Last year saw the release of the shooter DOOM: The Dark Ages, and this month id Software and Bethesda Softworks introduced the premium story expansion Revelations.
Dark Ages' record peak online in Steam reached 31 thousand players, which is less than DOOM 2016 (44 thousand) and DOOM Eternal (almost 105 thousand). Some players believe that the project failed. In addition, a round of layoffs occurred at id Software, which strengthened this theory in the gaming community.
However, DOOM: The Dark Ages still managed to become commercially successful. Project game director Hugo Martin held a "Slayers Club Live" stream, during which he stated:
We made a game that people like and that has been successful both critically and commercially — [DOOM: The Dark Ages] is performing very well against projections. This is good for everyone: for the people in the studio and for those we, unfortunately, had to say goodbye to.
Martin noted that the development team is now the same size as it was when DOOM (2016) was made, and "the id Tech engine is still alive and well."
Rumors had previously spread online that the id Tech team at the Texas studio had been significantly downsized, but Martin stated: "You have to understand that we have id Tech engineers in both Frankfurt and MachineGames. We work quite closely together."