Doom becomes third game to have its soundtrack preserved by Library of Congress

Only three pieces of video game music have been selected for the National Recording Registry, with the Doom soundtrack being the latest inclusion.

Video game music, much like video games themselves, has become more widely accepted and celebrated in recent years, with gaming orchestral concerts especially commonplace nowadays.

And yet in all this time, only two video game soundtracks have been officially inducted into the National Recording Registry in the US, with a third only joining them today.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, the National Recording Registry is for preserving sound recordings that, according to its own FAQ, ‘are culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.’

Every year, people are allowed to submit their own nominations, although the Library of Congress gets the final say, with 25 new recordings (out of over 3,000 nominations) it considers ‘worthy of preservation’ being annouced today.

Most of 2026’s inductees are traditional songs and albums stretching from the 1940s to the 2010s, including 2008’s Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) by Beyoncé, but video game fans will be chuffed to see that Doom made the cut.

I’s the soundtrack to the original Doom from 1993 as composed by Bobby Prince, who also worked on the soundtracks for Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D. So he got typecast pretty quick.

It’s certainly worthy of inclusion for the track At Doom’s Gate alone, which remains one of the most iconic pieces of video game music ever made.

Modern Doom fans might have wished the heavy metal music of the 2016 Doom made it in, but recordings have to be at least 10 years old to be eligible.

Since that game launched on May 13, it only became eligible yesterday, so while it missed the window for this year, it can now be nominated going forward.

It’s shocking, though, that only two other video game soundtracks have successfully been added to the registry. The first, unsurprisingly, was Super Mario Bros., but not only was it only added in 2023, it’s not actually the full soundtrack, just the Ground Theme (which, to be fair, is the most famous piece of music from the game).

The second, and far less obvious, pick was Minecraft – Volume Alpha in 2025, which is one of two albums covering the Minecraft soundtrack by Daniel ‘C418’ Rosenfeld.

Minecraft’s soundtrack is mostly ambient music and certainly nothing we could hum on command, although it is undeniably popular, with the Volume Alpha album amongst one of the most streamed video game albums on Spotify.

The Library of Congress also operates similar registries for movies and books (obviously) but, unsurprisingly, there’s not yet one for video games. The closest equivalent is the Video Game Hall Of Fame, which is organised by the US National Museum of Play and adds several games every year.

They’re usually very sensible picks and naturally Super Mario Bros., Doom, and Minecraft are already in there.

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