An id Software vet says Xbox "doesn't understand art" after the layoffs
A still-employed id Software programmer says Microsoft’s layoffs left the Doom studio smaller than it was in 2016, making AAA games “impossible” at their old scale, and that Xbox’s “same size” reassurance is a lie.
A veteran developer still working at id Software has torn into Xbox over the summer’s layoffs, saying the cuts have made big-budget games like Doom “impossible” to build and that Microsoft “doesn’t understand art.”
Chris Hays, id’s lead services programmer for over 15 years and a credited developer on Doom Eternal and Doom: The Dark Ages, made the comments on the Well Played podcast. He’s not a laid-off employee airing grievances on the way out, he’s one of the people who stayed.
That’s what makes his account pointed: he’s directly contradicting his own employer’s official reassurances.
“By hard I mean impossible”
Hays’s central claim is that id simply can’t operate at its old scale anymore.
“It is hard to make a game that is AAA that’s like we’ve done before with half the people,” he said. “And by hard I mean impossible.” His point isn’t just about headcount, it’s about what headcount represents: the built-up trust and shared process between specific people that makes a big project cohere.
“If you cut half of a studio and don’t take into account how it’s made, you don’t understand the cohesion between our teams was a part of what made it successful,” Hays said.
That’s the “doesn’t understand art” charge in full, the idea that Microsoft treated a creative team like interchangeable job titles rather than a working organism.
He says the “same size” claim is false
The sharpest part is where Hays contradicts id’s own public statement.
After the July layoffs, id put out a reassurance that the restructuring left it “about the same size we were when making Doom 2016.” Hays says that’s not true. The studio is smaller than the 2016 team, he says, even though the games it now makes require far more people, Doom Eternal and The Dark Ages each took roughly twice the Doom 2016 headcount.
He went further, alleging that id’s management was handed “talking points” dictating what staff could and couldn’t say publicly, and that the reassurances exist mainly to stop more people from quitting out of fear there’s no future. If accurate, that’s Microsoft actively managing the narrative around its own cuts.
The Game Pass problem underneath
Hays also poked at the business model, and it’s the part that connects to a bigger fight.
He argued that Game Pass practically guarantees “poor sales” numbers, so when Xbox points to weak sales as justification for cuts, the studio bristles, the subscription model cannibalizes the sales it’s then judged against. It’s a real tension: put a game on Game Pass day one, and a chunk of players who’d have bought it just play it on the sub instead.
Why this keeps happening
Hays’s comments land in a grim, familiar pattern for 2026.
Microsoft cut roughly 3,200 people across Xbox this year in what new CEO Asha Sharma called the “most significant restructure in Xbox history,” and divested studios like Double Fine and Compulsion. It’s the same “do more with less” logic hitting studio after studio, id, Halo, and beyond, even as Xbox leadership talks about wanting a bigger player base than ever.
The through-line across the year’s layoffs is a company demanding blockbuster output while removing the people who made the blockbusters. Hays is just the rare voice saying it from inside a studio that’s supposedly fine. Doom: The Dark Ages was a technical showcase.
The person who helped ship it is now telling you the next one like it may not be possible.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Kotaku (August 2026), verified for Chris Hays’s role and tenure, the “impossible” quote, the studio-smaller-than-Doom-2016 claim, the Well Played podcast source, and the Game Pass sales-cannibalization argument
eXputer (August 2026), verified for the “cohesion between our teams” quote, the “talking points” allegation about managed messaging, and the “fundamentally don’t understand art” characterization
Console Creatures (August 2026), verified for Hays’s 15-year tenure, his work on Doom Eternal and The Dark Ages, and the “do more with less” framing
attractmode / Tech4Gamers (August 2026), verified for id’s official “about the same size as Doom 2016” statement, Hays’s direct contradiction, the team-size progression across Doom games, and Asha Sharma’s “most significant restructure” email