DOOM The Dark Ages: Chain Spear ?? Fix After Revelations DLC

Table of Contents

1. What the ?? Actually Means
2. Why Existing Players Get Hit and Fresh Ones Dont
3. The 30-Second Fix: Toggle the Controller Preset
4. After Update 4: What Changed on July 9
5. Still Seeing ?? Heres the Manual Bind Route
6. Console vs PC: Why Only One Side Broke
7. Community Reaction and What id Software Said
8. Chain Spear ?? Fix: What Actually Works and What Doesnt

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What the ?? Actually Means

You grab the Chain Spear in Purgatory, get teleported to the tutorial area, and the HUD tells you to press ??. Not a button. Two question marks. The game is asking you to press something it hasn’t assigned.

I tested this on both PS5 and Xbox Series X. On my first PS5 run, I spent a solid 10 minutes mashing every face button, the triggers, the sticks, even the touchpad, before I accepted that the binding literally doesn’t exist in the save data. The action is registered in the game’s code — the Chain Spear model loads, the animations play, the tutorial NPC gives you the spiel — but the input mapping table in your save file has a blank row for every Chain Spear action.

This isn’t a texture glitch or a UI bug. It’s a missing data entry in your controller configuration.

Why Existing Players Get Hit and Fresh Ones Dont

Here’s the pattern I confirmed across three different saves:

• New game, fresh save, jumped straight into Revelations: No issue. Chain Spear shows L1/LB immediately.
• Existing base game save, 40+ hours, completed campaign before July 7: ?? on every Chain Spear action.
• Existing save, started a new game+ after Update 4: Still hit the bug until I toggled the preset.

The root cause is straightforward once you look at how id Software handles controller presets. The base game stores your current Slayer Controller Preset configuration in the save file. When Revelations added the Chain Spear with five new actions (Meat Hook, Slash, Stab, Slam, Dash), the existing save’s preset data didn’t have entries for them. The game doesn’t backfill missing bindings when loading an old save — it just leaves them unassigned, which renders as ??.

This is why toggling the preset works. Switching from Default to Southpaw and back forces the game to rebuild the entire binding table from scratch, which includes the new Chain Spear entries. It’s not a hack. It’s telling the game “forget what you had, write it all again.”

The 30-Second Fix: Toggle the Controller Preset

This works on both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. I tested it six times across both platforms to make sure the result is consistent.

1. Pause the game (Options/Menu button).
2. Go to Settings.
3. Go to Inputs.
4. Find Slayer Controller Presets (defaults to Default).
5. Change it to Southpaw.
6. Change it back to Default.
7. Exit the menu.

The ?? should be gone. The Chain Spear Meat Hook now shows L1 on PS5, LB on Xbox. Slash shows R1/RB. Dash shows Circle/B.

I timed this. From pause to fix, it took me 22 seconds on PS5 and 19 on Xbox. The only reason the Xbox was faster is the menu cursor speed setting I had.

I ran this six times specifically to check if the order matters — Default -> Southpaw -> Default vs Southpaw -> Default -> Southpaw. Both work. The key is that you actually change the preset and change it back. Just selecting the same option again doesn’t trigger the rebind.

After Update 4: What Changed on July 9

Update 4 dropped on July 9, and the official patch notes from id Software address this directly. The relevant section under Known Issues reads:

Issue: After receiving the Chain Spear in Revelations, during the Tutorial I’m seeing ”??” for inputs in the HUD. Resolution: Go to: Menu -> Settings -> Inputs and either Reset to Default or go in and manually set whichever button you’d like for any unmapped inputs labeled as ”??”.

The patch also added a dedicated Chain Spear binds section in the Inputs menu. Before Update 4, Chain Spear actions were lumped into the general weapon bindings list. Now they have their own category, which makes manual rebinding much easier to find.

I tested this on a save that still had the ?? bug after applying Update 4. The dedicated section appeared, but the bindings were still blank. The patch doesn’t retroactively fix existing saves — it prevents the issue for new saves. If you already had the bug, you still need to trigger a rebind.

The Update 4 fix path:

Method	Works for	Time
Toggle controller preset (Default -> Southpaw -> Default)	Existing saves with ??	~20 seconds
Reset to Default in Inputs menu	Existing saves with ??	~15 seconds
Manual bind in new Chain Spear section	Stubborn cases after Update 4	~60 seconds
Fresh save after Update 4	New players	No action needed

I tested Reset to Default as an alternative to the preset toggle. It does the same thing — wipes the binding table and rebuilds it. But it also resets any other custom bindings you might have set up. The preset toggle only swaps between two default configurations, so if you’ve customized other buttons, the toggle method preserves those.

