Update as of July 8, 2026: According to updated reporting, the number of employees laid off from id Software has now hit at least 136.
A WARN Notice filed in Texas confirms that 158 people were laid off from ZeniMax just within the state of Texas. The notice was sent to Gamedeveloper.com after a request was made by the Texas Workforce Commission.
Of those 158 employees that were laid off, 136 come from id Software. 96 employees were laid off from id's Richardson, Texas location. 40 remote workers from id Software that report into the Richardson location were also laid off.
The remaining 22 layoffs come from the Bethesda Game Studios office in Austin, Texas.
Out of the 158 total employees that were laid off in Texas, 146 of them were represented by the Communication Workers of America (CWA) labor union.
In December 2025, a majority of id Software employees voted to join the CWA union. At the time, Aftermath reported that "165 of around 185 total employees" at id Software voted to join the CWA. Assuming id Software still had "185 total employees" just prior to the layoffs this week, it means that id Software is down to just 49 people remaining.
Microsoft has effectively killed id Software.
Original story:
Just one day before the release of the Revelations DLC for Doom: The Dark Ages, XBOX laid off roughly half of the development team at id Software.
This "roughly 50%" figure comes from a LinkedIn post from Michael Maynard. Maynard worked at id Software as a veteran programmer, but ended up being one of the 1,600 XBOX employees laid off yesterday. His credits date back to Rage and include Doom 3 up through Doom: The Dark Ages. Maynard says that he was part of the "roughly 50% of the company" that were laid off yesterday.
As the layoffs were taking place, Apogee and 3D Realms founder Scott Miller wrote that "most (if not all) coders" were laid off from id Software. If true, this seems like an extremely abrupt and rather definitive end to the continuation of the id Tech game engine. The id Tech engine dates back to 1996 with the Quake engine. It took on the moniker of id Tech 2 in 1997 and was used in games such as SiN, Quake 2, and Heretic 2. Over the years it has gone through several revisions and improvements, culminating with id Tech 8 in 2025's Doom: The Dark Ages.
A separate report from Game Developer says that they heard about 90 employees in total were laid off from id Software. id Software is estimated to have employed somewhere between 150 to 200 employees before these layoffs.
It's impossible to say right now what id Software's future looks like. There have been some murmurings that id Software may simply become a support studio. Others believe that if there is a new Doom or Quake developed, it will utilize Unreal Engine instead of id Tech. It's impossible to convey just how wrong even the thought of that is.
As bad as this news already is, it bears repeating that yesterday's 1,600 layoffs are just half of the layoffs Asha Sharma and XBOX management have planned. Another 1,600 people will be laid off at some point over the course of the next year.
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