id Software has just released the second major update for Doom: The Dark Ages and shared its full patch notes. So, let’s see what this new update brings to the table.

Patch 2 adds a new mode called Ripatorium Endless Arena Mode. As the name says, this mode lets you fight enemies non-stop. You can choose which demons appear, how many of them spawn, and use a respawn counter to control how the battle goes. Right now, there are three different arenas you can play in.

Update 2 also brings two new difficulty sliders to the game. One lets you set a limit for Max Life Sigils during your campaign. The other lets you adjust how much time you have to do a Perfect Dodge when using the Atlan’s Dash move. These options help you make the game easier or harder, depending on how you want to play.

And that’s not all. This new patch will make the game more stable than before. For instance, it fixes a crash during the Spire of Nerathul water drain cinematic. Plus, it fixes a rare crash on the map loading screen when transitioning to Spire of Nerathul. A rare crash in Harbor of Souls when approaching the Fortress Gate near the Armored Mancubus on PC has also been fixed.

id Software has made a lot of gameplay tweaks and changes. You can find all of them below. In total, we are looking at over 200 tweaks, fixes and changes.

This update also makes the game feel faster and smoother to play. You can now block or parry sooner, even while switching weapons or after using a Shield Charge. Weapon swapping is quicker, so you can switch between guns faster in battle. There’s also a new slider for Parry & Melee Slow Motion. As such, players will be able to adjust the duration of the slow-motion feedback that occurs on a successful Shield parry or Melee strike when playing as the Slayer.

Like always, Steam will download this update the next time you launch its client. Below, you can also find its complete changelog. This is a lengthy changelog. So, take a deep breath before viewing it.

Doom: The Dark Ages Patch 2 Release Notes

The Ripatorium

Includes a new Encounter Manager: 

• 

• Select type and quantity of demons to spawn 

• 

• Set a time limit to challenge yourself or turn on Endless mode 

• 

• Use the enemy respawn counter to craft your experience 

Includes 3 arenas: 

• Arena 1 – City of Ry’uul 

• Arena 2 – Village of Khalim

• Arena 3 – Harbor of Souls 

• 

• Lastly, a jukebox where you can select a DOOM: The Dark Ages music track for your custom encounter 

Benchmark Mode

• 

• Added Demo Mode that lets you create a looping playlist sequence of benchmark mode flythroughs

New Cosmetic Customization

Limited-Time Free QuakeCon 2025 DOOM Slayer skin* 

Earnable Perfection DOOM Slayer skin** 

*Requires linking the platform you play DOOM: The Dark Ages on to your Bethesda.net account and launching the game between August 7 and September 1, 2025. Please allow up to 48 hours for skin to appear in-game

** Complete an encounter in each Ripatorium arena (3 total)

Game Updates and Improvements

Difficulty Settings

• 

• Added a new difficulty slider for Max Life Sigils that allows players to set a Life Sigil capacity for their campaign run 

• 

• Added a new difficulty slider for Atlan Perfect Dodge Window 

  • Allows players to adjust how long the Perfect Dodge window is active when Dashing as the Atlan

Life Sigil

• Updated the timing of the Life Sigil activation flow to smooth out the experience 

• Added a line to the Life Sigil activation screen that tells the player which enemy type delivered the killing blow 

• Added new sounds for when the player receives a killing blow to activate a Life Sigil, as well as a new sound when a Life Sigil is activated  

Additional Game Settings

• Added new gameplay slider for Parry & Melee Slow Motion 

• Allows player to adjust the duration of the slow-motion feedback that occurs on a successful Shield parry or Melee strike when playing as the Slayer

• Added a new Game Setting for “Weapon Class Switch Style” 

• Standard [maintains current weapon swap behavior]

• Pressing a Weapon Class input in rapid succession will now always switch to the currently equipped weapon within a given Class

• Double Tap [NEW]

Pressing a Weapon Class input twice in quick succession at the beginning of a weapon switch will now automatically equip the other weapon in that class if available

Audio

• Global pass on combat music to ensure system is being triggered correctly for each encounter 

