id Software 高管回应裁员后工作室规模缩减，发布《毁灭战士：黑暗时代》Slaughter Mode 更新

id Software leaders Marty Stratton and Hugo Martin held their first press briefing since more than half the studio was laid off in July. They talked about the new Slaughter Mode for Doom: The Dark Ages — Revelations DLC, but they also answered questions about the studio.

Revelations debuted on July 7 as a 10 hour to 12 hour premium experience, comparable in size to two Doom Eternal DLCs combined. It has base-game missions and end-game content, with new paths, challenge arenas, trials, classic levels, a hub, and an Uber boss. It’s so big that Martin and Stratton said that the game could have been a sequel to Doom: The Dark Ages, which debuted in May 2025.

The state of the studio

We learned during the layoffs that most of the id Tech game engine team was laid off at id, and that necessitated more collaboration which MachineGames, which also worked on the engine.

During the press briefing, I asked how the studio was doing after the layoffs, and how they will affect what the studio can do next in terms of the scope of future games.

“I think we’re doing we’re doing great. You know, like not to hand wave the impacts (of the layoffs), and everybody knows that we had about half of our studio exit as part of that, but it there was a very deliberate effort to make sure that we were incredibly viable coming out of that across everything we do,” Stratton said. “Across game development and technology development, we break it up a little bit from a technology perspective. We’re working more closely with MachineGames than ever.”

He added, “We’ve always had a very close partnership with them, but I think we’re at a point with technology development where both teams are incredibly talented. (Both) have incredibly talented engineers, and we’re really on an amazing path that had started actually pre impacts, and as part of the Xbox reset, we we’ve really kicked this off earlier in the year. But it has really taken shape over the course of the last several months. We’re really excited about that, and and again, the team is is incredibly capable across all of our disciplines.”

He noted that horde mode was built internally, as was the cinematic trailer.

“A lot of teams would would outsource that. To an agency, but we have masters of the craft here at the studio, and so we are super proud of the team. We’re both really bullish on what we what we have ahead. Again, it’s always hard not to be able to talk about that stuff. It’s still early, but I don’t think either of us would want to be here if we couldn’t feel like we have our opportunity to do our best work.”

Martin said he had been at the studio 26 years and added, “This isn’t the first time we’ve had some some some ups and downs. Like when John Carmack left the studio. He invented our engine and the first person shooter genre, and then his tech team went with him soon after that to Meta. That was a an example of a huge change that the studio went through. So it’s an evolution. They’re challenging, like Marty said, but we’ve been through them before, and it changes the way we work. But we continue on.”

Stratton said the team had a “pretty challenging run” in the years leading up to the new Doom, which released in 2016.

“Everybody now looks back with hindsight and it’s like this was amazing. But 2013 and 2014, those were those were challenging years. We’ve talked about this publicly, but we canceled the project and the other Doom project that was in development,” Stratton said.

That resulted in a lot of people leaving the company.

Even with the diminished team, Stratton said the Slaughter Mode update was built in-house. There’s no new additional game planned for Revelations, but the studio is focused on its next major project, Stratton said.

The team worked on Doom: The Dark Ages during the pandemic. Stratton said the team wanted the Doom: The Dark Ages campaign to be amazing, and because of Covid, the team couldn’t do both that and make multiplayer as well. So they decided to drop multiplayer as a tradeoff.

Stratton said there is no update when a multiplayer edition would come out.

Stratton said there was “noise around the studio and commentary about our capabilities.” Some of the laid-off workers said that so many jobs were cut that they didn’t know how id could function with whole departments missing.

“I want to make the point that Slaughter Mode has been built in the last few months by a team here exclusively. Even the trailer. I’m super proud of the team. All the team here are really proud of the work that everybody’s doing, and really, it just again shows shows the capability of the team and the passion behind it.”

The next project

Stratton said a few words about what’s coming next.

“Since Revelations launched, we’ve started working very furiously on our next major project, which we’re not going to talk about today,” Stratton said. “It’ll be a little bit before we get you visibility on that. I know everybody would would love to to hear something on that, but it’s really exciting for us. We’re having a lot of fun already.”

