The physical release of Doom: The Dark Ages is slowly making its way into the hands of players – despite us still being a week away from the game’s release! Some early physical releases have led to discussion online not around the actual game, but around the contents of the physical media. When inserting Doom: The Dark Ages into a PS5 console, users discovered just 85 MB of data on the disc, essentially acting as just a licence to download the entire game via the internet.
The issue has been documented online by Does it play?, an organization dedicated to tracking which games are truly accessible on physical media, or contain downloads/internet connections to activate. They share photos of the disc data, which showcases the almost laughable 85 MB of data on the Doom: The Dark Ages disc, a game which is actually upwards of 100 GB to download.
It seems a little pointless to release a physical disc that just contains a download launcher, and with optical storage media a lot cheaper than a cartridge system like the Nintendo Switch 2’s games, we can’t see many reasons why the full game wouldn’t be included on the disc. Having a full physical copy of a game available at least somewhere is important for game preservation, but with neither the PlayStation nor Xbox versions of the game containing the actual game, it appears physical preservation was not a concern for publisher Bethesda at this time.
How do you feel about Doom: The Dark Ages only having 85 MB of data on the disc? Do you think physical media should contain the full game? Let us know in the comments down below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more breaking gaming news and discussing.
