Just days after shipping Doom: The Dark Ages, Id Software found itself at the center of one of the most damaging rounds of Xbox layoffs yet. Up to 136 workers were affected, and former staff have described the studio as being "relegated to support studio size." Here's the thing: before those cuts landed, Id had been quietly pitching some genuinely ambitious projects, including a new entry in the Perfect Dark franchise.
A report drawing on comments from multiple former Id employees paints a picture of a studio that was actively trying to secure its next big project, only to run out of time. The timing is brutal. Id had just delivered a major release, was between major commitments, and was pitching hard. None of those pitches were greenlit.
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What Id brought to the table
The Perfect Dark pitch is the headline. The Initiative, the Xbox studio that spent years developing a reboot of the spy-shooter franchise, was shuttered last year with its version of the game canceled. Id reportedly stepped into that gap with concept art and a new take on the IP. No further details on the direction have surfaced, but the fact that the Doom studio was developing visual concepts suggests this got further than a casual conversation.
The franchise has been dormant in playable form since the 2010 Xbox 360 release Perfect Dark Zero underperformed. A full revival from the team behind modern Doom would have been a compelling fit for the shooter games genre, given Id's track record with first-person combat pacing and world design.
The John Wick pitch and other rejected ideas
The Perfect Dark concept was not the only ambitious project on Id's slate. Doom series director Hugo Martin pitched an original IP codenamed Fury, described internally as John Wick-style, blending sci-fi, noir, and a concept called Gun Fu that combined gunplay with martial arts. The setting pulled from Louisiana and Chicago gangster aesthetics, which is a genuinely distinct direction for a studio known for hellscapes and heavy metal.
A Western-style robot survival game was also in the mix, along with multiplayer and co-op expansions for Doom, and additional DLC. That is a wide range of concepts for a studio that, on paper, had just shipped a major game. The key here is that Id was clearly not sitting still. They were looking for the next thing.
None of it got approved.
Xbox's refocus and what it cost Id
New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has pushed a company-wide strategy centered on its biggest established franchises. That context explains why multiple original IP pitches from Id went nowhere. The studio's vulnerability came from being between major projects at exactly the moment Microsoft decided to consolidate around proven brands rather than greenlight new ones.
Former Id VFX Artist Derek Best, who worked on all three modern Doom games, put it plainly in a public post: "Great job, Microsoft. Nothing says business success like nuking a team into the dirt and relegating them to support studio size while also throwing out massive technological achievements."
That sentiment captures what the numbers confirm. A studio that shipped one of the most technically accomplished first-person shooters in recent memory now reportedly operates at a fraction of its previous size.
Where Perfect Dark goes from here
The franchise is in an odd place. The Initiative's reboot is gone. Id's pitch never got off the ground. Microsoft still holds the IP, and Sharma's focus on major brands theoretically keeps Perfect Dark relevant as a property worth reviving. But right now there is no known active development on it anywhere inside Xbox.
For players who have been waiting on a modern Perfect Dark since that 2010 disappointment, the wait continues. If you want to stay across everything happening in the Dark Machine space and related Xbox first-person titles, the Dark Machine guides are worth bookmarking as the situation develops.
