Microsoft's id Software Massacre Kills a John Wick Noir Game, Multiplayer Doom, and More
Key takeaways
- 92 of id Software's 185 full-time employees were laid off by Microsoft, throwing multiple in-development game concepts into serious doubt.
- Shelved pitches include a John Wick-inspired noir sci-fi game codenamed Fury, a co-op Doom title, and a potential Perfect Dark revival.
- id Software may be reduced to a support studio role, assisting on projects like The Elder Scrolls 6 and Wolfenstein 3 rather than leading its own games.
The fallout from Microsoft's ongoing wave of studio layoffs has claimed one of gaming's most storied developers as a significant casualty. GamesBeat is reporting that 92 of id Software's 185 full-time employees were let go, cutting the legendary studio — responsible for Doom, Quake, and the DNA of the modern first-person shooter — down to a skeletal crew. Workers who spoke to GamesBeat were blunt about the situation, with one laid-off employee stating plainly, 'I'm not convinced there is a viable way forward. It feels like a bunch of knee-jerk responses.'
The timing is particularly brutal given where id Software was in its creative cycle. The studio had just wrapped development on Doom: The Dark Ages' DLC expansion, Revelations, and was actively brainstorming what its next major project would look like. Multiple pitches were reportedly in circulation, and the sudden workforce reduction has left all of them in a state of deep uncertainty, with sources unsure how such a diminished team could realistically bring any of them to life.
Among the projects reportedly being explored was a co-op and multiplayer-focused Doom game that would have drawn heavily on weaponry from across the franchise's history — a tantalizing prospect for longtime fans. id Software was also circling the Perfect Dark IP, which became available after Xbox shuttered The Initiative studio and cancelled that team's troubled reboot last year. The prospect of id Software — a studio known for relentless, kinetic gameplay — taking on the stealth-action spy franchise would have been a genuinely intriguing creative pairing.
Perhaps the most eye-catching pitch was a project codenamed Fury, an original IP that represented id's ambition to step outside the Doom ecosystem entirely. Described as a John Wick-inspired noir sci-fi game set against a backdrop of Chicago and Louisiana gangsters, Fury would have blended martial arts combat with gunplay in a way that tracks closely with the film franchise's choreographed action. The project was reportedly being developed with Microsoft's next-generation console platform, Project Helix, in mind. A Westworld-inspired survival game was also apparently on the table, though details on that concept remain sparse.
The situation draws uncomfortable comparisons to what happened to Turn 10 Studios, the team behind Forza Motorsport, which was similarly gutted by Microsoft layoffs last year and left the franchise's future in serious doubt. For id Software, the question now is whether the studio retains any creative autonomy at all, or whether it gets reassigned as a support studio helping out on titles like The Elder Scrolls 6, Wolfenstein 3, or Marvel's Blade. For a studio that quite literally invented the modern FPS genre, that would be a dispiriting end to an era of independent creative vision.
The bigger picture
What's happening to id Software is a microcosm of a troubling pattern taking shape across Microsoft's gaming division. The company has made a habit of acquiring storied studios — often with promises of creative freedom and resources — only to gut them when broader financial pressures mount. The irony here is sharp: id Software is one of the few studios in the industry with an essentially flawless critical track record over the past decade. Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal were both acclaimed revolutions in shooter design, and Doom: The Dark Ages continued that streak. Laying off more than half of that team isn't just a workforce reduction; it's dismantling institutional knowledge that took decades to build.
The leaked project pitches also reveal something important about id Software's creative ambitions that outsiders rarely get to see. The studio wasn't content to simply iterate on Doom forever. Fury, in particular, sounds like a genuine swing — a wholly original IP that would have tested whether id's mechanical brilliance could translate beyond their signature demon-slaying framework. Losing that project before it ever had a chance to develop means the industry loses a potential new franchise before it was even born. That's the invisible cost of these layoffs that rarely makes it into the financial reporting.
Looking ahead, the biggest thing to watch is whether Microsoft articulates any coherent vision for what id Software is supposed to be going forward. A support studio role would be demoralizing and wasteful. If the company is serious about competing with Sony and Nintendo in the first-party space, it needs studios that can lead projects, not just prop up others. The remaining employees deserve clarity, and so do the fans who have supported this studio for thirty-plus years. The silence from Xbox leadership on the creative future of these teams is becoming harder to excuse.
We're covering this story because it represents something beyond a typical industry layoff headline — it's a window into the human and creative cost of corporate decision-making at Microsoft's gaming division. At LagPing, we care about the games that almost exist just as much as the ones that ship, because they tell us where the industry's imagination is pointing. The idea of id Software building a John Wick-inspired noir game or reviving Perfect Dark is the kind of 'what if' that deserves to be mourned properly, not buried in a quarterly earnings footnote. We also think our readers deserve to understand that the studios behind their favorite games are staffed by real people with real creative visions, and that layoffs at this scale don't just affect headcounts — they erase futures. We'll continue tracking what happens to id Software's remaining team and whether any of these concepts find a second life somewhere.
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