At a press event for Doom: The Dark Ages' Revelations DLC, co-director Marty Stratton was asked how id Software is doing after Xbox's job cuts. "We're doing great," he said, per IGN's reporting cited by Kotaku and PC Gamer.

"Not to handwave the [layoffs] away… everybody knows we had about half of our studio exit as part of that. But there was a very deliberate effort to make sure that we were incredibly viable coming out of that across everything we do."

The cuts reportedly landed just 24 hours before id launched its big Doom: The Dark Ages expansion, with deep reductions hitting departments holding decades of institutional knowledge.

The development cuts against the grain because observers doubted id Tech — the engine behind id's world-class shooters — could survive the downsizing.

Yet Stratton says id Software is "working more closely with MachineGames than ever" on technology development, a partnership begun earlier this year before the layoffs.

PC Gamer speculates the two studios may be pooling engine engineering after cuts hit id's Frankfurt arm, possibly folding MachineGames' Motor engine programmers into id Tech's future.

Stratton's emphasis on joint technology work has fed speculation — noted by PC Gamer — that the two developers could cooperate on Wolfenstein 3, which MachineGames is rumored to be developing, especially now that id has concluded active development on Doom: The Dark Ages following its expansion.

MachineGames uses a different fork of id Tech for its projects. "We're both really, really bullish on what we have ahead," Stratton said.

The pressure on id Software is not over. Kotaku reports Xbox has about a quarter of its "reset" left, with additional layoff rounds reportedly scheduled for November and January.

Microsoft must decide the future of franchises like Doom, and whether a smaller id, even with MachineGames' engineers alongside, can still deliver the studio's signature AAA shooters.