Something to look forward to: Nvidia often holds promotions that bundle free games with its latest graphics cards, and Doom: The Dark Ages is a fitting choice as the next major title to utilize the new features of the RTX 50 series. The company also took the opportunity to tease how the upcoming first-person shooter looks with path tracing enabled.
Customers who purchase certain Nvidia RTX 50 series graphics cards between April 30 and May 21 can receive a free copy of Doom: The Dark Ages Premium Edition. The bundle includes post-launch DLC and allows customers to begin playing on May 13, two days before the game's May 15 launch.
The deal applies to the RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, and 5090, along with laptops or desktops containing any of those cards. Customers will receive promotional codes by email, which must be redeemed through the Nvidia App after installing the GPU. Those who enter the code before June 20 will receive a Steam key.
Doom: The Dark Ages is an ideal pack-in game for the RTX 50 series because it incorporates all of the software Nvidia is using to promote the lineup: DLSS 4 multi-frame generation, the ray reconstruction transformer model, and path tracing.
Although id Software confirmed that its upcoming first-person shooter would utilize path tracing last year, the developer hasn't outlined its impact until now. A screenshot comparison on Nvidia's bundle page reveals numerous subtle changes resulting from path-traced shadows, reflections, and global illumination.
The biggest difference is that the ground is far more reflective. Increased light penetration and shadow casting also illuminate more detail on other objects such as the gun, shield, braziers, terrain, trees, buildings, and aircraft.
However, users must wait for graphics benchmarks to see the performance impact, which will likely be heavy. Even without path tracing, Doom: The Dark Ages utilizes ray tracing on all quality settings, so playing it requires at least an RTX 20 series or AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPU.
Nvidia's latest bundle will likely be difficult to find as RTX 50 series graphics cards remain frustratingly rare. Most listings on stores like Best Buy or Newegg are sold out or hundreds of dollars above MSRP, although prices in Germany have sunk considerably.
One of 2025's most anticipated games, Doom: The Dark Ages launches on Steam, Battle.net, the Epic Games Store, Game Pass, Xbox Series Consoles, and PlayStation 5 on May 15.
Nvidia bundles Doom: The Dark Ages with RTX 50-series GPUs... if you can find one
