Roughly half of id Software, the legendary studio behind Doom and Wolfenstein, has been laid off in Xbox's latest round of job cuts, with nearly all coders reportedly gone. The move has been described as effectively killing the studio, despite not being officially closed.
Scale of the cuts
While Xbox did not shutter any studios in its most recent layoffs, approximately 3,200 employees were let go, bringing the total number of job losses at the company to over 9,000 in the past few years. The impact on id Software has been particularly severe. Scott Miller, co-founder of Apogee Software/3D Realms, posted on X that he had heard the majority of id Software had been let go, including 'most (if not all) coders.'
George Broussard, Apogee's other co-founder, later stated that 50% of the studio—about 95 employees—had been dismissed. He added that despite not being closed, id Software is effectively dead: 'Tools, programming (except a couple), Quake Champions team, testing team. All gone.' Game Developer corroborated these claims, reporting from multiple sources that over 90 people were let go and the Q&A department was severely impacted.
Historical significance
id Software was founded in 1991 and is widely credited with creating the first-person shooter genre. The early Doom and Wolfenstein games were technologically revolutionary, and the studio's proprietary game engine has been used not only for Doom titles but also for MachineGames' Wolfenstein series and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. With half the staff and almost all coders gone, there is little institutional knowledge left to maintain or advance the engine, making it impossible for the studio to operate even as a support studio.
John Romero, co-founder of id Software, expressed condolences on Bluesky and urged preservation of the studio's legacy. 'id's history is critically important to the history of games. I've preserved id's complete early history from our start at Softdisk through to August 6, 1996, including materials and assets that, as far as I know, id itself no longer has. I hope someone is doing the same for the company's ongoing legacy (the work, code, assets, stories and the people behind them).'
Impact on future projects
The cuts also threaten future plans for Doom: The Dark Ages, which received its first DLC expansion on the day of the layoffs. With reduced manpower, id may be forced to scale back further DLC. It remains unclear how Xbox plans to continue producing Doom, Wolfenstein, and Quake titles, but they could be moved to Unreal Engine.
Romero himself recently experienced similar hardship: his studio, Romero Games, lost Microsoft funding for its next game last year, leading to layoffs and speculation of closure, which the studio denied.
