This week, id Software and Microsoft are launching Doom: The Dark Ages Revelations, an expansion to the latest critically-acclaimed entry in the enduring first-person shooter franchise. It’s just the second game to make use of id Tech 8, the latest iteration of the engine with its own storied history and influence on the games industry. It could, potentially, also be one of the last, in the wake of Microsoft’s brutal gutting of id Software as part of its thousands of announced layoffs.
The scale of the layoffs at the Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein creators was not initially known when Microsoft announced its plans to lay off 3,200 employees and offload five studios, but the picture is clearer now as former employees have started to share some of the details. Game Developer has reported that around 50% of the studio’s workforce was let go during the layoffs. Perhaps more alarmingly is who exactly was let go. 3D Realms founder Scott Miller has shared that, according to information he’s received from those familiar with the situation, most, if not all, of id Software’s coders have been made redundant. Additionally, Jeff Gardiner, a former project lead at Bethesda Game Studios, has claimed that 85 developers have lost their jobs at id based on what he’s heard independently.
That paints a remarkably bleak picture for a studio that has been at the cutting-edge of technology for much of its history. And while that progress hasn’t flourished in the same way under ZeniMax, which decided to make the widely licensed engine proprietary and Unreal Engine competitor proprietary in 2011, there’s no questioning just how impactful it has been to many of the modern games it empowers. It is the foundation some of the most visually impressive titles in the last decade have been built upon, balancing spectacular visuals with remarkable performance and scalability.
