It appears that Doom: The Dark Ages’ release date was leaked just a few hours early of the upcoming Xbox Developer Direct.
As shared on ResetERA, a Gamekult article suddenly appeared that revealed a release date of May 15, 2025. The webpage for the article was taken offline, but ResetERA user Alexzan believes that it could still appear on RSS feeds via an RSS reader like Feedly.
Interestingly, another ResetERA user named gabdeg pointed out that German language website PC Games Hardware also revealed the game’s release date too early. If you check this webpage, the date is still on it.
And yes, that page was published last January 15, all the way last week! It’s possible a lot of German and European gamers already found out about the leak, and everyone else was just late to the news.
In general, leaks are bad news for the video game companies. When they lose control over a game’s promotion or marketing, it becomes harder to do damage control. It will be good if the positive press continues until the games release, but it adds an element of unpredictability that the companies, especially their marketing and PR staff, have to deal with.
For this reason, even if the gamers themselves they are doing those games (and more likely, their favorite video game companies) a favor by sharing leaks, they actually make things harder for those companies.
How badly will this leak affect Doom: The Dark Ages? It’s hard to tell. We checked back and verified that some details about the game also leaked a few weeks before it was officially announced in 2024’s Xbox Games Showcase.
We can safely say there was a big gap between imagining the idea of a Doomslayer stalking demons in a medieval setting, and actually seeing it come to life. But Bethesda and id Software may have simply been lucky, that their game concept was so strong that it was received so well regardless.
It may have also helped that both Xbox and PlayStation gamers see Doom: The Dark Ages’ multiplatform release as uncontroversial. Gamers seem to understand that Microsoft’s pledge to keep these older games multiplatform keeps all stakeholders – gamers, the developers, the industry – happy. But not for nothing, Microsoft also leveraged this policy with regulators to get their acquisition of Activision Blizzard King approved.
ResetERA users seem to be satisfied with the rumored middle of the year release, and we would agree. It’s too early to tell if id’s big game will end up locking horns with Rockstar’s big game, but both games will definitely make gamers happy when they finally come out.
