Affected ID Software Employees Describe Layoffs as a ‘Bloodbath’

Following the mass layoffs at ID Software, several affected employees have shared their perspectives on the shake-up.

It was recently confirmed that 136 employees were laid off at ID, with 96 in-office employees and the remaining 40 remote workers. A new report features several comments from those impacted, including being blindsided by the scale of the cuts, longtime workers opening up about the heartbreak of seeing their longtime coworkers also affected, and more.

The new report is courtesy of Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat. All employees he spoke to chose to remain anonymous. One employee called the cuts a bloodbath and said, “I was blindsided by it. The scale of it.”

Another noted they were burned out after recently finishing the DLC for DOOM: The Dark Ages. This individual also said they were blindsided by the scale of the impact.

“It’s been really nerve-wracking, and I am completely burned out because we were just finishing the DLC. We thought we might get impacted, but not to this scale,” they said.

The piece also touches on other proposed projects in the studio, such as a project code-named Fury. Fury is described as a modern cyberpunk game with noir and sci-fi elements. The report notes that it was akin to John Wick, with a concept called Gun Fu that combines gunplay with martial arts. The project was never formally green-lighted.

One laid-off employee says they’re very proud of the projects they were able to put out, touting the AAA quality that came from the small studio, “We did genre-defining titles that we rebooted after it was effectively considered dead. I’m proud of what we did. I’m proud of the studio. I’m proud of the people that are there still and the people who aren’t.”

How do these comments from the affected employees make you feel? Do you wish you could have seen the canceled Fury project? Sound off about this story and all others in our official Discord server.

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