Doom Studio id Software Says It’s Doing Great After Layoffs, Cites Closer MachineGames Partnership

What Stratton actually said​

Stratton said "We're doing great," and added that he wasn't trying to "handwave" the layoffs, since everybody knows about half the studio exited. He made the remarks at a press event for the Doom: The Dark Ages Revelations DLC, and IGN relayed them. PC Gamer, GameSpot and others then repeated them, so most coverage is secondhand. He said there was a "very deliberate effort" to keep id "incredibly viable" across game development and the technology department.

GamesBeat described the session as the studio's first press briefing since the July cuts. It said Stratton and Hugo Martin held it after more than half the studio was laid off in July. "About half" is the figure leadership itself used. It is not a precise percentage. No source in this packet gives a reliable pre-layoff headcount.

The MachineGames angle​

Stratton said id is "working more closely with MachineGames than ever." He called it a very close partnership that has now reached a point in technology development where both teams have talented engineers. He also said the path began before the layoffs. "We kicked this off earlier this year." So he describes this as a pre-existing collaboration, not a rescue plan.

The engine background matters here. id built Doom: The Dark Ages on id Tech 8. MachineGames used a modified id Tech 7, called Motor, for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Some commentators have gone further than Stratton did:

• PC Gamer's Rick Lane speculated that id may be folding MachineGames' engine programmers into id Tech's ongoing development. That is the writer's inference. Stratton did not say it.
• GamesBeat reports that most of the id Tech engine team was laid off and that this necessitated more collaboration with MachineGames, which also worked on the engine. This is reporting, but it is not an on-record statement about the plan.
• Speculation about Wolfenstein 3 is just that. Stratton announced no joint game, no merged engine and no new project.

The numbers behind the cuts​

Game Developer's July 7 report gives the firmest figures. A Texas WARN notice, per that report, showed ZeniMax Media laying off 158 people in Texas. Of those, 96 were at id Software's Richardson office, and 40 remote workers reporting into that location were also let go. That puts 136 roles at id. The remaining 22 were at Bethesda Game Studios' Austin office. The 136 figure is tied to the office and its reporting lines. It doesn't show that every affected person was on the same team.

Game Developer also relayed an official id statement from July. id insisted it still had the team it needed to "build the games and tech" it's known for. That statement also said the studio was now about the size it was when making Doom (2016). It supplies no headcount. It also doesn't show that the mix of skills survived the cuts. Anonymous sources told Game Developer that QA was hit hard, and laid-off workers questioned how id could function with whole departments missing.

The company-wide reset​

The id cuts belong to a larger Xbox restructuring. In a July 6 memo, Xbox chief Asha Sharma announced a reduction of approximately 3,200 roles throughout FY27, including approximately 1,600 that day. The memo said the business was not healthy and that margins ran far below comparable platform and publishing businesses. It also said Game Pass and multiplatform growth fell short of expectations. Those are Xbox's stated reasons. They are not independently verified explanations for the id decisions.

A September 22 update from Matt Booty said completed actions put Xbox roughly three-quarters of the way through the plan. It added 268 role eliminations and reorganised several studios. Bethesda's remit now includes Obsidian. That update doesn't name id Software.

GamesHub's article says further layoff rounds are reportedly set for November 2026 and January 2027. The official Xbox messages in this packet don't confirm those dates, so treat them as unverified.

The skeptical view​

Chris Hays, an id lead services programmer, offered a blunter outlook in an interview with the YouTube channel Auf ein Bier. PC Gamer reported on it in August. Hays argued that a studio's quality comes from its people's shared experience and from learning from failures. In his words, you could throw away half your developers and bring in more later. PC Gamer's account says he warned the result would be a mediocre game. GamesHub quotes him calling a AAA game with half the people "impossible." I could not confirm that exact wording in the PC Gamer coverage reviewed, so treat it as GamesHub's attribution.

Neither side proves anything about output. Stratton is a studio leader with a stake in the studio's reputation. GameSpot noted that he's an executive whose view may differ from other staff, and that he said nothing about morale among those who stayed. Hays is an employee giving a personal assessment. The real test is what id ships.

Why Windows and PC readers should care​

id Tech powers some of the most demanding PC shooters on the market. Its future affects Windows gaming and Xbox's first-party PC output. The headline takeaway is modest:

• Stratton says id is viable and its MachineGames technology work predates the cuts.
• About half the studio left, with 136 roles tied to the Richardson office and its remote staff.
• The engine team was reportedly hit hard.
• No new game, engine merger or shared-engine plan has been announced.

Until id ships its next project, "doing great" is a claim, not a result.

Update: Report says one person manages id Tech (November 3, 2026)​

GamesRadar+ reports that id Tech, id Software’s in-house engine, is now managed by a single person. That is a more specific claim than earlier reporting that most of the engine team was laid off.

The report does not identify the person, describe their responsibilities or explain whether other engineers contribute to the engine. It also does not establish when that staffing arrangement began or cite the basis for the claim.

For PC players and developers, the practical implications remain unclear. Management responsibility for the engine is not necessarily the same as the number of people working on it, and the report does not establish what the arrangement means for future updates, performance or games built with id Tech.