The Dark Ages Players Aren't Keen On The Baron's Redesign

Summary

Doom: The Dark Ages has given the classic Baron of Hell a Cosmic redesign, and some fans aren’t thrilled about his new look.
On top of being compared to a woman’s private parts, some fans think the design has lost its “original Doom feel” and didn’t even recognize it was supposed to be a Baron.
Others think the design is alright, but wish that the game included the classic Baron designs from Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal.

Doom has quite a lot of iconic and terrifying enemies that have been redesigned over the years, with the Cacodemon, Imp, and Cyberdemon all proving to be popular enemies that have withstood the test of time. Another classic that has featured in all the more modern Doom games is the Baron of Hell, though he’s undergone a bit of a redesign in each of the three games we’ve had recently.

Doom 2016 is arguably the version of the Baron of Hell that most closely resembles his design in the original games, while Doom Eternal gave him a bit more of a hellish aesthetic by attaching flaming claws to his… claws, and making him more gray than pink. Doom: The Dark Ages is the latest game to give him a redesign, but this one was the most drastic yet, and is almost indistinguishable from the classic Baron of Hell look.

Doom: The Dark Ages Players Aren’t Keen On The Baron’s Redesign

It’s such a drastic change in appearance that the topic recently came up on the Doom subreddit, as a user called Sfwestbank asked the community what they thought about the Baron’s redesign, claiming that they think it’s “a bit off putting” and wish they hadn’t removed his horns. It doesn’t appear to be an unpopular opinion either.

Makyrs in Doom: The Dark Ages with a fast-forward symbol over the image.

I’ve Never Intentionally Skipped A Cutscene In My Life But Doom: The Dark Ages Is Testing Me

A dark age for cutscenes.

We’ll address the elephant in the room first, as you’ll find that quite a lot of people keep mentioning that the Cosmic Baron looks a bit like a woman’s unmentionables, with him being called things such as “Cosmic Bussy”, “Zombgina”, and other absolutely rancid nicknames that conjure up the worst imagery.

Outside the smut, you have people admitting that they never even realized the enemy was even supposed to be a Baron when they came across it in the game, and that it actually looks more like a Shambler from Quake. A user called EvoroVol says that they think the Cosmic Baron “lost its original Doom feel”, and has become instantly less recognizable as a result. Given that people didn’t even know it was a Baron, they might have a point.

There are some people that seem to dig the design, and the more Quake-esque designs in general, but they even admit that they would have liked to have seen either Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal’s Barons in the game as well. Maybe we’ll get some classic Barons in the DLC, though the way the game has been selling, you might not want to get your hopes up for that.