DOOM: The Dark Ages, the upcoming medieval shooter from maker id Software, may be the latest Bethesda outing to enforce a download on its boxed copies.

You may recall Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s physical edition also required a significant download, with just 20GB of data included on the disc.

Well, early copies of the new DOOM game include an ‘Internet Required’ disclaimer on the box, and while there’s conflicting information at the moment, some are stating that the title simply won’t boot without a download.

This situation is different to a day one patch, by the way: typically, Blu-rays include a fully playable version of a game, so you can at least insert it into your PS5 and play it without ever connecting to the Internet. In this instance, only a small portion of the game’s data has been burned onto the disc, with the rest requiring a download.

It’s obviously not massively dissimilar to Nintendo Switch 2’s Game Key Card situation, which sees you purchasing a physical cartridge which merely acts as a gateway to download the game. The difference here is that cartridges do genuinely have sizeable costs associated with them, while Blu-rays cost pennies.