He said in the meantime, group of people have been working on an all new hoard experience for Dark Ages and Revelations, and it’s called Slaughter Mode.

“The fans freaked out about Revelations,” Martin said. “They love the loop, and they want more. We want more, and it gave us an opportunity.”

He noted that Doom Eternal from 2020 also had a horde mode, and that prompted the team to think about what it could do better.

“This horde mode is how do we add drama to what is already a great combat loop, and make death really matter, which creates a ton of tension when you actually care about dying,” he said.

Stratton said that if fans don’t hear from the studio, it’s because the team is “heads down, waiting for the next opportunity to talk about what we’re working on.”

Slaughter Mode

Now Revelations will have a free update in Slaughter Mode, which is coming in November for game owners including owners of Doom: The Dark Ages deluxe edition or Revelations owners. It’s another arena where you can take advantage of the Chain Spear, the new melee/range weapon that debuted with Revelations. Slaughter Mode features 19 arenas and randomized encounters. It’s so big that it “feels like a sequel,” Martin said.

“We took the time to get the spear feeling really good and all the different mechanics, and we actually took the the extra time to just go in and do a little cleanup on anything from the base game that we wanted to hit,” Martin said. “So there was actually under the hood a few final adjustments we were able to make to the balance of things like the mace and melee tools, death screens, and hit feedback. Little things that just make the experience more engaging, increase the drama, which just gave us a better foundation to work on.”

It will also feature risk-and-reward runs, weekly challenges, rewards, unlockable cosmetics and a fully upgraded spear loadout.

Players start with a fully upgraded spear and use a loadout; the team focused on reward structure, balance, and encounter randomization rather than a roguelike progression system. That makes the game “incredibly replayable,” Martin said.

Combat centers on the Chain Spear, which is a cool weapon from Revelations that adds a dash, grapple, and multiple upgrade paths.

While you’re highly mobile in Doom Eternal, the player experience in Doom: The Dark Ages is a lot like being an invulnerable tank.

“We put jetpack on the Abrams tank. Because you’re mobile like in Eternal, but heavy like you are in Dark Ages,” Martin said.

The team balanced it against the shield, one of the cool features of Doom: The Dark Ages, through extensive testing and iteration. The DLC also adds enemies, secrets, lore, and a pivotal chapter in the Slayer’s story.

Martin said, “We are super proud of everything that we made for sure.”

In a video for the update, Martin said that other games have you running from monsters.

“But in our game, you are the monster,” he said. “The demons run from you. It’s a power fantasy like no other, and we loved making it for you. It kind of plays like the culmination of 35 years of Doom.”

Revelations and Slaughter Mode have been in a state of polishing for the past year, with lots of secrets, boss fights, the spear and more in a premium experience that you would expect from id Software, Martin said. In a video, Martin noted that you can dual-wield weapons, vanquishing enemies with the Chain Spear and taking more out by shooting them. You can use the spear to break armor, kill fodder to gain resources, or parry incoming melee and projectile attacks.

“Once mastered, you will feel like a Jedi slashing back and forth against Hell’s worst. There is a ton of freedom and weapon tech to discover here,” Martin said.

There’s a new wizard boss that you have to kill fast, and characters with upgraded AI for combat.

You can read the lore you discover in the game. Narratively, this is a pivotal chapter in the Slayer’s story, Martin said.

“He’s as badass as ever, but as you saw in the trailer, things don’t go according to plan this time for our unstoppable killing machine. Stripped of his tools, we’ll witness the Slayer’s fall and path to ascension, and by game’s end, the Slayer’s action will change the world around him forever.”

As for whether Slaughter Mode will wrap up this stage of the Slayer’s story, Martin said, “There’s definitely more stories to tell, but we’re focused on what we’re working on next, so we can’t really say anything about that. We still don’t know how he gets captured in that sarcophagus, and we always think of it like these are chapters from the Slayer saga. So there are certainly more stories to tell. We can’t talk too much about that.”

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