Summary
After falling in love with the Shield Saw,Doomfans are trying to figure out why the Doom Slayer doesn’t have it in any of the other games afterThe Dark Ages.
Without a doubt, one of the biggest andbest parts of Doom: The Dark Ages is its core new mechanic - the Shield Saw. Just like how theMeat Hook fundamentally changed how Eternal plays, the Shield Saw is basically the tentpole feature of the latest Doom, and gives the Slayer the chance tostand and fight against his enemies instead of always staying on the move.
Alongside the Super Shotgun and BFG,the Shield Saw has quickly found its place in the pantheon of Doom weapons, and seems to have quickly become a fan favourite. With that in mind, fans are wondering what the heck happened to the Shield Saw after The Dark Ages, as we never see the Doom Slayer wield it again.
Doom Fans Are Wondering Where The Shield Saw Went After The Dark Ages
The Perfect Tool For Ripping And Tearing Wouldn’t Just Break, Right?
While the real-life answer is as simple as id Software only just thinking of the weapon and choosing it as a big game-changer for The Dark Ages, the question isn’t really answered in-game. While you might think that the game would end with the Shield Saw being lost somewhere and setting up its absence in future Doom games, that’s not really the case at all.
We see Doomguy with the Shield Saw at the end of the Dark Ages, suggesting that he parts ways with it a bit later on in the series.Over on the Doom subreddit, Redditor awkward_but_decent asked other fans what they think happenedto it considering The Dark Ages is a prequel and it seems like too helpful of a tool for the Slayer to not keep around.
Beyond the excellent jokes about the Slayer discovering quick-swapping and needing two hands for it, there are some good theories about what happened to the Shield Saw.Redditor Embarrassed_Storm238 suggests that the demons took it away from Doomguywhen they imprisoned him in a coffin before the events of Doom 2016, similarly to how they took his armour.
Samuel Hayden was playing frisbee with it in his office, and accidentally chucked it through a window. It was never seen again.
Redditor Embarrassed_Storm238 pointed out that it’s implied the Doom Slayer has been fighting for a lot of years, so that Shield Saw could have just broken in that time, or been ditched as the Slayer went even more brutal with his combat style. That seems a little less plausible considering how handy the Shield Saw is, but considering the demons stopped using parryable attacks, it’s not too far-fetched.
While there are some great ideas in the thread that could explain where the Shield Saw went, some fans point outthat we’ve still got a whole DLC campaign to go for The Dark Ages, which could end with an explanation as to what happened to the Shield Saw. That, or id will just have us guessing all over again and assuming Doomguy is more forgetful than he looks.
