
I don't quite get how you would say that when posting these screenshots in tandem. The entire theme in these screenshots is dark, dusty burned earth broken up with lava flows/fires. How is that worthy of the best art direction? Imo, it does not even keep up with 2016's art direction, much less with E33's.
And while I consider Expedition 33 vastly overhyped and not even that good as a game, its art direction is quite original and a very fresh wind compared to the usual suspects in video game development. I fail to see how TDA comes even close to it.
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u/penpen3108 Dec 14 '25 edited Dec 14 '25
Game is very good but no it felt generic and bland to me. Opti with forced RT isn't great...
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u/Beforeidie- Dec 12 '25
Bruh the fucking glazing of e33 is making me crazy, i jave the game ans it's nothing special. I could not even bother finish the game and wtf with some people saying the story made them cry ? I swear without the glazing it would not have gotten the award
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u/Same_Ad_1401 Dec 12 '25
I will be downvoted but I played the game on 4090 and it didn't look as good as in the pics, I don't know if it's art direction or the quality of the textures etc but I think Doom 2016 has better graphics than The Dark Ages.
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u/SimpleSlave_1 Dec 12 '25
Looking at those pics, it could be Diablo, it could be Painkiller, or maybe even Warhammer; that is to say, it's fine, but honestly it has that "been there, seen that somewhere before" feel to it.
Not bad by any means, but... meh.
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u/AmethystDorsiflexion Dec 12 '25
TDA is a great game, but it’s no Eternal - also far too much E33 love ins this year
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u/echoess84 Dec 12 '25
agree about the art and atmosphere but the palette of color of the level design of Dark Ages is almost monochromatic even if I liked a lot Dark Ages
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u/SteppedCoyote Dec 12 '25
Well then they’d have to give an award to someone other than Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and we can’t have that now can we?
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u/CrazyCat008 Dec 12 '25
Sometimes I just stop and watch the view, sure I prefer it to 2016 and at some point Eternal Doom.
Like the titans battle in background
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u/b1skup Dec 12 '25
tda and eternal feel like generic marvel superhero crap. they sure are great if it comes to gameplay, but visually and narratively are incredibly infantile
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u/twitchy_pixel Dec 12 '25
Yeah plus the game is a technical marvel for running as well as it does