Current and former id Software developers are publicly disputing director Hugo Martin's upbeat read on this month's Xbox layoffs, and they aren't the only ones. In the past week, The Elder Scrolls Online's studio lost four of its most senior leaders, and hundreds of union-represented workers marched outside six Xbox studio sites in a single afternoon. Two weeks after the Xbox reset, the pushback is coming from inside.
For those that might have missed it, Microsoft announced roughly 3,200 role eliminations across its games division on July 6th, with about half effective immediately and the rest expected by next summer. We've been tracking the fallout since the first wave of studio voices went public.
Martin's comments came during an official stream for Revelations, the new Doom: The Dark Ages expansion that launched the same day the cuts hit id. He told viewers that reports of the studio being "nerfed into the ground and gutted" down to around 50 people are "not true," adding that the team is the size it was when it made Doom (2016) and that the id Tech engine group is "very much alive and well."
Game Developer reports that multiple current and former id employees contacted the site over the weekend to dispute that math, estimating that around two thirds of the remaining developers who worked on Doom (2016) were let go at the start of the month. One current employee said many of those laid off read Martin's comments as painting their contributions as insignificant, adding: "If you cut a stat in half everyone would call that nerfed. In truth the Doom team is half here, half thrown away."
A WARN filing listed 136 roles cut at id's Texas operation. Martin, for his part, points to id Tech engineers in Frankfurt and at MachineGames as proof the engine team runs deeper than one office's headcount. One laid-off veteran offered some history to Game Developer, saying hiring "ramped up tremendously" around 2013 and 2014 to get the Doom reboot across the finish line.
GamesRadar reports that ZeniMax Online Studios is losing studio head Joe Burba, ESO executive producer Susan Kath, game director Rich Lambert, and production director Ala Diaz, with all four departing as the studio absorbs more than 200 role cuts of its own. Burba is a 14-year veteran who only took the top job last July, stepping in after the 2025 layoffs that also cancelled the studio's unannounced MMO shooter, codenamed Blackbird.
The departing leads will stay on through a transition over the next few months. Josh Henderson, previously ZeniMax Online's head of business operations, steps up to run the studio, while Nick Giacomini, who became ESO's game director last August, continues in that role. In an internal memo reported by Kotaku, Burba told staff the group has "tremendous confidence in Josh and Nick, the future of this studio, and the continued growth of ESO."
Twelve years in, The Elder Scrolls Online remains one of the biggest MMOs still shipping yearly content, and ZeniMax says the remaining team is roughly the size it was when the studio delivered the Wrothgar and Summerset expansions. Senior encounter designer Morgan Goin was blunter, telling Kotaku: "We're not going to be able to put out the amount of content at the speed that we were."
[Body image: official The Elder Scrolls Online key art (ZeniMax/Bethesda press asset), JPG, https, <=800px wide. Do NOT use rally photos unless licensed from CWA's official accounts.]
On Wednesday, July 15th, hundreds of CWA-represented workers held simultaneous "Save Our Devs" rallies at six Xbox studio sites across Rockville, Austin, Dallas, and Montreal, timed to kick off together at 12:30 in the afternoon Eastern. Coverage from the day describes it as the first coordinated multi-studio labor action in gaming, and the unions count roughly 440 of the 3,200 eliminated roles as union-represented positions across Bethesda Game Studios, ZeniMax Online, id Software, and ZeniMax's QA and corporate teams.
The unions want preferential transfers into open Xbox and Microsoft roles, stronger severance, extended healthcare coverage, and recall rights if positions return. The CWA also filed unfair labor practice charges against Microsoft with the National Labor Relations Board on the day of the marches, accusing the company of bad-faith bargaining and coercive conduct, and CWA Canada is pursuing its own case. Aftermath's report from the Rockville rally quotes workers calling the layoffs "illegal" outright.
Microsoft has said since July 6th that no announced games were cancelled and the slate is intact. The challenges to that framing now come from the people closest to the work: developers disputing the studio math at id, the leadership that shipped ESO for years heading out the door, and unions putting the cuts in front of federal regulators in two countries. Roughly 1,600 more of the announced eliminations are still on the books.
Do you think the team Martin describes can ship the next Doom at the level fans expect? What does The Elder Scrolls Online look like a year from now without the leadership that carried it this far?
Keep an eye on GameFragger for updates as each of these threads develops!
You Might Also Like