Bethesda is Removing Login Requirement from Classic Doom Trilogy

The widely mocked login requirement in Bethesda’s new Doom trilogy on the Nintendo Switch was meant to be optional, says Bethesda.

Bethesda recently released the first three Doom games on the Nintendo Switch, triggering outrage at how the old-school games clashed with modern game industry practices. Just as players settled in to relive the days of sneaking to a friend’s house to play a game that would get them grounded at home, they were hit with one of current-day gaming’s most obnoxious impediments: an unnecessary log-in screen. While it’s still in the game as of now, players won’t have to deal with it for much longer.

Before playing the classic games for the first time, players need to log in to a Bethesda account. Fans were not at all pleased about this, and it stung even worse to have this modern annoyance stuffed into a beloved classic. Plenty of people took to Twitter to vent everything from reasonable irritation to sadly predictable meltdowns. As it turns out, the problem wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed. While players did need to log in the first time, they were free to play offline any time afterward.

Now, Bethesda says that players won’t have to worry about it at all in the near future. In a tweet, the publisher says it’s working on patching the feature out, noting that it was meant to be optional from the beginning. Rather than being required to play the game, logging in will only be necessary to take advantage of Slayers Club bonus, according to the publisher.

Update on our new classic DOOM releases:

The BethesdaNet login requirement was included for the Slayers Club, to reward members for playing the classic DOOM games.

The login should be optional, and we are working on changing the requirement to optional now.

— Bethesda (@bethesda) July 27, 2019

Slayers Club is a promotion that lets players earn points in Doom games and redeem them for in-game rewards in the upcoming Doom Eternal and discounts on merchandise. Bethesda hasn’t announced exactly how it will tie into the classic Doom trilogy yet.

Bethesda also hasn’t said when the log-in requirement will be removed, only that it will “update everyone when a fix is ready.” If you can’t wait to get to slaying, but also don’t want to opt into Bethesda’s online service, it’s easy enough to use a burner email for the login and forget about it, but it likely won’t be long until even that isn’t necessary.