Your DOOM Eternal friends might have a hard time playing with you, especially if you're on different launchers. For some reason, Bethesda hasn't made it possible for gamers on Steam and gamers on the Bethesda Launcher to enjoy the kind of social experiences you'd expect from a AAA game released in 2020.
As this /r/pcgaming submission highlights, it's pretty damn difficult for Bethesda Launcher and Steam players to reliably play together. The problem largely centers on the lack of a robust friends feature in the Bethesda Launcher.
Take note of what a Bethesda Support article has to say on the matter:
The Bethesda.net launcher does not currently have a friends' management feature. If you play with users in Battlemode matches you can add them as a "Favorite" and they will show up in the Favorites tab and invite them through the Social menu. Note that Steam and Bethesda.net players can play Battlemode together.
Here's the problem, essentially: if you are on the Bethesda Launcher and your friend is on Steam, there is no manual way to add them to a list to play together with them. You have to go into random matches, hope that you encounter them, and add them as a "favorite".
This has ambushed many users who purchased a retail copy, as they have found themselves with Bethesda.net codes and unable to play with friends. In addition to the Bethesda store and retail, third party stores like Humble Bundle, Green Man Gaming, and Gamesplanet are all selling Bethesda.net codes.
When Will DOOM Eternal Friends Management Get Fixed?
It's a pretty big downer that Steam and Bethesda Launcher players are having so many problems, but this may be a technical issue that Bethesda can solve. The question is this: when will they do it?
There aren't any specifics mentioned in the Bethesda Support article, but note the use of language: it says that the Bethesda Launcher "does not currently have" (emphasis mine) a feature for managing friends. Hopefully, this means that Bethesda is working on it.
Are you upset that you can't join your DOOM Eternal friends across digital platforms? Do you think Bethesda will patch in this functionality? Let us know in the comments below!
