There’s a lot to unpack with Doom: The Dark Ages‘ recent gameplay and release date trailer reveal. One thing that the trailer doesn’t touch upon would be the technical side because Doom: The Dark Ages‘ system requirements were published on a separate page. We’re going to be honest with you: some of you might need an upgrade for your gaming PCs because raytracing is now mandatory for Doom: The Dark Ages.
For reference, here are Doom: The Dark Ages’ system requirements:
Requirement Minimum Recommended OS Windows 10 64-Bit / Windows 11 64-Bit Windows 10 64-Bit / Windows 11 64-Bit Processor AMD Zen 2 or Intel 10th Gen @3.2GHz, 8 cores / 16 threads (e.g., AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, Intel Core i7 10700K) AMD Zen 3 or Intel 12th Gen @3.2GHz, 8 cores / 16 threads (e.g., AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, Intel Core i7 12700K) Memory 16 GB RAM 32 GB RAM Graphics NVIDIA/AMD Raytracing-capable GPU with 8GB VRAM (e.g., NVIDIA RTX 2060 SUPER, AMD RX 6600) NVIDIA/AMD Raytracing-capable GPU with 10GB VRAM (e.g., NVIDIA RTX 3080, AMD RX 6800) Storage 100 GB available space 100 GB available space Additional Notes 1080p / 60 FPS / Low Quality Settings, NVME SSD required 1440p / 60 FPS / High Quality Settings, NVME SSD required
Looks manageable until you get to the “Graphics” part, and suddenly, you now need an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 at the minimum to run Doom: The Dark Ages. That’s because the game doesn’t use traditional rasterization for lighting and only renders its lighting through raytracing. Thus, Doom: The Dark Ages requires raytracing-capable GPUs.
If you bought into the Nvidia bandwagon of the past few years, then you’re safe. Sadly, you might be out of luck if you are stuck with AMD as their Radeon GPUs don’t exactly have good raytracing performance even if they’re capable of it.
It’s also worth noting that there are no recommended specifications for 4K, which is somewhat worrying since the game’s already asking for an RTX 3080 for 1440p.
Is This the New Trend for Bethesda’s AAA Games?
Funny enough, it’s actually Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, another Bethesda game, that kicked off this trend of mandatory raytracing. Likewise, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle requires a minimum of RTX 2060 to even run.
So the good news with the recent Bethesda-published games is that graphics are now being pushed to greater heights. The bad news is that it’s going to be an expensive transition. Because for the first time ever, there are now games that force raytracing and it’s not exactly a consumer-friendly tech since you need some of the beefiest gaming hardware to run this lighting technology at stable framerates.
Doom: The Dark Ages could further continue the trend of making PC gaming more and more expensive and further exacerbating Nvidia’s monopolistic practices in the gaming PC industry. In turn, some of PC gaming’s best strengths, which are modularity, versatility, and options are starting to feel weak.
The silver lining is that Doom: The Dark Ages is available on the Xbox Game Pass and could be practically free depending on your reliance on that subscription. Still, it could cost you more than the price of admission if you want to play the latest (and supposedly the greatest) Doom game, especially if you still can’t move on from Nvidia’s venerable GTX cards.
