Microsoft’s cuts across Xbox studios, totaling 3,200 by later this year, included a massive reduction at id Software. The team lost 136 people (over half of the studio) just a day before its Doom: The Dark Ages expansion released, a bloodletting that had remaining and newly laid-off employees seriously concerned about the studio’s capacity to make games and update its proprietary engine, idTech, going forward.
“Nothing says business success like nuking a team into the dirt and relegating them to support studio size while also throwing out massive technological achievements,” one impacted worker said.
Today, the official id Software X account made a statement aimed at assuaging these worries.
“While our studio was impacted, those changes were spread across teams. We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we’re known for. The team today is about the same size we were when making DOOM (2016). We have always had a flat studio where everyone is a maker, and we will remain true to that philosophy moving forward,” the post reads.
That bit about the current size of the team matches a Windows Central report that also claims the studio is not being forced to move to Unreal Engine in the immediate future, as employees have openly speculated about. The studio’s statement also suggests that it will continue work on id Tech.
“We are focused on supporting each other and the team members impacted. We’re going to keep building the great games and tech that have defined us for the past 35 years, and we’re looking forward to seeing you at QuakeCon this August.”
While it’s encouraging to learn that id Software won’t immediately join a Fallout assembly line, as is Obsidian’s new charge, the statement is unlikely to change a growing impression that Microsoft is an unfit steward of the studio synonymous with PC gaming. Personally, knowing that id Software is the same size it was 10 years ago isn’t an encouraging sign for its future—it takes more people and more time to make games of Doom’s scale and fidelity than it did in the 2010s, hence why the team had grown to 200-plus for The Dark Ages.
Whatever id makes next, it will now do so with an axe hovering over its neck.
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