It’s been two weeks since Microsoft announced 3,200 layoffs and sweeping cuts hit the Xbox division. Not even well-established institutions like Doom and Quake studio id Software were safe – with the first reports painting a very bleak picture – yet Hugo Martin, director on the latest Doom entries, pushed back against claims the iconic FPS developer had been turned into little more than a support studio. A few days later, “current and former employees” are saying they aren’t as optimistic as Martin.
Game Developer shared a story that directly answers Martin’s words in a recent livestream. Senior editor Chris Kerr wrote “multiple anonymous sources told Game Developer that around two thirds of those left at id Software who worked on Doom (2016) were laid off at the beginning of the month”, including developers that were integral to the veteran team.
More specifically, some of those developers directly expressed disappointment after hearing Martin’s comments: “I don’t agree with Hugo’s statement and many who were laid off were upset by those comments and saw it as viewing their contributions as insignificant to the success of our games. I’ve been a gamer my whole life. If you cut a stat in half everyone would call that nerfed. In truth the Doom team is half here, half thrown away,” one of the site’s sources said.
They also went on to note Doom 4 – a game that was ultimately cancelled – was such a disaster that it almost killed the studio. Doom 2016 was eventually born out of the ashes of that title, but “it took about seven years and an absurd amount of crunch to finish”. According to the sources, individuals that put in “an unsafe number of hours to make that happen” were laid off earlier this month, too.
Another source pointed out Martin’s assessment of the post-layoffs studio size is only accurate because “there was a ‘massive turnover and exodus’ at id Software from 2010 to 2011”, which supposedly left the studio in a terrible spot. Later, hiring ramped up and external studios were brought in to help with the final push. It’s easy to see how a severely trimmed-down id Software might be in a tough spot (again) to create another triple-A shooter on its own under Microsoft’s current expectations.
Earlier this month, Doom: The Dark Ages received its expansion-sized Revelations DLC, and while id Software’s future is currently unclear, Xbox leadership is reportedly very interested in more Doom and Quake games.
