Former id Software developers form their own employee-owned shooter studio in the wake of Microsoft's mass layoffs

As part of its July 2026 wave of Xbox job cuts, Microsoft laid off a reported 136 developers from id Software, a studio whose name is synonymous with expertise in shooter design and engineering. Today, "approximately 20" of those former id developers announced the formation of Hidden Horses, an employee-owned game studio boasting "over 250 collective years" of game dev experience between its co-founders.

"This team has spent years building games together, and we realized that what made that experience special wasn't just the projects we worked on; it was the people we worked with," Hidden Horses engine programmer and co-founder Dustin Land said in a press release. "Hidden Horses is an opportunity to keep that team together, build something of our own, and create the kind of old school shooters that we think people want more of."

On its website, the studio says it was formed as a democratically governed, developer-owned company so it can prioritize "long-term health over short-term growth, longevity over quarterly returns, and innovative gameplay over shady monetization"—for the sake of its games, and the studio staff creating them.

"We're creating a studio where the developers share in its success and have a commitment to it beyond just another job," said co-founder and executive producer Andrew Willis, "I think that when people have a stake in something’s success, they are more committed to it.”

The studio is planning to launch a Kickstarter campaign to support the development of its first planned game: a singleplayer arena shooter called Danger Pay, in which players will participate in a televised ultraviolent game show inspired by works like The Running Man (the 1987 movie, not the 2025 one) and 1990's Smash TV—a game that, I've just now learned, got a novella adaptation in 1992. So. Now I get to have that knowledge bouncing around.

"We've had the privilege of spending our careers making games for incredible communities of players," said Johnmichael Quinlin, studio co-founder and tools programmer. "Now we have the chance to build something new together, and we're excited to invite those players along for the journey from the very beginning."

If you want to stay posted on what Hidden Horses is up to, you can follow the studio on its Bluesky account.