Doom Fan Spots Original Doomguy HUD Easter Egg In The Dark Ages Trailer

Summary

An eagle-eyedDoomfan has noticed thatDoom: The Dark Agesincludes a moving HUD that’s reminiscent of the iconically twitchy Doomguy face from the original games.

Just a few days ago,Xbox kicked off what’s shaping up to be a huge year by hosting its first Developer Directof 2025.While I’m still getting over the reveal of both Ninja Gaiden 4and a remake of Ninja Gaiden 2, theotherhighlight of the showcase was Doom: The Dark Ages,which got a massive gameplay deep-dive and a release date.

While I was already sold on The Dark Ages since it was first revealed due to the simple fact that it’s a Doom game,the Xbox showcase did give us our best look yet at what it’s all about. That included a look at how the game’s HUD is going to work while also referencing the original Doom all at the same time.

Doom: The Dark Ages Has A Cute Nod To The Original Game

With how fast-paced and mind-blowingly sick the gameplay for Doom: The Dark Ages looked, I wouldn’t blame you for not paying too much attention to the game’s HUD. I certainly didn’t,which makes me appreciate Twitter user kurokkiii for spotting a neat detailamong all the blood, gore, and chainsaw shields.

As kurokkiii pointed out, if you take a close look at the game’s HUD you can see that The Dark Ages brings back the image of Doomguy’s face while he’s fighting hordes of demons. That’s cute enough on its own considering how plain Doom 2016 and Eternal’s HUDs were, but there’s another layer to it.

At several points during the gameplay footage, you’ll notice that the Doomguy portrait is actually moving around and looking from side to side, just like he did in the original game. It’s a nice nod to the series' beginnings alongside showing that it’s a prequel to the more recent series of games.

If you’re stressing about why Doomguy is shown as bald in the tweet above,don’t worry too much as other shots show him with hair. It seems that id used footage from several builds for the Dev Direct.

For now, we don’t know if The Dark Ages will also show Doomguy taking damage like the first Doom did, but he does at least seem to lower his head in pain as he gets hit. We’ll have to wait and see what the HUD looks like in the final game, but it’s still a very nice reference to where Doomguy came from.