id Software dev says Microsoft 'burned a lot of bridges' and 'fundamentally doesn't understand games'

Chris Hays, lead services programmer at id Software, has gone on record with a damning assessment of Microsoft following the 136 layoffs that hit the studio last month. Speaking to YouTube channel Auf ein Bier, Hays didn't hold back — calling the cuts inhumane, demoralising, and functionally impossible to work around at AAA scale.

The timing made it worse. Microsoft announced the layoffs one day before Doom: The Dark Ages released its DLC — right after the team had just ground through a brutal crunch to ship it. "Everyone had just gotten off of a worse-than-usual crunch to get the DLC out the door, finally get a breather, and we were excited for our launch on the Tuesday," Hays said. Instead of watching the payoff, staff were left not knowing whether they still had jobs. On the practical side, Hays is blunt: "It is hard to make a game that is AAA, that is like we've done before, with half the people. And by hard, I mean impossible." He points to entire departments being wiped out — skybox artists, infrastructure teams, engine staff — with no clear answer on who picks up that work. Microsoft's internal communications haven't helped either. Hays says studio-level staff are hearing the same vague public statements everyone else is, with no concrete plan for how games actually get made from here.

The "we're still the same id" messaging from Microsoft has landed badly with at least some of the people still there. Hays pushes back directly: "We're half the same id. It was the people — what made us special was the people and the relationships that we have. It's not the IP, our name doesn't matter." id Software has been part of Microsoft's Bethesda umbrella since the ZeniMax acquisition closed in 2021, and the studio carries one of the most storied legacies in PC gaming — the creators of Doom and Quake. That history doesn't insulate it from corporate restructuring, and Hays argues Microsoft has now made it harder to rebuild even if it wanted to: "They have burned a lot of bridges — it's not just us." The promise of "hire to retire" stability that drew people to the studio is gone, and Hays says no one will trust assurances from studio management anymore, because everyone knows management isn't the one calling the shots.

Hays frames the damage as long-term and industry-wide — Microsoft's credibility with developers is shot, which will hurt recruiting for years. Whether id Software can ship another full AAA Doom game at its previous standard, with half the team and no clear roadmap, remains an open question that Microsoft has not publicly answered.