Thursday, January 23rd 2025
DOOM: The Dark Ages Requires RT. Release Date, PC System Requirements, and New Gameplay Trailer Revealed
The time draws near to Reign in Hell when DOOM: The Dark Ages releases May 15, 2025, on Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Preorder your copy today! For PC players, check that your setup is battle-ready by consulting our PC Requirements below, including listings for Minimum, Recommended and even Ultra 4K settings.
A NEW GENERATION OF IDTECH
id Software's most ambitious title yet, DOOM: The Dark Ages pushes new standards in visual fidelity and performance with the power of idTech8. Taking full advantage of modern hardware on all platforms, idTech8 ushers in a new era of gameplay performance and visual fidelity featuring all-new dynamic interactive ray-traced lighting and shadows, higher-fidelity image quality, increased gore and destruction and so much more. With the largest environments ever in a DOOM game, DOOM: The Dark Ages delivers an epic experience full of worlds to explore, hordes of demons to destroy and an action story worthy of the Slayer's legend. Whether soaring through the air with his dragon or smashing giant Titan-sized demons using his Atlan mech, the Slayer is taking on his biggest battles yet - all beautifully rendered and running at a buttery-smooth 60 frames per second on all platforms.System Requirements
MINIMUM (1080p/60 FPS/Low Video Settings)
DOOM: The Dark Ages launches May 15, 2025, on Game Pass, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Play up to two days early with Early Access by preordering DOOM: The Dark Ages Premium Edition.
Source:
Bethesda
A NEW GENERATION OF IDTECH
id Software's most ambitious title yet, DOOM: The Dark Ages pushes new standards in visual fidelity and performance with the power of idTech8. Taking full advantage of modern hardware on all platforms, idTech8 ushers in a new era of gameplay performance and visual fidelity featuring all-new dynamic interactive ray-traced lighting and shadows, higher-fidelity image quality, increased gore and destruction and so much more. With the largest environments ever in a DOOM game, DOOM: The Dark Ages delivers an epic experience full of worlds to explore, hordes of demons to destroy and an action story worthy of the Slayer's legend. Whether soaring through the air with his dragon or smashing giant Titan-sized demons using his Atlan mech, the Slayer is taking on his biggest battles yet - all beautifully rendered and running at a buttery-smooth 60 frames per second on all platforms.System Requirements
MINIMUM (1080p/60 FPS/Low Video Settings)
- OS: Win 10 64Bit / Win 11 64Bit
- CPU: AMD Zen 2 or Intel 10th Generation @3.2Ghz with 8 cores / 16 threads or better (examples: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or better, Intel Core i7 10700K or better)
- GPU: NVIDIA or AMD hardware ray tracing-capable GPU with 8 GB dedicated VRAM or better (examples: NVIDIA RTX 2060 Super or better, AMD RX 6600 or better)
- System RAM: 16 GB
- Storage Capacity: 512 GB or higher NVMe SSD (100 GB Available)
- OS: Win 10 64Bit / Win 11 64Bit
- CPU: AMD Zen 3 or Intel 12th Generation @3.2Ghz with 8 cores / 16 threads or better (examples: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X or better, Intel Core i7 12700K or better)
- GPU: NVIDIA or AMD hardware ray tracing-capable GPU with 10 GB dedicated VRAM or better (examples: NVIDIA RTX 3080 or better, AMD RX 6800 or better)
- System RAM: 32 GB
- Storage Capacity: 512 GB or higher NVMe SSD (100 GB Available)
- OS: Win 10 64Bit / Win 11 64Bit
- CPU: AMD Zen 3 or Intel 12th Generation @3.2Ghz with 8 cores / 16 threads or better (examples: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X or better, Intel Core i7 12700K or better)
- GPU: NVIDIA or AMD hardware ray tracing-capable GPU with 16 GB dedicated VRAM or better (examples: NVIDIA RTX 4080 or better, AMD RX 7900XT or better)
- System RAM: 32 GB
- Storage Capacity: 512 GB or higher NVMe SSD (100 GB Available)
DOOM: The Dark Ages launches May 15, 2025, on Game Pass, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Play up to two days early with Early Access by preordering DOOM: The Dark Ages Premium Edition.
77 Comments on DOOM: The Dark Ages Requires RT. Release Date, PC System Requirements, and New Gameplay Trailer Revealed
Yeah, TAG is genuinely just a first person character action game at this point. I also kinda was “meh” on Eternal - I fundamentally disagree with what Hugo Martin chose as a design direction for the series. I sorta tolerated it in 2016, but in Eternal it became straight up obnoxious. I consider Doom to be more of a dungeon crawler than whatever they decided to make it, but it’s a taste thing. At least we got a PC version of 64 and Legacy of Rust, so… eh. Sigil I and II too and Hellion is coming. Not like we Classic Doom enjoyers are eating poorly, community WADs notwithstanding.
though i9-9900k is prior gen than they recommend, it's better than the min CPU they list
seriously was looking at RX 7900 XTX's today and water blocks too, would be about $1k just for that. I was already kinda hating myself for thinking I could end up pulling the trigger on that, now I gotta consider new system too, doh!
