Today during the Xbox Summer Showcase, Bethesda and id Software announced Doom: The Dark Ages, coming in 2025. It’s the next entry in the long-running and super-popular Doom series and looks to be something different than previous installments.
The very first Doom game launched all the way back in the ‘90s and popularized the first-person shooter genre. Since then Doom has stuck around, with sequels, reboots, spin-offs, and so many fan-developed ports and mods. In 2020, id Software released Doom: Eternal, the fantastic follow-up to Doom (2016). And now, four years later, id Software and Bethesda—both now owned by Xbox—have unveiled the next Doom game and it looks pretty dang rad.
In the trailer, we see the Doom Slayer using a shield and guns to kill all sorts of demons and monsters. He even at one point rides a dragon. Holy shit! Dark Ages looks like a prequel to the franchise, showing us who the Doom Slayer was before we see him killing demons on Mars.
Last month, this newly announced Doom game was leaked ahead of today’s event by Insider Gaming. According to that report, the new game has been in development for about four years and was reportedly, at one point in time, named Year Zero internally at id Software.
For Xbox, Doom: The Dark Ages is what the company needs. After spending billions of dollars on acquiring various publishers and studios—like Activision and Bethesda—Xbox really needs to show what all that money bought. Reports suggest that Microsoft’s top execs are pressing the Xbox division to make more money and to bring their games to more platforms. This internal conflict may explain why games like Sea of Thieves, Pentiment, and Grounded were ported to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. And according to recent reports, it appears even more games, even Halo, might land on PS5 and other platforms.
Doom: The Dark Ages will arrive next year on Xbox and PC.
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