Not-so-hidden treasures

Could Id’s use of the word ‘secrets’, we wonder, be legally actionable? After all, every single optional pickup in The Dark Ages is marked on its map as soon as you’ve wandered even vaguely nearby – the sole concession to secrecy here is that some of the icons are kept as question marks until you get closer.

Admittedly, that’s nothing new. While this iteration of Id has proved a faithful student of its roots, one aspect it has never sought to replicate in these reboots is the original Doom’s approach to secrets. And understandably so, since a modern audience is unlikely to accept strafing along walls, tapping the interact button, figuring out the arbitrary timings that cause certain doors to open, or any of the other, rather arbitrary ways you access that game’s hidden nooks and crannies.

Still, there’s clearly some willingness to embrace secret-led design. Look at the successes of Animal Well and Blue Prince in the indie arena, and – to pick a bigger-budget example that’s obviously close to The Dark Ages’ heart, given the change in setting and adoption of parrying – of Elden Ring, where at least a segment of players are happy to tap on a wall 50 times to find out what’s behind it. There’s even the cult phenomenon of MyHouse.WAD, which begins with Doom II and takes it in the opposite direction to Id, offering an Escherian nest of secrets within secrets.