Chris Hays says Id Software is no longer the studio it was before July's layoffs, and he put the blame on Microsoft and Xbox. The lead services programmer, who has been with the studio since 2010, said 136 staff were cut and argued that the company is now too small to make the kind of AAA games it built before.
Hays did not soften the point. "They fundamentally don't understand art," he said, adding that it is hard to make a game that is AAA, "like we've done before, with half the people." He said the cuts left entire departments gutted and entire disciplines gone, and described the studio as "half the same id," a line that cuts against the message employees were being given after the layoffs.
The comments matter because they came after a July 10 statement in which Id Software said the restructuring left the studio about the same size it was when making Doom 2016. The studio also said, "We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we're known for." Hays flatly disagreed, saying Id Software now has less staff than it had when making Doom 2016 and that it once made bigger and better games with twice as many people as it has now.
That gap between reassurance and reality is what gives the story its weight. Hays said studio management receives talking points about what can and cannot be said, and suggested the language is meant to keep people from leaving rather than describe the work ahead. He said, "They don't want more people to jump ship and say, 'Oh, there's no more future in id, so we're all going to leave,' and then there's no one left."
He also said he has serious issues with how Game Pass is handled. On the ground level, he said, the studio does not get to know what Game Pass is, even as Microsoft's financial reports point to poor sales under Bethesda. That leaves a basic question hanging over Microsoft and Xbox after the layoffs: what exact plan they have for Id Software now that the studio has been cut down, and whether that plan can support the scale of work the company still says it wants to make.
Id Software reclaimed its place as a leading FPS studio with Doom 2016, then held it with Doom Eternal in 2020 and Doom: The Dark Ages in 2025. Hays's warning is that the people who made that run possible are no longer all there, and if Microsoft and Xbox have a new model in mind, they have not explained it to the people doing the work.
