Doom Eternal is scheduled to officially launch on Friday, March 20, but retailer GameStop will start selling it early. The company has confirmed it will begin selling the new id Software shooter on March 19 in an effort to keep customers and employees safe amid “social distancing” protocols.
This is all happening because Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons are both officially releasing on March 20. These are two of the biggest games of Spring, and GameStop is expecting a lot of foot traffic of shoppers coming in to grab one or both of the games. The CDC is recommending against gatherings of 50 or more people, and this would seemingly impact GameStop on big launch days like March 20.
To help separate the crowds, GameStop has chosen to sell Doom Eternal a day early. New Horizons will go on sale as scheduled on March 20. This kind of move is seemingly unprecedented.
To ensure we adhere to CDC-recommended social distancing guidelines, we will be selling DOOM Eternal a day early on Thursday, 3/19 as a safety precaution for our customers and associates. Animal Crossing will release on Friday 3/20 to further help separate the crowds.
— GameStop (@GameStop) March 19, 2020
Doom Eternal scored an 8/10 in GameSpot’s review in progress, while Animal Crossing: New Horizons also picked up an 8/10 in our review in progress.
There has been some silly crossover fan art for Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and the developers of each game have commented on the silly situation.
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