About 95 people lost their jobs at id Software, a studio of roughly 200, when Microsoft began cutting Xbox staff in July 2026. That is nearly half the team.
Microsoft said it would eliminate approximately 3,200 jobs, about 20% of its gaming division workforce. It is the largest restructuring in Xbox history. ZeniMax Online Studios, which like id sits under the Bethesda banner, was hit too: it reportedly lost up to half its people, including veterans with more than a decade at the company.
The programming staff at id took the worst of it. Scott Miller, co-founder of 3D Realms, said most or all of the studio’s programmers were let go.
Neither studio is closing. Both will keep working on their current projects, and no publicly announced game has been cancelled. The restructuring is meant to concentrate resources on ZeniMax Media’s biggest franchises, among them The Elder Scrolls and Doom.
Elder Scrolls Online schedule in doubt
The team behind The Elder Scrolls Online no longer has enough staff to support the game at its previous level. Community Manager Jessica Folsom confirmed the update roadmap will be revised, with a new schedule set once the team’s capacity is assessed. The timing is awkward for id, which was preparing a new content update when the cuts landed.
For ZeniMax Online Studios this is the second major round of layoffs in two years. The first followed the cancellation of Project Blackbird.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma described the company as resetting its business during what she called the most severe hardware crisis in the industry’s history. The cuts coincide with the start of Microsoft’s financial year and follow an earlier round of voluntary redundancies. It was also revealed previously that four studios will leave Microsoft as part of the restructuring.
The Bethesda Game Workers Union acknowledged the scale of the layoffs and said it supports the affected employees.
