If you're fortunate enough to get Doom: The Dark Ages running smoothly, id Software's latest entry into the genre-defining shooter series is a devilishly good time. Beefy hardware specifications are likely to be the barrier of entry for some players, but less than a week since the game's launch, the Doom: Eternal sequel is breaking new records. Doom: The Dark Ages is growing seven times faster than its predecessor.
In just six days, Doom: The Dark Ages has ascended past three million players. Celebrating the victory on social media, Bethesda says, "Thank you for making Doom: The Dark Ages the biggest launch in id's history." With the addition of id Software's latest FPS game to the massive Xbox Game Pass games library, a whole new legion of Doomslayers can get their fix of gore-tastic fun on console and PC. Comparatively, Doom: Eternal launched before Microsoft acquired Zenimax, Bethesda's parent company.
It's an undoubtedly excellent victory for the long-running allfather of first-person action, but there are some obstacles to overcome. Shifting over to Steam, it appears that the shooter isn't quite as popular as Doom: Eternal, with a peak of 31,470 players currently logged on SteamDB. That's a significant drop from Doom: Eternal's all-time player peak of 104,891.
While a hefty portion of players could be utilizing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to avoid spending upwards of $60 on the game, there's a considerable number of players with portable gaming consoles like the ROG Ally left on the sidelines. Doom: The Dark Ages Steam Deck functionality is hardly worth your time, and it doesn't fare much better on Asus' handheld PC in our testing.
Steps to improve performance are slowly coming, but the game's forced Ray Tracing is a huge problem. Considering how particularly great Doom: Eternal runs on Steam Deck, it's a woeful misstep. Previous leaks claim a Doom: The Dark Ages Nintendo Switch 2 port is in the works. Doom (2016) and Doom: Eternal are both available on Nintendo Switch, as are numerous older entries before the reboot era, which is all the hope you need to see it come to fruition.
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