{"id":114347,"date":"2025-05-19T12:43:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T12:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/114347\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T12:43:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T12:43:11","slug":"fans-discuss-the-reason-behind-doom-the-dark-ages-lukewarm-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/114347\/","title":{"rendered":"Fans Discuss the Reason Behind DOOM: The Dark Ages&#8217; Lukewarm Opening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Inquiry Already Underway Over Lacklustre DOOM: The Dark Ages Opening 1\" href=\"https:\/\/images.pushsquare.com\/60b6884469112\/inquiry-already-underway-over-lacklustre-doom-the-dark-ages-opening-1.large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/inquiry-already-underway-over-lacklustre-doom-the-dark-ages-opening-1.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" alt=\"Inquiry Already Underway Over Lacklustre DOOM: The Dark Ages Opening 1\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Update [Mon 19th May 2025, 1:15pm]:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/doom_the_dark_ages\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DOOM: The Dark Ages<\/a> failed to get any real bump of players on Steam over the weekend, with its highest peak managing just 31,470 on Saturday \u2013 just 600 more than its previous high on launch day.<\/p>\n<p>It should be reiterated yet again that concurrent players do not directly correlate to sales, although usually a game that achieves a high number of users tends to be successful, like the recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/clair_obscur_expedition_33\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clair Obscur: Expedition 33<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s led to an inquest from fans about what exactly has gone wrong, with some pointing to the title\u2019s high price and others referencing the busy release schedule.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll need to wait for more information from Bethesda, of course, but right now it doesn\u2019t look like The Dark Ages has set the world alight.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Original Story:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/doom_the_dark_ages\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DOOM: The Dark Ages<\/a> hasn\u2019t exactly got off to the strongest start if its <a href=\"https:\/\/steamdb.info\/app\/3017860\/charts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steam concurrent numbers<\/a> are to go by.<\/p>\n<p>While the metric only gives us a small slice of the release\u2019s overall performance, it\u2019s currently topped out at 30,802 players, with the number looking unlikely to increase significantly over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>To put things into perspective, predecessor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/doom_eternal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DOOM Eternal<\/a> peaked at <a href=\"https:\/\/steamdb.info\/app\/782330\/charts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">106,891 players<\/a>, so more than three times what id Software\u2019s latest has achieved.<\/p>\n<p>There are caveats to consider, though: The Dark Ages is available through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Xbox Game Pass<\/strong><\/a>, which could have pulled players away from Steam. Although it\u2019s worth mentioning that both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/clair_obscur_expedition_33\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clair Obscur: Expedition 33<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/elder_scrolls_iv_oblivion_remastered\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered<\/a> are both also available in Microsoft\u2019s subscription service, and have significantly more players than DOOM.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also possible, of course, that the game may be selling better on consoles, and it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/store.playstation.com\/en-us\/pages\/browse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">currently third<\/a> on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/tags\/ps-store\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>PS Store\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> best-sellers list, behind only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/nba_2k25\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NBA 2K25<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/fortnite\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fortnite<\/a>. But given the series\u2019 history on PC, it seems unlikely for the PS5 version to be selling significantly better.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, all of this has led to an inquiry into exactly what\u2019s gone wrong. The game obviously has strong reviews \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/reviews\/ps5\/doom-the-dark-ages\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">we awarded it an 8\/10<\/a> \u2013 but some have pointed out there have simply been too many good games releasing recently for fans to keep up.<\/p>\n<p>Others have referred to the game\u2019s high price point, noting that $69.99 is a lot to pay for a single player first-person shooter these days, irrespective of its quality.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, we need a lot more information than just Steam concurrents before we can pass any definitive judgment on DOOM: The Dark Ages\u2019 first week performance. It does seem like it\u2019s off to a slower start than expected, though.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text source\">[source <a class=\"external\" title=\"External Link: https:\/\/steamdb.info\/app\/3017860\/charts\/\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/steamdb.info\/app\/3017860\/charts\/\" target=\"_blank\">steamdb.info<\/a>]<\/p>\n<dl>\n<dt>Related Games<\/dt>\n<dd class=\"first\">\n<\/dd>\n<dt>See Also<\/dt>\n<dd class=\"first\">\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p class=\"avatar\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1743494892_723_avatar.jpg\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Sammy Barker\"\/><\/p>\n<p>As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Update [Mon 19th May 2025, 1:15pm]: DOOM: The Dark Ages failed to get any real bump of players&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[566,42638,55,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-114347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-bethesda","9":"tag-doom","10":"tag-ps5","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114534560925959384","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}