Though I do have a HTPC with an i5-13400 which my RX 6900 XT will go to if I got a new GPU....maybe I play this game there instead if i9-9900k ends up doing any bottlenecking. But not sure if that could bottleneck the gpu either. decisions, decisions.... Hopefully that speed thing is not a surprise for you. They have been saying this since any teaser release material came out say maybe a year ago. Hugo Martin described the recent releases as such
Doom (2016) = Ferrari
Doom Eternal = Fighter jet
Doom: The Dark Ages = Tank
Doom's movement was quick. Eternal took that quick movement into the air. But now it's going to have some different mechanics which was described as some slower movement, or at least, not such an emphasis on flying around arenas for like up to 10 mins straight lol. Sounded like there may even be some defense mechanics with that shield. I forgot about the....err....dragons or whatever the hell creatures they are that we can allegedly pilot until this video reminded me about that. So they are obviously trying not to do a cookie cutter repeat. They want to innovate on the franchise and I doubt they will disappoint!
Eternal has much more complex combat but the levels are somewhat paced. In that it's set encounters and then slows down till the next. You can't just blaze through it the way you can the originals.
All the games are a matter of taste and there is OG Doom, Doom 3, and now New Doom styles but outside of Doom 3 they have all ben very fast action games with a minimal amount of exploration that you often could just speed past. Doom 3 was also hotly debated at the time for being too slow, too dark, too much lore, too much exploring and not enough killing, and "zombie in a locker" syndrome. Also reloading! Who asked for that? Yet years later people came around to it a bit more for what it was trying to do.
For better or worse id shakes things up. Quake is a hot mess as well. I prefer Quake 1 and it's Lovecraftin sense of horror and style and I like it's 1v1 more than the others. Quake 2 was huge chain and Quake 3 ditched SP completely. Only Quake 4 to come around and focus on SP be viewed as a complete disaster (slow pace, reloading, exploring, lore, in Quake, oh no no no no). Then we had Quake Champions which was Quake Overwatch and also bombed.
I'm glad to see more Doom and I'll pick it up.
As for the requirements on it, meh. Doom 2016 and Eternal run great on just about any modern PC and even the Switch of all things. They are very well optimized.
In fact, you could go back to the PS4 and the Xbox One, they're both using dual quad-core Jaguar modules from AMD. All the way to 2013. 11 years ago.
I'd say I'm kinda surprised it took this long, tbh. I just hope this new DOOM entry is as optimized as previous titles, if not more. I'll have to replace my RX 580, lol, so I guess new DOOM game is just another incentive to do it.
Admittedly, tho, I don't care for raytracing so the fact that it seems mandatory is kinda a negative point IMO, but it'd probably be a minor issue if you still need a "powerful" GPU to play the game anyway, RT or not.
The way PC releases work generally is the console is what things are optimized for and given a shit about. Beyond that modern PC hardware is tested, optimized for nvidia, "does it start" for AMD, and "who cares" for intel graphics. And then you get a guestimate of what will be required based of current hardware out with no gaurantee at all it even will but also often can run off far older hardware. On the PC the best you can get is with intel + nvidia it should work if you have the given requirements anything beyond that is an utter crapshoot as "LOL mUh G4m1ng PCC1!!!~!!!!!" with no assurance or responability it will at all but also there's a good chance it runs off a potato in a Chinese gaming cafe and is pirated and cheats are turned on. There is not much effort put into this. As actually doing such would be a gigantic waste of time given the unlimited hardware configurations out there.
Then there is the fact that PC gaming is utterly dishonest to the core about these things at times. Quiet often companies will understand requirements to juice sales. Just as much companies will overstate requirements to help sell hardware. This completely legal. It also has no bearing on the actual reality of it. It only happens on mUh G4m1ng PC!!! because this is not tolerated on consoles and the owner of the console would put a stop to it. Nintendo is so protective of their IP because out of all the console companies they care the most about this sort of quality control. Nobody gives a shit on the PC. There's also no gatekeeper.
Here's Eternal on a 750 ti
Quit paying attention to specs. They are always bullshit because you are on the PC and you signed up for this. They can also be driven by marketing for the game or the hardware. Even if you have a trusted reviewer like TPU you can't expect they to go through all configurations in the end it's PC gaming so it's all a roll of the dice at best!
I loved Eternal, but a change of pace is greatly welcomed, otherwise having both the doom eternal speed and the new shield would feel like they are simply throwing whatever they can at the wall. Thankfully that's not what is going on here, and they are taking their time to balance things better for the new, slower pace, which is probably why the shield exists in the first place.
The story mode is nice and all but after that there needs to be good mp.
Interesting.
eternal mp was trying to be a competitive esport at first. With some weird non traditional modes.
2016 mp has traditional modes like tdm, ctf and what not. 2016 is just fun classic mp.
Please make a Quake 1 sequel.
Thanks,
Just another fanboy Well yea, even current gen consoles have been 8c/16t for 4 years. This is mid range gaming now and for such a highly optimized multithreaded engine that uses Vulkan it must absolutely fly with that many threads loaded up. 6c has been dying a while now it's time to say goodbye from a modern gaming standpoint.