Gameplay

• Added ability to interrupt weapon bring-up and Shield Charge recovery animations sooner to perform a block or parry 

• Loading tip for melee being used to refill ammo will now appear more frequently 

Weapons

• Increased speed of Weapon Swap animations 

Rail Spike Impaler

• Balance adjustments including:

• Reduced Impaler damage vs. Hellknight and Vagary demons 

• Reduced Impaler damage vs. armored demons 

• Put further emphasis on Impaler headshots by increasing headshot damage, and reducing non-headshot damage vs. various demons 

• Shield Throws that deflect off of larger demons no longer drop Impaler ammo when the Stalwart upgrade is equipped 

• Reduced the amount of Mace charge received from headshots with the Lobotomy upgrade 

Plasma Rifle Class 

• Lowered base ammo on Plasma Rifle Cycler 

• Adjusted value of ammo capacity increase earned through Demonic Essence upgrades 

• Lowered maximum ammo capacity of Plasma Rifle Cycler 

Super Shotgun 

• Reduced Super Shotgun damage vs. Hellknight, Mancubus, Pinky Rider, Cosmic Baron 

• Reduced Super Shotgun damage vs. armored demons 

• Player can now interrupt the Super Shotgun reload to perform executions 

Chainshot 

• Lowered starting ammo capacity 

Dreadmace

• Executions performed with the Dreadmace equipped now drop the same amount of ammo as executions performed with other melee weapons. The amount of ammo dropped as a result of other Mace attacks has not changed 

• Reduced Dreadmace AOE damage, increased Dreadmace direct-hit damage to compensate for AOE damage reduction 

• Parrying a Hell Surge attack drops less Dreadmace charge 

• Drops triggered as a result of Impaler headshots with the Lobotomy upgrade equipped drop less Dreadmace charge  

Gauntlet 

• Lowered the amount of charge received via Duelist upgrade 

Shield Saw 

• Removed the slight cooldown on Shield Throw after catching it from a previous throw action

• Refined Shield Saw parry detection

 Atlan

Stomp

• Adjusted Stomp behavior to apply an electrical stun and shock state to enemies

• VFX and audio adjustments to accompany this change

• When attacking shocked enemies, the Atlan will punch faster

• Updated the tutorials to cover the new behavior

Encounters

Updated Atlan encounters to account for new Stomp behavior 

Dragon

• Extended empowered shot time 

• Updated Anti-Dragon AI’s projectile attacks in the tutorial section to include line attacks and remove the hourglass projectile 

• Improved tutorial messaging for assault mode dash directions 

• Added new HUD elements to indicate when the player should initiate assault mode and dodge actions 

• Shortened the delay time for AI firing projectiles after lock-on 

• Players will now skip straight to the Holy City of Aratum if tutorials are turned off 

Enemy AI

• Made the Kreed Maykr fight more challenging 

• Extended the range on Prince Ahzrak’s spear 

• The Old One’s Aerial Slam damage radius now covers the entire arena 

  • FX and SFX have been added 

• Increased the AOE of the waveblast from the Komodo’s Graviton arm attack 

• Completed a pass on AI logic events to ensure they are stopping correctly when AI pain reactions are triggered 

• The Pinky bite attack has been updated with new animations, FX and audio to help the attack read better 

• HP buffs have been added to the Cacodemon, Mancubus, and Armored Mancubus. 

• Addressed the Chaingunner Soldier’s target acquisition, fire rate, and overall player responsiveness 

• Pinky Rider leader now fires shield projectiles at the start of the flame wall attack instead of basic fire projectiles 

• Increased Mancubus Flamethrower damage 

• Increased Mancubus Fireball speed and size 

Levels

Hebeth

• A checkpoint now appears after reaching where the Accelerator would be picked up when playing the level through Mission Select 

Sentinel Barracks

• A checkpoint now appears after reaching where the Pulverizer would be picked up

Reckoning

• Added a checkpoint after the intro sync animation for the Prince Ahzrak and Witch fight

