Doom: The Dark Ages is id Software’s ‘biggest launch’ ever, Bethesda says
The game reached 3 million players seven times faster than Doom Eternal, it’s claimed
Doom: The Dark Ages is id Software’s “biggest launch” ever, according to publisher Bethesda.
In a post on the official Bethesda account on X, the publisher stated that the game had reached 3 million players since its release on May 15.
According to Bethesda, this not only makes the game “the biggest launch in id’s history”, it also means the game reached the 3 million players milestone seven times faster than Doom Eternal.
The claim appears to contradict previous estimates by Superdata back in March 2020, which suggested at the time that Doom Eternal had hit the 3 million milestone by the end of March, a 10-day period given its March 20 release. These figures were estimates, however, rather than an official claim by Bethesda.
Developer id Software previously claimed that Doom: The Dark Ages, which has no multiplayer mode and is entirely single-player only, would have a larger focus on story and would boast the “best yet”.
The game takes place in between the events of Doom 64 and the 2016 reboot of Doom.
Thank you for making DOOM: The Dark Ages the biggest launch in id’s history – 7x faster to 3 million players than DOOM Eternal. pic.twitter.com/c0SKR97FO8
— Bethesda (@bethesda) May 20, 2025
According to SteamDB, Doom: The Dark Ages has hit a peak concurrent player count of 31,470 players on Steam since its release, compared to the peak of 104,891 for Doom Eternal.
However, it’s important to note that when Doom Eternal was released, Microsoft had still yet to acquire Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media, meaning Doom Eternal was not available on Xbox Game Pass at launch.
Doom: The Dark Ages, however, has been available on PC Game Pass since its day of release, meaning a number of PC players will be playing through that instead of buying it on Steam, affecting its number of concurrent users on Valve‘s platform.
VGC’s Doom: The Dark Ages review calls the game “brutal, challenging and laugh-out-loud funny”.
“Doom: The Dark Ages gets so much right that its main flaws come when the game takes you away from its main, excellent combat loop,” we wrote. “While not every new addition works, the game’s new open zones are a treat, and the Doomslayer’s arsenal is still incredibly fun to run around with.”
