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Microsoft began the week by announcing what it delicately described as the latest step in its “company transformation” – corporate-speak for “there are going to be a lot fewer people in tomorrow’s Teams meeting.”
Around 4,800 jobs across the company will be cut, with Xbox bearing the brunt of the damage. The gaming division has described it as “the most significant restructure in Xbox history.”
Unfortunately, one of the biggest casualties appears to be id Software.
Industry veteran Scott Miller, founder of Apogee and 3D Realms, claimed he’d heard that a majority of id’s staff had been laid off, “including most (if not all) coders.” While Microsoft has yet to publish studio-by-studio figures, multiple former employees painted similarly bleak pictures.
Among them was 20-year id veteran Michael Maynard, who didn’t mince words on social media.
“Big day today at id Software!” he wrote, before adding that roughly half of the studio had been let go despite producing what he called “arguably THE BEST first person games in the industry,” listing DOOM, DOOM Eternal and DOOM: The Dark Ages as a modern FPS trilogy few could rival.
That’s the sort of LinkedIn update nobody wants to have to write.
The irony isn’t exactly subtle. Microsoft spent the better part of the last decade hoovering up gaming companies like someone filling a Steam library during the Summer Sale. Bethesda? In the basket. Activision Blizzard? Why not. The sales pitch was that Xbox needed world-class studios to fuel Game Pass and build the future of gaming.
Fast forward a few years and the future apparently involves significantly fewer people making those games.
Xbox’s own memo says the restructuring is necessary because “our business today is not healthy” and outlines a year-long reset that includes thousands of layoffs, flatter management, and spinning off multiple studios. It’s difficult to argue with balance sheets, but it’s equally difficult not to notice that “resetting Xbox” currently looks suspiciously like pressing New Game while deleting half your save file.
The Human Cost of Microsoft’s Xbox Reset
The response from industry veterans has been one of genuine heartbreak.
John Romero, who helped found id Software back in 1991, posted that he was “so sorry” for everyone affected. He reflected on the strange feeling of leaving while a company continues without you, praised the teams who carried the legacies of DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein, and even revealed his intention to donate his extensive archive of early id material to the Strong Museum of Play to preserve the studio’s history.
That final point perhaps stings the most. Romero is talking about preserving id Software’s legacy at precisely the moment many of the people responsible for writing its latest chapter are packing up their desks.
Elsewhere, there was at least one happier ending. Double Fine announced it would once again become an independent studio, regaining ownership of its games after seven years under the Xbox umbrella. It’s a rare feel-good note in an otherwise bruising week, although becoming independent because your parent company is restructuring isn’t exactly the sort of promotion you put on a motivational poster.
As for id Software, the studio that practically invented the modern FPS has survived shareware, the death of DOS, countless ownership changes, and enough technological revolutions to fill an entire museum exhibit. That track record suggests it won’t disappear quietly.
But if Miller’s claims prove accurate, and veterans like Maynard are anything to go by, the company that once taught the world how to rip and tear has itself been left looking badly wounded. And that’s a story nobody expected to see loading onto the screen this week.
Also in IT News
China’s Latest Security Warning Has Claude Code in Its Crosshairs
Just when you thought AI coding assistants only had to worry about hallucinating variable names, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has thrown Anthropic’s Claude Code into the spotlight for rather more serious reasons.
The ministry’s National Vulnerability Database has issued a security warning claiming versions 2.1.91 through 2.1.196 of Claude Code contain a “backdoor risk.” According to the notice, the AI programming tool can transmit sensitive information – including domain names and device identifiers – back to remote servers via built-in monitoring mechanisms, allegedly without explicit user consent. Anthropic has yet to publicly respond.
Chinese authorities are urging organisations to uninstall or update affected versions immediately, tighten outbound network controls, and monitor developer workstations for unexpected traffic.
It’s another reminder that in 2026, even your coding assistant can end up in the middle of a geopolitical tug-of-war.
OpenAI Says Hello to GPT‑5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna
OpenAI has confirmed that GPT-5.6 Sol will launch publicly on Thursday, alongside its cheaper siblings Terra and Luna, with CEO Sam Altman simply declaring: “happy building.” Sometimes less really is more.
Sol is the flagship model, supposedly tackling the toughest coding, research, and reasoning tasks, while Terra promises similar everyday performance at a lower cost, and Luna focuses on speed and efficiency.
Whether they’re named after celestial bodies or someone’s favorite sci-fi trilogy is anyone’s guess, but the AI naming committee continues to have far more fun than the smartphone naming committee. Happy building, indeed.
Meta Paints a New AI Picture
Not content with trying to reinvent social media, Meta has now set its sights on becoming the next best digital artist. The company has unveiled Muse Image and previewed Muse Video, the first media generation models from its Meta Superintelligence Labs, promising smarter image creation, precision editing, and AI-generated video that actually follows your prompts.
Muse Image is rolling out across Meta AI, Instagram, and WhatsApp, bringing more than 30 new AI effects and the ability to remix photos with sketches, annotations, and multiple references.
Mark Zuckerberg clearly wants Meta to be known for more than just your aunt’s holiday photos. Now, it also wants to create them.