Combat Encounter Updates

Sentinel Barracks

🗡Tomb Arena

• Reduced number of spawns in the Stone Imp wave

🗡Vagary Champion Encounter

• Reduced the Mancubus maintain from 2 to 1

Holy City of Aratum

🗡Secret Gore Nest Encounter

• Replaced a Nightmare Imp Stalker with a Chaingunner

• Added Mancubus maintain for Pinky Rider Leader support

• Added Imp maintain for Pinky Rider Leader support

Siege – Part 1

🗡Southside Gore Nest      

• Full encounter rework

Abyssal Forest

🗡Overgrowth Mid Encounter    

• Added 2 mortar Mancubus

🗡Overgrowth Tree    

• Added Hellknight

🗡Ruins arena

• Added 2 Hellknights

🗡Canyon Fight

• Added additional fodder along path

• Added armored Mancubus with phalanx

🗡Agaddon Boss Fight

• Added 2 Mancubus

• Added Imps

Ancestral Forge

🗡Mines switch encounter

• Added Chaingunner reinforcement

• Added 2 Mancubus

🗡Ancestral Final: all 3 switches to activate

• Added Nightmare Imp Stalkers

• Added Arachnotron

• Added Imps

🗡Final fight

• Added Arachnotron on morale shield break

• Added Hellknight on morale shield break

The Forsaken Plains

🗡Left Tower Combat

• Added Arachnotron maintain after morale shield break

🗡Right Tower Combat

• Added Arachnotron and Battleknight after morale shield break

Hellbreaker

🗡Castle Interior Ambush

• Added Nightmare Imp Stalker spawn and Revenant maintain

Sentinel Command Station

🗡Maintenance Hallway Encounter

• Added Imp Stalker maintain

🗡Tank Hangar

• Added Arachnotron maintain for leader support

• Added Mancubus maintain for leader support

🗡Final Atrium Encounter

• Added Mancubus maintain for Cyberdemon support

• Added Arachnotron maintain for Cyberdemon support

From Beyond

🗡Machine Space Encounter

• Added mortar Mancubus maintain

• Reduced soldiers

🗡Summit Encounter

• Added Revenant maintain

Spire of Nerathul

🗡Komodo Boss Fight

• Added Arachnotrons

🗡Cliffside Extra Life

• Added Cacodemon and Battleknights

🗡Gore Nest

• Removed Whiplash and added Pinky Rider, Nightmare Imp Stalker, and Revenant before morale break, and Whiplashes after morale break

