'It Really Felt Like an Attack': 20 Laid-Off DOOM and id Software Veterans Launch Employee-Owned Studio Hidden Horses
Few things drain the joy out of a major launch day faster than watching half of your studio get laid off, yet that is precisely what happened to 136 developers at id Software during Microsoft's sweeping July 2026 Xbox job cuts. Four months after the legendary Texas shooter powerhouse lost roughly half its workforce right alongside the release of the Revelations DLC for DOOM: The Dark Ages, around 20 of those former id Software veterans have banded together to form Hidden Horses, a democratically governed, employee-owned studio working on a debut single-player arena FPS titled Danger Pay.
Laid Off on DLC Launch Eve: 'It Really Felt Like an Attack'
In the studio's inaugural mini-documentary, Foundation of Hidden Horses, the founding team speaks candidly about the emotional shockwave of Microsoft's July restructuring. While remaining leadership recently pointed to id Software's closer partnership with MachineGames after losing half its staff, the developers who were let go describe a brutal blindside delivered on the eve of shipping their expansion.
Hidden Horses co-founder and former id Software tools programmer John-Michael Quinlan, a 20-year industry veteran, did not mince words about the timing of the cuts:
"It's just wild the talent that they let go. It's just wild that they would attack id like that the day before we release our DLC. It really felt like an attack."
Former id Software senior technical designer Jordan Turner, now co-founder and technical designer at Hidden Horses, called the layoff "emotionally the worst day of my life," adding, "I don't think I've cried that much in my entire life." Rendering programmer Regan Carver recalled how his wife initially thought he was joking before breaking into tears, robbing him of his launch-day ritual of reading player reactions online. Former id AI engineering lead Daniel Young described being separated from longtime colleagues as feeling "almost like a death in the family," while technical artist and former id lead VFX artist Todd Boyce highlighted the real-world toll of supporting two children in college after "a layoff that honestly didn't need to happen."
Hidden Horses: 250 Collective Years of Shooter Pedigree and Zero Corporate Overlords
Rather than scattering across the AAA industry and risking another round of corporate downsizing, a core roster of 19 to 20 former id Software developers,bringing together more than 250 collective years of game development experience across engine programming, rendering, tools, design, lighting, and production,decided to stay together. According to the official Hidden Horses website, the company is structured as a developer-owned cooperative designed to prioritize "long-term health over short-term growth, longevity over quarterly returns, and innovative gameplay over shady monetization."
Co-founder and engine programmer Dustin Land emphasized that what made their years at id Software special wasn't just the franchises, but the people building them side by side. Lighting artist Tyler DeLisle and technical designer Tim Locke echoed that the sudden transition from corporate hierarchy to collaborative freedom has energized the team: "None of us were slackers. We were all best of the best, top of our game," DeLisle noted, pointing out that working untethered allows every member to shape the studio's creative direction.
Danger Pay: An Old-School Arena FPS Inspired by Smash TV and The Running Man
To kick off its independent era, Hidden Horses revealed its debut project: Danger Pay, a high-octane, single-player arena shooter built around an ultraviolent televised game show hosted by a sinister AI. Drawing direct inspiration from the 1987 sci-fi classic The Running Man and the 1990 arcade twin-stick shooter Smash TV, the project puts pure movement, weapon feedback, and replayable combat arenas front and center.
Co-founder and executive producer Andrew Willis promised "out-of-this-world fun gameplay, amazing and super cohesive and stylistic visuals, and really optimized gameplay on the technical side." Much like how John Romero rescued his next shooter following Xbox's cuts, Hidden Horses is charting an independent path forward and will soon launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund development directly alongside its community.
My Field Notes
Listening to John-Michael Quinlan, Jordan Turner, and Dustin Land lay out how July's cuts unfolded, I am struck by the sheer irony of modern AAA publishing. Cutting half the staff at the studio that defined the first-person shooter,literally the day before shipping a major DOOM: The Dark Ages expansion,shows just how disconnected quarterly balance sheets have become from institutional craft. Yet out of that wreckage, Hidden Horses is recapturing the lean, insurgent spirit that made 1990s id Software legendary in the first place. Putting 250 years of engine, rendering, and combat design mastery into an employee-owned studio building a fast, tightly optimized arena shooter inspired by Smash TV and The Running Man is the best possible answer to corporate consolidation. I will be watching Danger Pay very closely.
Originally from Lyon, France, gaming journalist Bastien "Orion" relocated nearly a decade ago to Quebec City's Saint-Roch district, right in the heart of eastern Canada's development studio hub. Before crossing the Atlantic, he honed his versatile reporting style across classic French gaming web portals and specialist television outlets in the 2000s and 2010s, notably with JeuxVideo.fr and JeuxNews. Equally passionate about AAA blockbusters, North American studio culture, retro preservation, and community modding projects, he anchors Pro-Gamer's transatlantic desk and real-time coverage of US and Japanese industry announcements.
