Summary
- Doom: The Dark Ages reached 3 million players, the biggest launch in id Software's history.
- The game surpassed the player milestone seven times faster than Doom Eternal, with over 2 million players on Xbox.
Doom: The Dark Ages has swiftly reached three million players, becoming the biggest game launch ever by id Software. As the latest entry in a seminal FPS series, Doom: The Dark Ages rolled out to a strong reception across PC and consoles on May 15, 2025.
When the news of Xbox acquiring ZeniMax Media—id Software's parent company—surfaced, Doom emerged as one of the biggest franchises to be part of the takeover. After the sweeping success of Doom Eternal in 2020, the series unveiled its first game under its new owner in June 2024, stealing the spotlight during the Xbox Games Showcase event. In the days leading up to its release, Doom: The Dark Ages partnered with a variety of brands for promotional reasons, which resulted in a collaboration with Harley-Davidson for a Doom-themed motorcycle, a team-up with Nvidia for limited-time GPU bundles, and more. It now seems like the multi-faceted effort surrounding the launch of the game produced the desired result, with the developer confirming its record-breaking performance.
Doom: The Dark Ages Sets a High Bar For Future Entries
Doom: The Dark Ages brings a long list of changes to the series, leaving the next game with the difficult task of going even bigger.
Bethesda, the publisher behind Doom: The Dark Ages, recently shared that the game's player base grew to three million players within a week of its release. In doing so, the fantasy shooter broke the record for the biggest-ever launch witnessed in the 34-year-long history of id Software. Additionally, it was confirmed that the new Doom game reached the player milestone seven times faster compared to its predecessor, Doom Eternal. Reacting to the announcement, industry insider Christopher Dring chipped in with an interesting stat sourced from Ampere, which revealed that more than two million Doom: The Dark Ages players were on Xbox. Moreover, he continued that he expected the game to fare "a bit better" based on the sheer excitement around the time of its announcement.
Doom: The Dark Ages Crosses Three Million Players
Thanks to Bethesda confirming the medieval-themed Doom as the American studio's most successful launch, the doubts circling around the game's initial performance have been more or less put to bed. Earlier, some gamers had speculated that Doom: The Dark Age s might have been struggling at launch, owing to its inferior peak concurrent player count (31,470) on Steam when pitted against the corresponding debut numbers of the 2016 reboot (44,271) and Doom Eternal (104,891). However, it appears that despite this notable difference in Steam engagement, apparently due to the Game Pass day-one launch being a factor, the Doom Slayer's brand-new adventure has fared well enough anyway.
With Doom: The Dark Ages still having time on its side, it seems fair to expect the game to rope in plenty more players while the surrounding hype remains significant. At the same time, the big launch marks another success story for Xbox's first-party titles, following in the footsteps of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from 2024.
DOOM: The Dark Ages
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 86 /100 Critics Rec: 95%
- Released
- May 15, 2025
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence
- Developer(s)
- id Software
- Publisher(s)
- Bethesda Softworks
WHERE TO PLAY
DOOM: The Dark Ages is the prequel to the critically acclaimed DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal that tells an epic cinematic story of the DOOM Slayer’s rage. Players will step into the blood-stained boots of the DOOM Slayer, in this never-before-seen dark and sinister medieval war against Hell.
- Engine
- id Tech
- Franchise
- DOOM
- Genre(s)
- FPS, Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PlayStation 5
