John Carmack, legendary game programmer and co-founder of Doom and Quake developer id Software, will be leaving the studio he built to focus full-time on the Oculus Rift VR system, according to Polygon. Carmack had already been splitting his time between id and Oculus VR, where he is Chief Technical Officer.

Carmack’s departure is disarming, but not unexpected. The icon was tapped for the Oculus CTO position in August, after evangelizing the VR hardware headset even before it became a blockbuster Kickstarter success in 2012. Indeed, Carmack was the first developer to co-opt the Oculus Rift SDK into a working game, and also promised his much-anticipated (and often delayed) game Doom 4 would have a working port with the VR system. Carmack has also spent extensive time talking about the future of virtual reality, perhaps most effusively in his three-hour keynote speechat this year’s…