The latest unfortunate wave of layoffs at Xbox , which will result in a loss of 3,200 jobs by July 2027 , has affected pretty much every studio, ranging from those that went independent, like Tim Schafer's Double Fine , to those no one believed would be at risk, such as Bethesda . Among these, id Software was hit hard, so much so that the future of the id Tech engine , the impressive game engine that powers the DOOM series and MachineGames' Indiana Jones and The Great Circle , was put in question. According to the studio's Executive Producer Marty Stratton , the developer won't ditch its proprietary engine for Unreal Engine 5 , as they are still "all in" on it.
“We're all in on id Tech; we're not moving to Unreal Engine,” Stratton told Windows Central . “We had a meeting yesterday with five or six tech directors; sometimes you wish that the audience could've been in that tech meeting to see some of the excitement around some of this stuff. I don't think people should worry; we're going to continue to be a tech powerhouse moving forward.”
Although id Software will continue to work on the impressive id Tech engine, the future of the developer of the DOOM series remains challenging. While the studio did get a boost of confidence from the community during QuakeCon, Stratton highlighted how id Software's future and ultimately viability will depend on what they deliver.
“The verdict is going to be in how we move forward, what we deliver to fans, and whether or not that meets the bar. That's how we go into every single project we make. That's how we're going into what we're doing next,” he said. Despite the layoffs that have significantly reduced the studio's size, Stratton still looks positively toward the future, given his 26-year tenure. “When I started, we were 12 people. We finished Doom 3 with 19 people. And again, I know it's a long time ago. That's an old game. Things change; we go through lots of transitions, but every single dev project is different from, you know, this combination of people, technological capability, and then marrying that to a design ambition. And I really believe in our team's ability to create amazing work moving forward.”
As DOOM: The Dark Ages did not set the sales chart on fire as much as its predecessor did, though it still might in the long term as it is a high-quality game , it remains to be seen how id Software will approach its next project. Whether it will be a more traditional game or an experimental one like the latest entry in the popular series, we all hope the studio will pull through, as id Software among the studios that have defined gaming for a very long time.
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