Doom: The Dark Ages director and id Software co-studio director Hugo Martin has acknowledged the layoffs the studio is facing, and says things aren't as dire as they sound.
As part of a Slayers Club Live stream on the Bethesda YouTube channel (spotted by Kotaku), Martin says: "There's been reports that we've been 'nerfed into the ground' and 'gutted' and we have 50 people and that’s not true."
These reports came from a mixture of places. Derek Best, a principal VFX artist at the studio, talked of Xbox "nuking a team into the dirt," while a WARN notice filed in Texas suggested that 136 of the 185 developers at the studio were let go.
Martin continues, "We're the size we were when we made Doom 2016 and id Tech is very much alive and well." Reports also claimed that the id Tech team was decimated at the Texas studio, but Martin says: "You have to understand we have id Tech engineers both in Frankfurt and at MachineGames. We collaborate quite a bit."
Furthermore, he adds: "The id Tech is there, the Doom team is here, and we're excited to share with you guys more of what we're working on in the future when it is appropriate and approved."
After the layoffs occurred, former employees claimed Martin had proposed a "Gun Fu" action game inspired by the likes of John Wick, while Perfect Dark, a western robot survival game, and multiple Doom projects were also rumoured to have been pitched.
Martin says "the fact that we made a game that people like and is critical and commercially successful – like I said, it's doing very well related to the forecast and stuff – that's good for everyone, for the people at the studio, for the people who, unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to." He adds: "But what matters the most is that the games are good and I'm so happy that people, I don't know… It's just a good thing for everybody, it's going to help. So we are really here to just play the game now and celebrate the work."
If anything, Martin's note that Doom was critically and commercially successful just makes Microsoft's layoffs more mind boggling. A legendary studio which created some of the most iconic shooter franchises in history – ones Xbox is reportedly pushing Bethesda to make more of – facing layoffs at this scale while also being successful and owned by one of the most affluent companies in history is difficult to explain, to put it lightly.
