Gaming

Xbox Restructure Spares Doom and Quake While Mojang Gets Direct CEO Oversight

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Key takeaways

Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein franchises will continue under ZeniMax despite major Xbox restructuring, though id Software faces significant staff cuts
Minecraft studio Mojang now reports directly to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who believes the game has been chronically underfunded for six years
Xbox is doubling down on Fallout and Elder Scrolls as flagship priorities while spinning off studios including Arkane, Ninja Theory, and Double Fine

Microsoft's Xbox division has officially confirmed the scope of its long-anticipated studio restructuring, and the fallout is substantial. Double Fine, Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Arkane Studios all face futures outside the Xbox umbrella, while dozens of roles across remaining studios are being cut. CEO Asha Sharma, who is steering the company through this transition, confirmed in an internal email that the changes affect teams across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and Xbox Game Studios — though she stressed that no publicly announced first-party projects are being cancelled outright.

At the center of the strategy shift is a renewed emphasis on blockbuster franchises. Reports from The Information ahead of the announcement indicated that accelerating output for Fallout and The Elder Scrolls would be a top priority for Sharma's tenure. Bloomberg confirmed that ZeniMax is undergoing a significant overhaul to reflect this refocused approach, but crucially, the pivot doesn't mean abandoning every other series in the publisher's catalog. Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein are all reportedly still in active development, offering some relief to fans of id Software's storied back catalog.

However, id Software is not escaping the cuts unscathed. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports that the studio is losing a significant number of staff as part of today's broader reductions — a painful development for one of gaming's most historically influential development houses. The distinction being drawn is between continuation of the franchises and the current health of the teams behind them, and right now those two things are pulling in opposite directions.

On the Minecraft front, Sharma is taking a notably hands-on approach. Mojang will now report directly to the CEO rather than through the existing Xbox publishing hierarchy. Sharma has publicly framed both Minecraft and Candy Crush as platforms rather than mere games, pointing to their massive monthly active player counts as justification for treating them differently. The structural change signals that Microsoft views these properties as long-term ecosystem plays rather than just software titles on a release slate.

Perhaps the most revealing detail comes from Game File, which reports that Sharma believes Minecraft has been severely underinvested in for roughly six years, during which time rival Roblox aggressively expanded its platform and monetization infrastructure. According to the report, Mojang's revenue was being funneled into other Xbox ventures rather than reinvested into the game itself. The implication is clear: that dynamic is about to change, with significantly more resources expected to flow back into the Minecraft ecosystem going forward.

The bigger picture

What Microsoft is attempting here is essentially a portfolio rationalization — keeping the crown jewels polished while quietly sunsetting or spinning off the riskier, mid-tier bets. The survival of Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein as ongoing franchises is welcome news, but the layoffs at id Software complicate any optimism. You can't meaningfully develop multiple beloved franchises with a significantly depleted team, and the pace at which these games arrive will almost certainly slow, regardless of what the official line says about continuity.

The Mojang situation may actually be the most strategically significant thread in this entire announcement. The admission that Minecraft was being used as a cash cow to fund other Xbox projects — rather than being reinvested in — is a striking piece of candor. It also explains why Roblox has managed to capture an entire generation of younger players despite Minecraft's enormous head start. If Sharma is genuinely committed to reversing that, the structural change of Mojang reporting directly to her is a meaningful signal, not just optics. The question is whether Xbox can out-invest and out-iterate Roblox at this stage, given how entrenched that platform has become.

Broader competitive implications are worth watching carefully. Sony and Nintendo are not cutting studios — they are expanding or maintaining. Every studio Microsoft jettisons or downsizes is a potential acquisition target for a competitor, a cautionary tale for talent retention across the industry, and a data point that the post-Activision acquisition vision has not played out as expected. Readers should watch for announcements about where displaced talent lands, whether any of the spun-off studios find new publishers, and how quickly Sharma's refocused priorities actually translate into game releases.

LagPing's take

We're covering this story because the Xbox restructuring is one of the most consequential moments in the games industry in recent memory, and sorting through what it actually means for specific franchises and studios matters enormously to our readers. When a beloved series like Doom or Quake gets caught up in corporate reorganization language, people deserve a clear-eyed explanation of what's surviving, what's shrinking, and what's genuinely uncertain. The Mojang underinvestment revelation is particularly striking — it reframes years of Minecraft's relative stagnation as a deliberate financial decision rather than creative drift. We also think the human cost here deserves acknowledgment alongside the strategy talk; thousands of developers are directly affected by these cuts. This is a story we'll keep returning to as more details emerge.

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