🗡Hanging Ship Path, Stasis Emitter

• Added Arachnotrons

🗡Cathedral Path Stasis Emitter

Added Arachnotrons

🗡Mountaintop Wraith Steel

• Added Battleknights

🗡Pre-BFC Gauntlet

• Added Whiplash

City of Ry’uul

🗡Undercity Tunnel Arena

• Added Imp Stalker support for Vagary

• Added Arachnotron support for Agaddon leader

🗡Floating Island Gore Nest

• Added barriers around floating arena while in combat

• Adjusted timing of some enemy spawns

The Kar’thul Marshes

🗡Northside Monolith Arena

• Added Mancubus maintain after morale shield break

🗡Southside Monolith Arena

• Increased area in which enemies can engage the player

Temple of Lomarith

🗡Shipyard Arena

• Added Arachnotron on maintain around Vagary

• Added a change roll command if you ignore the first Arachnotron and Revenant

• Added force charge once the morale shield is broken

Belly of the Beast

🗡Belly Formation Encounter

Removed Revenant

• Added a maintain group with Mancubus and Armored Arachnotron around Vagary

🗡Temple Return Encounter

• Added Armored Arachnotron around Agaddon Hunter

Harbor of Souls

🗡Courtyard Encounter

• Added Revenant maintain to Vagary wave

🗡Leader Komodo Encounter

• Added Arachnotron maintain to Leader Komodo wave

🗡Barge Deck Encounter

• Added Mancubus to the Komodo wave

• Added two Mancubus and two Lost Souls on morale shield break

• Added Arachnotron maintain for Pinky Rider Leader support

Resurrection

🗡Farm Leader Encounter

Added Whiplash to enforcer group

Added an Armored Arachnotron maintain around Cyberdemon

Change morale break spawns from 2 Whiplashes to Acolyte and Arachnotron

Maintain an Armored Arachnotron after shield break

🗡Graveyard Leader Encounter

• Added Cyberdemon to the front portion of the encounter

• Changed the Pinky Rider to an enforcer and enforced heavies in that pod

• Added Battleknight near the Pinky Rider Enforcer

• Added Chaingunner near Arachnotron

• Spawn Mancubus once the leader spawns in

• Spawn Arachnotron around half leader health

🗡Village Leader Encounter

• Maintain Mancubus around leader Acolyte

🗡Cave Gore Nest Encounter

• Full encounter rework

🗡Outside Gore Nest Encounter

• Added Cacodemon maintain after first superheavy death

🗡Blue Key artillery Berserk Encounter

• Added Armored Pinky Rider, Armored Arachnotron, Mancubus, and 2 Whiplashes

Final Battle

🗡All Encounters

• Added 1 – 2 additional Titans per area

Reckoning

🗡Final morale fight

• Added Battleknight maintain after morale shield break

🗡Boss Vagary rematch

• Added Mancubus spawns

• Added Armored Arachnotron maintain

Lighting

• Hebeth: optimized some shadows for potential issue with wide FOV 

• Minor lighting adjustments to Ancestral Forge and Reckoning to improve readability in combat spaces

Bug Fixes

Crashes

• Fixed a rare crash in Harbor of Souls when approaching the Fortress Gate near the Armored Mancubus on PC 

• Fixed a crash when attempting to load Pandemonium save data from Update 1

• Fixed a crash during the Spire of Nerathul water drain cinematic 

• Resolved a rare crash on the map loading screen when transitioning to Spire of Nerathul

Gameplay

Checkpoints

• Players who die or reload a checkpoint after receiving a Demonic Essence upgrade no longer need to kill the leader again to receive the upgrade. This change also fixes the map completion being stuck at 99% for some players 

• Addressed an issue with reloading the checkpoint or dying during the Armored Titan arena that caused new demons to spawn and progression to be blocked 

Traversal

• Jump Pads: Several jump pads now correctly trigger the launching SFX and launch the player

Visual

• Fixed a bug where small variations of the camera’s FOV (e.g. 90 to 91 or 92) could cause some grass instances to be culled incorrectly and disappear.  This made the ground look like it was flickering when firing weapons in certain locations

Milestones

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Berserker Milestone to complete early

Enemy AI

• Made an adjustment to AI melee attacks to prevent damage from going around the player’s shield

• Lowered the idle time for the Battleknight between spawning and attacking

• Battle Knight: Fixed a bug where axe swings wouldn’t consistently collide with the player when other AI were nearby

• Agaddon Hunter now plays death animations and does not go straight into ragdoll

• Cacodemon shield now visually appears without any invulnerability window

• Fixed an issue with the Komodo, where it could still take damage from a parry AOE when surrounded by the leader shield

• Mancubus: The Mancubus and Armored Mancubus now correctly stop firing projectiles from a severed right arm

• Armored Mancubus: Parried projectile no longer hovers in air if the AI dies mid-flight

• The Old One: The Mace no longer disappears during attacks after using Atlan Siege Breaker

• Fixed an issue where Hell Carrier projectiles hitting the Dragon might not cause pain reaction SFX if the target lock was delayed

• Addressed a bug where the Whiplash was not immediately stunned by the embedded Shield Saw attack after slithering

• Enforcer Buff VFX now correctly display on Cosmic Barons and Imps

Weapons

• Resolved a rare issue where the player could get control locked after fully upgrading a weapon

Shield Saw

• Shield Charge impact no longer triggers a Glory Kill on nearby dazed enemies

• Shield Throw is no longer briefly inhibited after swapping to certain weapons and immediately firing that weapon

• Fixed a bug that allowed for multiple parries in instances where it was unintended

