Summary
Doom: The Dark Agesis already shaping up to be an interesting case. When reviews dropped, itbecame one of the highest-rated games in franchise history, but as things stand, after a day, it has the lowest user review score on Steam of the reboot trilogy, although there is plenty of time to turn this around.
ItsSteamreviews aren’t the only place where the game is falling behind its predecessor, either. Doom: The Dark Ages had a significantly quieter launch day on the platform than 2020’s Doom Eternal.
Doom: The Dark Ages Day One Steam Player Count Hasn’t Come Close To Doom Eternal
Yesterday, according toSteamDB, Doom: The Dark Ages peaked at 30,812 players. On Doom Eternal’s launch day in March 2020, the game peaked at 104,891 players. This means Doom: The Dark Ages only hit around 30 percent of the player count Eternal managed on Steam at launch. Even Doom (2016) bettered The Dark Ages' day one player count, peaking at 32,182 on launch, before climbing to 44,217 that weekend.
32,182
44,217
104,891
30,812
TBC
It’s worth noting that there are a couple of serious mitigating factors this time around. Doom: The Dark Ages is the first game in the series sinceMicrosoft’s mega-acquisition of Zenimaxand all of its properties. This, in turn, means that it launched onXbox Game Pass, unlike Doom Eternal, which came to the servicearound seven months later. The fact that itruns so well on the Xbox Series Xcould also be another reason players were tempted to move away from Steam.
Alongside this, Doom: The Dark Ages launched on a Thursday, versus Eternal, which launched on a Friday. A Friday launch is always likely to draw a larger player count, as people finish work for the week and look to unwind with a late-night gaming session.
Arguably, the largest of all mitigating factors, however, is the COVID-19 Pandemic. Countries began to go into lockdown around the time Doom Eternal released, meaning players had a lot more free time on their hands.
In theory, despite the huge contrast with Eternal, Doom: The Dark Ages' day one Steam player count should be nothing to worry about. There was likely a huge uptick in players on Game Pass, which ate into its Steam player numbers, but it will certainly be interesting to see how high things go over the weekend.
