The latest wave of layoffs at Microsoft's Xbox which is set to cut a total of 3,200 jobs by July 2027 is set to have significant consequences across every studio still under the umbrella. id Software is among the developers that has been impacted the most, as not only 136 developers were laid off from the studio, but also reportedly the entirety, or close by, of the id Tech team which worked on the great game engine that powers games such as DOOM Eternal, DOOM: The Dark Ages, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
"Key positions were cut and entire teams were decimated," sources have told Kotaku. "This included the team in charge of id Tech, the studio’s long-standing proprietary game engine for the Doom franchise. Sources said only one employee on that team is believed to be left."
This gutting of the id Tech team is tragic. Not only talented experts have lost their jobs, but also the single person left on the team will be unable to patch and update the engine without having to call back those who have been laid off with the knowledge required for the test. "The institutional knowledge is just not there," sources said. "id Tech as a technology is probably dead forever."
Although it's not clear whether id Software's Frankfurt team could step in, at this point, it looks like this could be it for one of the most impressive modern game engines. Not only id Tech provided more than a few examples of how ray tracing and path tracing can be transformative in games like DOOM: The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, but also how it's possible to push cutting-edge visuals at great performance, as DOOM Eternal still stands as an example of superb optimization.
With more and more developers adopting Unreal Engine 5 for their projects, and most likely Unreal Engine 6 with its controversial AI features when it launches later this year, and proprietary game engines getting left behind, the Epic Games engine's dominance in the industry will only be strengthened. This fast consolidation towards a single game risks erasing the technological identities that defined certain games, slowly turning a creative industry into a sterile landscape where distinct franchises may end up sharing visual similarities, as we have seen time and time again with certain Unreal Engine 5-powered games these past few months
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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