Following the mass layoffs enacted by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma as part of her "big reset" of the division, Texan developer id Software repeatedly made headlines as evidence mounted that it may no longer be fully operational.
A WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) filed in Texas revealed that 136 of around 185 employees had been laid off, raising serious concerns that the studio would become a support developer for other teams (specifically MachineGames, which has already taken charge of the Wolfenstein IP). Yesterday, a Kotaku report suggested that the idTech team had only one engineer left, which suggested the possibility of a switch to Unreal Engine 5.
However, in a tweet posted today, id Software sought to assuage the widespread fears among its fans. The studio maintains that it has enough manpower to continue making the games and the tech they've been known for.
Thank you all for the support this week. 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.
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.
It's certainly great news that id Software is planning to march forward even with a greatly reduced crew, though it remains to be seen whether the quality of their future games will be impacted.
As a reminder, their latest work, the DLC DOOM: The Dark Ages – Revelations, has just been released. According to the studio itself, it's their best content yet.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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