Bethesda and id Software are celebrating with news that DOOM: The Dark Ages has officially engaged over 3 million players. As multiple publishers have continued to milk the online multiplayer cash cow and seemingly abandoned single-player games, it looks like there are plenty of folks who will pay for a title to slay alone. Bethesda announced that the latest DOOM instalment, which released on May 15, has become id Software’s biggest launch ever.
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
There is some controversy regarding Bethesda’s language with its celebratory announcement. Numerous replies to the post have pointed out that publishers have been focusing on player counts rather than reporting on how many copies have been sold. This kind of tracking becomes even more skewed when taking into account when a title becomes available, either day one or shortly thereafter, on a gaming service such as Xbox Game Pass, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and in rare instances, a brief free release on Epic Games Store.
Those wanting to make direct comparisons to the previous entry, DOOM Eternal, do need to understand that there is a bit of an apples vs oranges scenario happening between the two. As VGC points out, Microsoft did not at the time own ZeniMax Media, which is how it obtained Bethesda, and also had not made DOOM Eternal available on Xbox Game Pass when it launched. Current SteamDB numbers indicate a peak of ~31K players compared to over 100K for the previous game but again there’s a difference in reporting the date range, with previous tracking spanning 10 days and current being just 5. However, it’s unlikely the current peak count will more than triple in the next 5 days either.
It would seem that as publishers have changed their language in reporting player engagement data, they are more than likely looking at tracking info from subscription services now instead of just raw sales records. A similar claim was made by Ubisoft for Assassin’s Creed: Shadows back in March about its then player count, but sales have reportedly been much less (according to posts on its social media channel).
In either case, if the deals with these services combined with actual sales are enough to produce needed profits, it’s the gamers who ultimately win out. Regardless of what type of meta is being talked about, it would appear that single-player gaming is making a bit of a comeback with these titles, along with the recent launch of Indiana Jones and The Great Circle on PlayStation 5, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and also Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.