Update 3 for Doom: The Dark Ages is here, and it’s completely transforming the game's training ground. The centerpiece of this patch is Ripatorium 2.0, a ground-up rework that turns the practice arena into a highly customizable, round-based combat gauntlet where you call the shots.
Craft Your Own Demonic Gauntlets
The old Ripatorium was a decent place to test weapons, but Ripatorium 2.0 is a different beast entirely. It’s now a round-based mode where you can create your own combat encounters using presets. The biggest game-changer, however, is the new Passcode sharing system. Currently in beta, this feature lets you generate a code for your custom encounter and share it with other players, effectively creating a hub for player-made challenges.
This transforms the Ripatorium from a simple sandbox into a genuine source of replayable content. Expect to see the community create everything from brutal, endgame-level challenges to specific scenarios designed to test certain builds or weapon combos.
More Control, Less Frustration
Beyond the Ripatorium, Update 3 delivers some significant quality-of-life changes that address direct player feedback. First, the controversial Brink of Death feature, which previously triggered automatically, can now be set to either Normal (classic behavior) or Hard (requiring a manual trigger). This gives players more control over the game's difficulty and pacing.
Perhaps more importantly for PC players, the Melee Weapon and Shield Rune actions can finally be bound to separate inputs. This is a huge win for control customization, allowing for a much smoother and more intuitive combat flow without the awkwardness of a shared key.
How does this update change the campaign?
While the Ripatorium gets the spotlight, the campaign receives some meaningful tweaks. Several combat encounters have been adjusted, with certain enemy spawns removed or replaced in levels like Holy City of Aratum, Siege Part 1, and Reckoning. This may slightly alter the difficulty curve and strategic approach for these sections on new playthroughs. Additionally, a critical crash on PS5 Pro related to Glory Strikes on Dazed enemies has been fixed, ensuring a more stable experience for those players.
Finally, for those who love the game's soundtrack, five new tracks have been added to the Jukebox: 'Theomachy', 'Bloodspill', 'Divine Retribution', 'From the Ashes', and 'Wither and Writhe'. It's a solid update that adds both deep replayability with Ripatorium 2.0 and welcome refinements to the core experience.