Id Software, the legendary studio behind Doom, has been hit by major layoffs following a broad restructuring plan at Microsoft. The cuts are part of a wider initiative affecting 3,200 Xbox employees, with reports indicating that nearly half of the staff at the studio have been eliminated.
Impacted developers have described the scale of the departures as devastating to the studio’s operations. Senior gameplay systems programmer Michael Maynard took to LinkedIn to criticize the move, noting that the layoffs affected a wide range of departments, including designers, artists, audio specialists, and the studio’s technical teams.
Amidst the uncertainty regarding the studio's future and the preservation of its ongoing work, id Software co-founder John Romero has spoken out about the importance of the company's legacy. Romero, who departed the studio in 1996, shared on Bluesky that he has been personally involved in archival work to ensure the studio's formative years are not lost.
"A note on digital preservation: id's history is critically important to the history of games," Romero wrote. "I've preserved id's complete early history from our start at Softdisk through to August 6, 1996, including materials and assets that, as far as I know, id itself no longer has."
Romero expressed hope that internal efforts would continue to protect the "ongoing legacy" of the studio, including the code, assets, and the stories of the people behind the games. His comments come at a time when industry preservation efforts have faced scrutiny; last year, Fallout creator Tim Cain revealed he had been ordered to destroy his own personal archives related to the development of the original Fallout RPG.
While the studio faces a difficult transition, Romero recently reflected on the historical impact of the team's work, specifically noting that the millions of players who engaged with the shareware version of Doom were not simply "pirates." He emphasized that the history of the industry is more complex than the narrative that piracy destroyed companies.
As Microsoft continues its restructuring, the future of the remaining team members and the studio's internal archives remains a point of concern for those familiar with the history of the Doom franchise.