Bethesda says online requirement for Doom re-releases was a mistake

Enlarge / Bethesda is working to remove this login dialog from its recent re-released versions of the first three Doom games. (credit: Infernal Monkey / Twitter)

Late last week, Bethesda surprised QuakeCon attendees and retro gamers worldwide with the re-release of the first three Doom games on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One (that last one with some issues of its own). It also surprised potential players by requiring a Bethesda.net login and an active Internet connection to play. That state of affairs led to a fair share of online joking imagining other classics given similarly restrictive DRM.

Over the weekend, Bethesda promised users that the situation was a mistake and that the company is working on patching it out. "The BethesdaNet login requirement was included for the Slayers Club, to reward members for playing the classic Doom games," Bethesda tweeted. "The login should be optional, and we are working on changing the requirement to optional now."

There's no public timeline for the fix rolling out, but Bethesda adds that it "will update everyone when a fix is ready."

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