It’s shameful to hear that the pioneers of first-person shooters are being treated so poorly, especially since they have their own engine.

We’ve heard that id Software was significantly affected by the Xbox mass layoffs, though the extent wasn’t clear at the time. Some say the studio’s headcount has been cut by as much as half, but it seems the situation may be worse than that. Game Developer obtained a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) filing submitted in Texas which states that ZeniMax Media laid off 158 employees in the state. Twenty-two of these employees were from Bethesda Game Studios Austin, which is working on Fallout 76. The remaining 136 employees were laid off from id Software. Ninety-six of these employees were based at the studio’s Richardson headquarters, and the rest worked remotely.

This is a significant layoff by any measure, especially for a studio that had only 185 employees in December. The Aftermath website reported on this when the Texas-based developer announced that it had established a full-fledged union with the help of the CWA (Communications Workers of America). If these figures are accurate, the studio may have lost approximately 73.5% of its workforce, which would make developing new games independently nearly impossible. This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen something like this from Xbox.

Something similar happened last year during the July layoffs when Turn 10, a Redmond-based development studio, lost most of its staff and effectively became a support studio for Playground Games. A similar situation could arise now, with id Software functioning as a support team for MachineGames, which would continue developing Wolfenstein and/or DOOM games. However, there are a few differences. Unlike Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport series, which got worse with every installment to the point where it had almost no audience left, id Software’s DOOM reboot trilogy received critical acclaim and sold quite well. Sales of the latest installment, DOOM: The Dark Ages, may have suffered because it was part of the Game Pass lineup on launch day, but that is certainly not the studio’s fault.

So far, neither Xbox nor id Software has commented on the studio’s future. If this grim outlook is accurate, however, then the recently released DOOM: The Dark Ages – Revelations DLC may be the last project they developed as a leading studio.

Source: WCCFTech, Game Developer, Aftermath