Despite id Software being reportedly decimated by recent layoffs at Xbox, a new report by This Week in Videogames indicates that the studio’s proprietary id Tech game engine is still part of Xbox’s plans for the future. The report comes in light of the fact that many of the jobs cut as part of the layoffs were for employees who were working on the engine’s development.
These jobs include director of engine technology, principal engine programmer, senior engine programmer, and tools programmer, among many other programming-oriented roles.
The report notes that plans to use id Tech likely revolve around future projects at id Software itself, as well as games being developed by MachineGames, which has previously used the engine for titles in its Wolfenstein series. 2017’s Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, for instance, was made using id Tech 6. Even a recent release like 2024’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle made use of a fork of id Tech 7, dubbed Motor.
The most recent iteration of id Software’s game engine is id Tech 8, which made its debut with last year’s DOOM: The Dark Ages. The biggest change in the engine over its predecessors is the fact that it requires hardware-level ray tracing for its games.
The id Tech line of engines has a long history that goes all the way back to 1996. At the time, it was the first true 3D iteration of id Software’s in-house game engines and was created for the development of the original Quake. The engine would have major effects on game development as a whole, with a notable fork – dubbed GoldSrc – being developed by Valve for Half-Life. This engine would then see quite a bit of use until Valve replaced it with its own Source engine.
Future iterations of id Tech would be developed, bringing in a variety of new features. id Tech 3, for example, brought in support for a snapshot system for networking, since it was developed for the multiplayer-centric Quake 3 Arena. The same engine would also be licensed by Activision for the development of the original Call of Duty.
A recent report has indicated that, shortly before its recent layoffs, id Software was attempting to branch out of the DOOM franchise with a host of new project proposals. Among these was a new co-op DOOM game that would feature weapons from older titles. Co-director Hugo Martin had even pitched a project dubbed Fury that would have been inspired by John Wick and even featured similar combat systems that mashed up melee with gunplay, dubbed “Gun Fu”.
Former employees of the studio have been pessimistic about the studio’s future following the layoffs, with one noting that they are “not convinced there is a viable way forward.” Another former employee has expressed pride in what they accomplished during their time at the studio.
“I have no regrets in the technology that we made, and the games that we released,” they said. “We kicked ass for a small studio of people pumping out a triple-A title. 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.”
