THE CRUNCH
id Software co-studio director Marty Stratton says the Doom and Quake developer is "doing great" despite losing roughly half its staff in this year's Xbox cuts. Speaking to journalists at a recent event, Stratton acknowledged "about half of our studio exit" as part of Microsoft's gaming division restructuring, but said there was "a very deliberate effort" to keep the studio "incredibly viable" across game development and its technology department. Around 136 id Software employees were reportedly let go in the July wave of layoffs, which hit the team behind the studio's id Tech engine.
The cuts are part of a broader "reset" under Xbox CEO Asha Sharma that will ultimately see 3,200 jobs go across Microsoft's gaming division, with many still to come. Stratton is not the first id leader to push back on claims the studio was gutted: his co-director Hugo Martin previously said the remaining team is the size it was when Doom 2016 was made, and that id Tech is "very much alive and well".
Not everyone who stayed agrees. Longtime programmer Chris Hays, who was not laid off, said at the time that making a triple-A game "with half the people" is "impossible", and claimed "entire departments" and "entire disciplines" are gone. Stratton has not addressed those comments directly.
What Stratton did reveal is a deepening partnership with MachineGames, the Swedish studio behind the modern Wolfenstein games and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. He said the two teams are now "working more closely than ever" on technology development, an effort that began before the layoffs. Id's next project remains unclear, though MachineGames has said it is not done with Wolfenstein.