After months of anticipation and a confirmation at the Xbox Games Showcase in June, id Software’s first major expansion for DOOM: The Dark Ages has arrived. DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations launched yesterday, July 7, 2026, priced at $19.99 as a standalone purchase and included at no additional cost for Premium Edition owners.
The expansion picks up the Slayer’s story in a new setting: a frozen-over Hell called Purgatory. id Software describes Revelations as a “brutal new chapter” spanning six new levels, with the Slayer wounded and cast into a purgatory he can only escape by confronting something far more personal than a demon army. The studio has been deliberate about keeping plot details under wraps, but pre-release materials confirmed a new playable scenario drawing on events from the original 1993 DOOM, which should scratch an itch for series veterans.
The featured new weapon is the Chain Spear: a close-to-mid-range tool that pins enemies at range and then yanks the Slayer toward them at high speed, creating new possibilities for both combat aggression and platforming. id Software says the Chain Spear rewards mastery with “enhanced power and mobility,” and the weapon looks built for the kind of high-velocity improvisation that makes DOOM: The Dark Ages combat tick. Returning enemies include the Archvile and the Cosmic Elemental, the latter clearly id’s answer to the Pain Elemental. New threats, including the Warlock and Buzzsaw hybrids, are in the mix as well.
Beyond the campaign content, Revelations ships alongside a free update to Ripatorium 3.0, the game’s modular arena challenge mode. Completing the expansion’s Master Arenas unlocks three new Ripatorium maps, new demons, and fully upgraded weapon variants, giving completionists meaningful post-campaign content.
The expansion ships as part of Update 1.013, which is live now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. Early reports from community members note some display irregularities with the Chain Spear HUD element following installation; this is worth keeping an eye on as patches roll out.
We covered DOOM: The Dark Ages from its January 2025 announcement through its record-breaking launch in May 2025, when id Software confirmed the game had engaged over three million players in its first two weeks. We also previewed the Revelations DLC here just five days ago when id lifted the curtain on the Chain Spear and campaign details.
At $19.99 for six levels, new enemies, new weapons, and a substantial Ripatorium content drop, Revelations looks like a fair ask relative to what DOOM: Eternal’s Ancient Gods DLC delivered. The question is whether the “confronting his past” angle translates to actual narrative satisfaction rather than flavoring over another sequence of excellent combat encounters. Either way, id Software’s track record with this engine has been exceptional, and if you own the base game, there is no real reason to wait.
Discussion (2 replies)
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So they did the same thing as Eternal, and pushed the base difficulty higher for the expansion. This does not bode well. I hope this expansion is decent cuz the expansions for Eternal were trash.
He says right off the bat this is about combining TDA with Eternal's movement. So yeah, that might be interesting indeed. Sounds like it started off as an experiment and they loved where it was heading so they ran widdit.
He's saying the spear has basically too many moves/features, so you're not really gonna understand its potential right away, you gotta stick with it and learn it.
Sounds like the crew that made the music for base TDA (Finishing Move Inc.) stepped up their game for the expansion, but hard to tell cuz the only two decent songs they made for the base game were used in the trailers, so there wasn't really anything notable or especially good to discover in the rest of the soundtrack. So I'm wondering if that is happening again with the expansion too. Still, if the music has improved over the base game I'll take it. But as with the base game, seeing the action in here just has me wondering how much more awesome and fitting it would have been with Mick Gordon music.
Battle.Net client software is still around, and Doom TDA and its expansion are on that platform too?!
This video hits different when I'm wondering in the back of my mind how many of the people who worked on this are now unemployed (especially if the rumors are true that most of the coders were laid off, which is about the DUMBEST f*cking thing you could do to a company like id Software). Also just found out the head of the Xbox back-compat program was laid off.
Exactly what I was thinking