"Doom: The Dark Ages Marks id's Largest Launch, No Sales Data Released Yet"

Since its release last week, *Doom: The Dark Ages* has attracted over 3 million players, marking it as a significant milestone for the franchise. Despite this impressive player count, Bethesda has not yet disclosed official sales figures for the game.

In a recent social media post, Bethesda confirmed that *Doom: The Dark Ages* is now the biggest launch in id Software’s history in terms of player numbers—reaching 3 million players seven times faster than *Doom Eternal*, which launched back in 2020.

It's important to look closer at these figures. *Doom: The Dark Ages* launched globally on May 15, 2025, across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. However, only Steam provides publicly accessible player data, so we’ll focus primarily there.

On Steam, *Doom: The Dark Ages* reached a peak concurrent player count of 31,470, with a 24-hour peak of 16,328 players. Comparatively, *Doom Eternal* hit a much higher peak of 104,891 concurrent players upon its release five years ago. For additional context, the 2016 reboot of *Doom* had a peak of 44,271 players on Steam—set nearly nine years earlier.

However, the Game Pass factor must be considered when interpreting these numbers. *Doom: The Dark Ages* was available on day one for both Xbox consoles and PC via Game Pass. This means a portion of those 3 million players likely accessed the game through their subscription rather than purchasing it outright at the $69.99 retail price.

From Microsoft’s perspective, this may be perfectly acceptable—it reinforces the value of Game Pass subscriptions. Still, some titles have managed strong sales despite launching on Game Pass. Take *Clair Obscur: Expedition 33*, for example, which sold an impressive 2 million copies while also being available on Game Pass from day one. Given that *Doom: The Dark Ages* carries a higher price point, it’s possible that some players opted not to buy it outright.

This brings us to another key point: while Bethesda has announced 3 million players, it has not shared a specific sales number. This mirrors past strategies used for titles like *The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered*, which also reached 4 million players after launching on Game Pass. Similarly, Ubisoft reported 3 million players for *Assassin’s Creed: Shadows*, without disclosing hard sales figures.

Ultimately, only Bethesda and Microsoft know whether *Doom: The Dark Ages* has met internal performance goals. What we can reasonably conclude is that the 3 million player figure indicates strong performance on consoles and through Game Pass—but potentially weaker traction on Steam compared to previous entries in the series.

IGN awarded *Doom: The Dark Ages* a 9/10 in its review, stating: "Doom: The Dark Ages may strip away the mobility focus of Doom Eternal, but replaces it with a very weighty and powerful style of play that is different from anything the series has done before, and still immensely satisfying in its own way."