Bethesda Calls Doom: The Dark Ages id Software’s Biggest Launch in History
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- Bethesda Softworks has named Doom: The Dark Ages the biggest launch in id Software’s history.
- The video game publisher also stated that the game had reached 3 million players seven times faster than Doom Eternal.
- Doom: The Dark Ages also topped the chart of the highest-grossing paid games on Steam during the week of May 13-20, 2025.
Doom: The Dark Ages was named the biggest launch in id Software’s history and was claimed to have reached 3 million players seven times faster than Doom Eternal. The announcement was made via the official X account of Bethesda Softworks.
Notably, as of the time of writing, Doom: The Dark Ages featured a Very Positive rating on Steam with only 10,505 user reviews.
On top of that, the eighth main entry in the Doom franchise and the third installment of the modern series, following Doom Eternal (2020), topped the chart of the highest-grossing paid games on Steam during the week of May 13-20, 2025. Doom: The Dark Ages reached the top position in the paid Steam chart and second overall, behind only the free-to-play Counter-Strike 2.
Early access to the game was granted on May 13, 2025, exclusively to players who purchased the Premium Edition or Collector’s Edition. The official release followed on May 15, 2025, for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Doom: The Dark Ages is a prequel to Doom (2016) that follows the rise of the series’ protagonist, the Doom Slayer, as he becomes the last hope of a kingdom fighting against the forces of Hell in a techno-medieval setting.
Notably, Nvidia released a new GeForce driver for Doom: The Dark Ages three days prior to the game’s launch and a day ahead of the game’s Early Access rollout. The driver optimized GeForce PC/laptop GPUs for Doom: The Dark Ages, supporting features such as Nvidia’s DLSS and Ray Tracing.
The release of the eighth main installment in the franchise follows the launch of 666 special boxes by Limited Run Games that can run Doom.
These boxes are an homage to a long-lasting mass experiment under the hashtag #itrunsdoom, which includes projects such as Doom ported to Microsoft Word, running inside a PDF file, and even loaded using only TypeScript’s type system.
