DOOM Hits Evercade: Limited Nexus Edition Caps at 3,000 Units

DOOM runs on everything — your Steam Deck, your Switch, that Anbernic in your desk drawer. But the last place you’d expect the father of FPSes to land in 2026 is a cartridge system whose entire pitch is physical media. That’s exactly what Blaze is shipping: on October 30, the DOOM Collection comes to Evercade carts with the original game, DOOM II, six mission packs (including The Plutonia Experiment from Final DOOM and No Rest for the Living), and deathmatch levels. The standalone cart costs $29.99 / £24.99 — and it’s already sold out at Funstock US ahead of an Amazon listing expected before launch.

The louder story is the hardware. Blaze is also selling a 3,000-unit Evercade Nexus DOOM Edition for $249.99 / £199.99, wrapped in UAC hazard-stripe livery with a Mars red case, a cartridge keychain, a double-sided poster, and a bonus comic. Pre-orders open today at 3pm UK. If you’ve already pre-ordered the vanilla or Rare Edition Nexus, this is where the collector’s remorse kicks in.

One Cart, Two Handhelds: The Super Pocket Loophole

The DOOM Edition shell is the loud part; the cartridge is the clever part. The same collection runs on every Evercade device, including the Super Pocket, the sub-$70 Game Boy-shaped handheld that just became the cheapest way to play DOOM on cartridge hardware. That’s the Evercade ecosystem’s quiet superpower: buy the game once, move it between handhelds, no re-purchases, no downloads, no storefront login. Upgrading from Super Pocket to Nexus doesn’t mean buying DOOM twice — it means moving a cart.

Split-screen local multiplayer is the sleeper feature. The original PS1 co-op route demanded two consoles, two copies of the game, and a link cable; on a Super Pocket or Nexus, two players share one screen and one device. It’s a small miracle of packaging that a 1993 PC shooter is now the best couch co-op option in the Evercade’s physical library — and Blaze is happy to tempt double-dippers with a $59.98 bundle pairing the DOOM Collection with Banjo Kazooie. Thematically nonsense; collector logic flawless.

FOMO Check: The Nexus Pre-Order Dilemma

The DOOM Edition Nexus commands a premium over the vanilla model, and in return you get the collection cart, a UAC-branded Mars red shell, a cartridge keychain, a double-sided poster, and a comic. For a collector, that box justifies itself. For a player, the games are identical to the $29.99 standalone cart — which has already sold out at Funstock US.

The friction Blaze didn’t design for: buyers who already locked in vanilla or Rare Edition Nexus pre-orders are asking whether they can switch. Almost certainly not. At 3,000 units, the DOOM Edition will evaporate quickly, so the decision window is effectively now. Miss it and the Super Pocket remains the smart play — same cart, same games, at a fraction of the limited edition’s price. You lose the demon-doorstep shell, but the rip-and-tear stays intact.

Why a Physical Cart Beats Another Download

Handheld players already own DOOM — probably twice. It’s on Steam Deck, on Switch, and on whatever emulation handheld is collecting dust in a drawer, usually via a source port. The Evercade version isn’t competing on performance; it’s competing on permanence. This is a licensed, physical cartridge with the full ’90s PC suite — six mission packs, deathmatch levels, the works — playable on any Evercade device you own today and, in all likelihood, in a decade. In an era of storefront closures and license revocations, that’s a real distinction, even for a thirty-something-year-old shooter.

The demand data backs the pitch. The standalone cart sold out at Funstock US before Blaze finished the announcement, which says something about how hungry the retro-handheld crowd is for physical releases of the games they already emulate. DOOM on a cartridge shouldn’t feel like news in 2026 — that it does, and that it’s already scarce, is the strongest signal yet that the Evercade’s physical-first bet is paying off.