id Software Says It's "Doing Great" Despite Losing Half Its Studio

The head of id Software is insisting the studio is in good shape, even after losing roughly half of its staff. Asked about the cuts, the boss said the team is "doing great," a message that sits uneasily beside the scale of the layoffs.

The cuts came during Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's sweeping business "reset" earlier this year. Reporting on the restructuring puts the number of lost jobs at around 136 at id Software, the studio behind Doom and Quake. That made it one of the most heavily affected Microsoft-owned studios. Because the figure comes from reports rather than an official headcount, it should be read as an estimate.

Losing half a team is not a trim around the edges. It changes how much a studio can build, how quickly it can build it, and which projects it can realistically take on. id has long been one of the most recognizable names in shooters, and its franchises carry real weight with players, so the stakes of the reset go beyond payroll numbers.

The upbeat framing is also a reminder of how these restructurings get communicated. Studio leaders have an incentive to project stability to remaining staff, to players, and to the platform holder. Whether the message holds up will depend less on statements and more on what the smaller team ships and how it performs over the coming releases.

For now, the clearest facts are the headcount reduction and the studio's public position that it is still doing well. Anyone tracking Xbox's first-party strategy will want to watch how id's output and priorities look in the months ahead.