id Software co-studio director Marty Stratton says the Doom and Quake developer is “doing great” despite losing about half of its studio during Microsoft’s recent cuts across Xbox’s gaming division.

Around 136 id Software employees were reportedly affected by the layoffs, which formed part of an Xbox business “reset” led by CEO Asha Sharma. Asked about the studio’s current condition at a recent event, Stratton acknowledged the scale of the departures while saying there had been a deliberate effort to preserve the company’s viability across game development and technology.

“Not to handwave the [layoffs] away… everybody knows we had about half of our studio exit as part of that,” Stratton said, according to IGN. He added that the remaining organization had been positioned to continue its work in both areas.

His comments follow earlier statements from fellow co-studio head Hugo Martin, who said the remaining team was comparable in size to the group that developed Doom in 2016 and that id Tech remained active. The engine powers id Software’s games and was among the areas affected by the cuts, prompting concerns from current and former members of the studio.

Longtime programmer Chris Hays, who was not laid off, previously argued that producing a triple-A game at the studio’s previous scale would be extremely difficult with half the staff. He also said that entire departments and disciplines had disappeared.

Stratton did not directly address those remarks, but said id Software is now working more closely than ever with MachineGames, the Swedish developer behind the modern Wolfenstein titles and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. He described the collaboration on technology development as a promising path that began before the layoffs and said both teams were optimistic about what lies ahead.

Microsoft’s Xbox restructuring is expected to result in 3,200 job cuts across its gaming division, with additional layoffs still to come. id Software’s next project has not been announced, while MachineGames has indicated that it has not finished with the Wolfenstein series.

Sources: Eurogamer.