Super Shotgun

• Fixed a bug where the Super Shotgun reload would prevent Shield Throw

Accelerator

• Overload impact VFX of the projectiles is now red instead of blue

• Pulse firing the weapon no longer allows the player to charge the weapon for half the ammo cost

Gauntlet

• Addressed an issue where Encore upgrade was affecting standard charges of the Gauntlet, increasing its refill rate beyond what is intended

Mace

Fixed an issue where the Mace would no longer cause Heavy Falters after purchasing certain upgrades

Atlan

• Fixed an issue where the Atlan was invincible when dodging left

• Fixed an issue where the Atlan’s Perfect Dodge window was extending beyond the Dodge action

Levels

Hebeth

• The Zombie fodder AI is no longer placed inside the wall behind the plasma accelerator weapon pickup

The Holy City of Aratum

• Fixed a rare bug where the tanks on the assault mode tutorial tower would split in half and fire at the player

• The Slayer can no longer become stuck in scaffold wreckage collision near the Cycler pickup arena on the undercity landing zone

Siege – Part 2

• The Titan no longer disappears after restarting the checkpoint

• The player can no longer respawn behind the demonic barrier by jumping into fade volume near the beginning of the bridge to the elevator room

• The Revenant near the turret courtyard no longer becomes idle when pathing through the doorway

Abyssal Forest

• The user can no longer become trapped between rocks and fall out of the world

Hellbreaker

• Fixed a bug where the Crushinator Mission Challenge was counting Hell Tanks towards its completion

From Beyond

• The checkpoint in the machine space now functions correctly and no longer places the player at the pre-summit checkpoint

Spire of Nerathul

• The Slayer can now traverse on water in multiple places in sunken path secret area

• The wall scrambles in the BFC temple area are now reflected on the Automap

• The Imp no longer spawns stuck against the wall in the sunken path secret area

The Kar’Thul Marshes

• The minor arena north of the Sentinel shrine will now correctly complete on the Automap

Temple of Lomarith

• The Automap now includes the leader encounter Icon in shipwreck arena

• The player can no longer hit the metal target node from the ground floor to bypass the Cosmic Eye water tunnel in shipwreck arena

Resurrection

• The cave hazards on the path to the Kreed Maykr ship now move correctly after checkpoint reload

• Added a delay before the Kreed Maykr can use a laser attack after being interrupted by a falter or daze

Reckoning

• The Cosmic Baron in the berserk pickup room encounter before Prince Ahzrak fight can now fit through arched doorways

• The Witch now has the daze ring after being dazed

Engine

• VRS/VRCS has been implemented for PC, matching the functionality already present on consoles 

• Corrected an issue in which there was visible banding on water surfaces in some cases 

Cinematics

• Village of Khalim: The intro text no longer appears in gameplay briefly if the Player skips the cinematic

• Barrier Core: Skipping the power core interactive no longer results in vessel door and light/smoke VFX remaining in the game

• The Holy City of Aratum: The explosion SFX during the transition between cinematics is no longer cut off with tutorials turned off

• Fixed an issue where press hold to skip cinematic is happening before you see the prompt to press hold to skip

• Siege – Part 1:  Holding down the space bar on the wall climb at the end of the level will no longer cause the player to accidentally skip the cinematic

 UI

• Bethesda.net: The 20-character password limit no longer blocks players from linking their Bethesda.net account

• The Holy City of Aratum: The active Dragon dodge tutorial window no longer overlaps the passive Dragon assault mode tutorial window

• Adjusting the “Empowered Attacks” modifier now correctly applies the [*M] tag to a save file

• Benchmark Mode: updated The Abyssal Forest screenshot

• Accelerator: Overload: Both charge bars no longer rubber band and drop to lower charge amounts before returning to normal

• Settings – Parry & Melee Slow Motion: Removed the extra impulse being applied to a corpse’s ragdoll after executing a demon when this setting is turned off

 Audio

• Grenade Launcher: The Grenade Launcher explosion SFX no longer sounds distorted when firing multiple times in succession

• Atlan low health audio no longer plays while around 350 health

• Updated Stone Imp immolation sound effects

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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