Asha Sharma locked in Monday, November 16 for the free Slaughter Mode update to DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations, a 19-arena, risk-it-all survival mode built around the Chain Spear. id Software says its next game is already in the works, with Hugo Martin directing.
The Slayer has a date. Slaughter Mode, the free endless survival mode for DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations, arrives this Monday, November 16, and the bigger headline is tucked into the same post: id Software is already working on its next game.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma made both calls on X at 2:59 PM ET today, in the middle of Xbox’s 25th anniversary week. "Few studios have shaped the first-person shooter genre as much as @idSoftware," she wrote. "Slaughter Mode comes to DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations on Monday, and the team is already working on its next game." Xbox Wire reposted it within a few minutes, and id Software replied almost immediately.
Few studios have shaped the first-person shooter genre as much as @idSoftware. Slaughter Mode comes to DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations on Monday, and the team is already working on its next game. pic.twitter.com/lkLlQ6Umo2
, ASHA (@asha_shar) November 12, 2026
What Slaughter Mode actually is
id first announced Slaughter Mode during its October Slayers Club Live stream, but it had only ever been pinned to "November". Now there’s a day. Game director Hugo Martin described it then as "an endless single player mode where players fight through escalating demon waves across multiple arenas, earning cosmetics and their personal best in round/score," as reported by VGTimes after that stream.
Here’s how it plays, based on what Martin and executive producer Marty Stratton told press in early November. You drop in as a fully upgraded Slayer with the Chain Spear, the dash-and-grapple weapon that debuted in Revelations, and fight through 19 arenas pulled from the base game, the DLC and the Ripatorium, each with randomized enemy mixes and modifiers. Every round you survive raises the value of your run in Skulls. At checkpoints every 10 rounds you face the real question: bank what you’ve earned and walk away, or keep pushing for more and risk losing all the unclaimed Skulls if you die. Those Skulls unlock Slayer, weapon and Chain Spear skins, profile icons and backgrounds, and there are weekly challenges on top, per SavePoint Gaming‘s briefing with the id leads and GamesBeat.
Update Nov 12, 3:30 PM ET: Bethesda has now confirmed the November 16 date on X and said the mode includes a personal best leaderboard. Xbox Wire also published its own post on the launch.
The cool part is the arenas. Some of them are campaign spaces from The Dark Ages, so the Chain Spear and your maxed-out DLC kit finally get to tear through places they never could before. Martin also told GamesBeat that id used the time to tune the mace and melee tools, death screens and hit feedback across the game.
Who gets it
Slaughter Mode is free, but it lives inside Revelations. If you already own Revelations, whether you bought the expansion on its own or you have the Premium Edition or the Collectors Bundle, the update is yours at no extra cost. If you only have the base game, you’ll need Revelations to play it.
Revelations launched July 7 as a 10 to 12 hour premium expansion. Martin told Xbox Wire it is larger than DOOM Eternal’s two DLCs combined, and it was just named Best Game Expansion at the Golden Joysticks this week.
Slaughter Mode Monday. How deep is your first run going?
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id’s next game
That last line from Asha is the one Xbox fans are going to chew on, and id did not leave it hanging. About two minutes later, the official id Software account replied: "We’re incredibly excited about our next project, a new game from our teams in Texas and Frankfurt, with game direction once again by Hugo Martin." The studio added, "It’ll be some time before we’re ready to share more but we can’t wait for you to see what we’re working on." Stratton had already told GamesBeat in early November that there is no more planned content for Revelations after Slaughter Mode, and that the studio had started working "very furiously on our next major project, which we’re not going to talk about today." Asha putting the next game in writing during the 25th anniversary, and id answering on the record, is a different level of confirmation. Nobody has named that game, so anything beyond what id just said is guessing.
The Verge’s Tom Warren, who reported in July that id was in the “early stages of a new Doom game,” says id’s post confirms that report. id itself has not named the game or said it is DOOM.
It also fits the whole tone of this anniversary week. Halo got Firefight, Fable got four new minutes, and now id gets a date and a clear signal that the next project is already moving. Xbox is spending its 25th birthday showing off its studios, and id Software, the team that basically invented the genre, belongs right at the top of that list. Monday can’t come fast enough.
Sources
- Asha Sharma on X: Slaughter Mode Monday and id's next game
- id Software on X: reply on the next game, Texas and Frankfurt teams, and Hugo Martin
- Bethesda on X: Slaughter Mode November 16, with a personal best leaderboard
- Xbox Wire (November 12, 2026): Slaughter Mode Arrives to DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations on November 16
- Tom Warren on X: July report confirmed
- Xbox Wire on X: repost of Asha's announcement
- Xbox Wire (July 1, 2026): DOOM: The Dark Ages Goes Supersonic With New DLC Chain Spear
- Bethesda Slayers Club (July 7, 2026): DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations Available NOW
- Bethesda Slayers Club: DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations Preview
- GamesBeat (November 1, 2026): id Software leaders on Slaughter Mode and the studio's next project
- SavePoint Gaming (November 2, 2026): Slaughter Mode's 19 arenas and all-or-nothing runs
- VGTimes: Revelations adds free Slaughter Mode in November, with Hugo Martin's livestream description
- OnPoint: Golden Joysticks 2026 winners, including Best Game Expansion for Revelations
- OnPoint: Fable drops four minutes of new gameplay
- OnPoint: Firefight coming to Halo: Campaign Evolved
Image: id Software / Bethesda Softworks