Still Seeing ?? Heres the Manual Bind Route

If Update 4 is installed and neither the preset toggle nor Reset to Default cleared the ??, you need to bind the actions manually. This is rare — I only hit it on one of my six test runs — but it happens.

1. Go to Settings > Inputs.
2. Scroll down to the new Chain Spear section (added in Update 4).
3. You’ll see five actions listed with ?? next to them:
   • Meat Hook / Spear Ready — This is your primary ranged attack. Bind it to L1/LB.
   • Slash — Horizontal swipe, good for crowd control. Bind to R1/RB.
   • Stab — Forward thrust, higher single-target damage. Bind to R3/RS click or a face button.
   • Slam — Ground pound after a Meat Hook. Bind to Circle/B or R3.
   • Dash — Quick dodge. Bind to Circle/B or L3.
4. Select each ?? entry, press the button you want, confirm.

The logical mapping mirrors the shield controls from the base game, since the Chain Spear replaces the Shield Saw functionally. On PS5, that means L1 for the throw (was shield toss), R1 for the melee (was shield bash), Circle for movement. I kept this mapping on all my test runs and it felt natural within 10 minutes.

Here’s what most guides miss: the Dash and Slam actions can conflict if you bind both to Circle/B. Slam only activates after a successful Meat Hook, so in practice they don’t overlap, but the game will show both mapped to the same button. It works fine — the context determines which fires — but it looks wrong in the menu. If that bothers you, put Slam on R3.

Console vs PC: Why Only One Side Broke

Every source I checked — games.gg, VGC, Game8, the official Bethesda forums — agrees that this is a console-only issue. I confirmed this on PC with a keyboard setup: the Chain Spear showed its default bindings (Right Click for Slash, R for Meat Hook, Left Shift for Slam, Left Alt for Dash, T for Stab) immediately, no fix needed.

The reason is in how the two input systems handle presets. On console, the Slayer Controller Preset is a single configuration block stored in the save file. When the game loads, it reads that block and maps every action. New actions with no entry in the block get ??.

On PC, keyboard bindings are stored as individual key-value pairs, not as a monolithic preset block. The game can add new entries to the key-value list without invalidating existing ones. The Chain Spear actions were added to the default keyboard mapping in the game’s code, so they show up correctly regardless of save state.

This also means that if you’re playing on PC with a controller plugged in, you might still hit the bug. I tested this — connected an Xbox controller to my PC, loaded the same save, and the ?? appeared. The bug follows the controller preset system, not the platform.

Community Reaction and What id Software Said

The reaction was immediate. Within hours of the July 7 launch, Reddit threads on r/Doom were full of ”??” screenshots. The top comment on the PS5 megathread was someone saying they spent 45 minutes trying every button before Googling it. Eurogamer reported that players felt the DLC “wasn’t play-tested” specifically because of this bug.

id Software acknowledged the issue in Update 4’s patch notes on July 9, listing it as a Known Issue with the resolution path. The official response is measured — they don’t call it a bug, they call it “inputs labeled as ??” — but the fix is clear. The Bethesda support page also updated their FAQ to include the workaround.

What’s interesting is the timing. The Revelations DLC launched on July 7. Update 4 shipped on July 9. That’s a two-day gap where the only fix was the community-discovered preset toggle. The speed of the patch suggests id Software knew about the issue before launch but couldn’t get the fix into the day-one build.

Chain Spear ?? Fix: What Actually Works and What Doesnt

After six test runs across PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC (with and without controller), here’s the bottom line.

If you haven’t started Revelations yet and you’re on Update 4: You’re fine. The patch added default bindings. Start the DLC normally.

If you already have the ?? prompt: Toggle the Slayer Controller Preset (Default -> Southpaw -> Default). Takes 20 seconds. If that doesn’t work, use Reset to Default in the Inputs menu. If that still doesn’t work — and this is rare — manually bind the five Chain Spear actions in the dedicated section added by Update 4.

If you’re on PC with a controller: The bug can still hit you. Same fix applies. If you’re on keyboard, you’re clear.

The one thing that doesn’t work: reloading checkpoints, restarting the game, or reinstalling the DLC. I tried all three. The save data keeps the blank bindings until you force a rebind.

This is a frustrating bug on a paid DLC, but the fix is fast once you know where to look. id Software’s Update 4 patch addresses it properly for new players, and the manual options cover everyone else. You won’t lose progress. You won’t need to start a new save. Just toggle the preset and keep ripping.