Doom and Quake creator id Software insists it hasn’t been “nerfed into the ground and gutted” by Xbox, despite reports to the contrary.
Legal documents suggested id Software lost nearly three quarters of its 185-person staff in the layoffs, reducing the workforce to 49 people – a move people who worked there referred to as “a bloodbath”. This prompted the suggestion id Software would become a support studio for Xbox rather than one capable of making full-scale games of its own. With so many id Tech engineers also apparently being laid off, fears for the studio’s famous proprietary engine emerged, too.
But according to co-studio director Hugo Martin, those reports and fears are overblown. “There’s been reports that we’ve been nerfed into the ground and gutted and we have 50 people, and that’s not true,” Martin said on a Bethesda-hosted Doom livestream yesterday. “We’re the size we were when we made Doom 2016, and id Tech is very much alive and well.
“You have to understand we have id Tech engineers both in Frankfurt and at MachineGames – we collaborate quite a bit. So id Tech is there, the Doom team is here, and we’re excited to share with you guys more of what we’re working on in the future when it is appropriate and approved.”
A similar sentiment was shared by the id Software social account recently, when the studio insisted “we still have the crew we need to build the games”.
Approximately 75 people are credited as working on Doom 2016 at id Software, but it’s worth underlining how long ago that game was made, and how much grander the Doom games have become since. As development budgets balloon and staff numbers with them, could a similar sized team make a Doom that meets expectations in 2026 and beyond?
Nevertheless, there’s now a sliver of hope. “The door is open to be able to – I would love to be able to complete [the Doom origin] story all the way up to the sarcophagus,” Martin remarked during the livestream. The sarcophagus he’s referring to is the one at the beginning of Doom 2016, which the Doom Slayer is lying on and ‘wakes up’ on. Doom: The Dark Ages took us back to the origins of the Doom Slayer, so Martin’s hope is id Software can link the timelines together.
The Doom livestream was recorded in honour of the recent Revelations expansion, which was released last week for Doom: The Dark Ages. It injects a lot more movement and speed into the game, making it feel more like Doom Eternal. Central to this is a new Chain Spear melee weapon, which can be upgraded and customised in myriad ways, in some cases drastically changing what you can do.
Id Software was one of many studios impacted by Microsoft’s wide-reaching Xbox cuts, which, it’s worth pointing out, are still underway. 1,600 jobs have already been already, a handful of studios have broken away from Xbox, but there are still 1,600 layoffs to come, sometime between now and next summer. It’s a bout of restructuring that’s left the Xbox division reeling.
