Bethesda, at first, did a cool thing in announcing official ports of early Doom franchise titles to modern consoles. While there was a bit of positive fanfare about the releases of Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3 for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, that quickly disappeared. It seems companies must keep investors happy and with gaming today, that means digital rights management. Yep, they included DRM on games that are nearing three decades old. That is not all they did.

The digital rights management in place here

You will need a Bethesda.net account to enjoy Doom or Doom II on your Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One. According to Direct-Feed Games a Bethesda.net account is not required to play Doom 3 for some reason.

Photo credit – Daan Koopman, Twitter

Yep, they require gamers to create and log into a Bethesda.net account to play these games.  Weird that they would take the time to add DRM to these titles. I guess it is because of their investors and keeping them happy.

That is not all though

According to Modern Vintage Gamer on YouTube, Bethesda also saw fit to use the Unity Engine for these ports. Bethesda also slowed the music down here for some reason (a problem with the engine maybe?). This use of the Unity Engine is not something they had to do as the original engines are now open source.

I figure using Unity was so they could add the Digital Rights Management more than any benefit to the gamer. That is just a sad observation I have while researching this. The lack of DRM on Doom 3 tells me that using Unity for Doom and Doom II was solely for messing over fans. No other reason.

What to do now

Well, there is not a lot you can do if you want to enjoy official versions of Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3 on your modern console. It is a burden that Bethesda has laid at the feet of gamers that want to support these types of ports. It should not be like this.

Here are the links:
Doom – Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Doom II – Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Doom 3 – Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One