Doom and Quake creator finds new publisher for his shooter after Xbox split
Translated with AI from the Russian original.
Romero Games managed to save the project.
id Software co-founder and Doom and Quake co-creator John Romero announced that his studio Romero Games has found a new publisher for its unannounced shooter. In addition, some of the employees who previously left the team after losing funding from Microsoft have returned to work on the project.
In the summer of 2026, Romero Games confirmed that it had lost development funding for the game after Microsoft backed out of the publishing agreement. This occurred amid large-scale layoffs within the corporation. As a result, the studio had to significantly downsize: out of the original 110 employees, only five remained.
Now, speaking to VGC journalists at Gamescom Asia, Romero shared that he managed to reach an agreement with a new publisher. Its name, partnership terms, and official announcement date have not yet been disclosed.
According to the developer, the studio has already brought ten people back to the team, including heads of various departments. Around 15–16 employees are currently working at Romero Games. There are no plans to expand the staff in the near future: the project has been redesigned to match the capabilities of a small team.
Romero emphasized that it will no longer be possible to finish the original version of the game. It was conceived with a 110-person team in mind, so the studio essentially had to create a new project while preserving a significant portion of the previously developed materials.
Specifically, the developers are using assets and progress from the previous version: characters, artwork, weapons, graphical assets, and code. According to Romero, this gave them a major head start in development.
It’s a shooter—that part is clear. But everything else in the game is completely new, and the whole team is thrilled with what’s happening. We are very happy with how the game is turning out.
The developer also noted that he prefers working with smaller teams. This format allows him to personally engage in the day-to-day game development, make decisions, work directly in Unreal Editor, and handle design instead of spending most of his time in meetings.
Romero also commented separately on the collaboration with the new publisher. According to him, they have made no creative demands and fully trust the studio on development matters.
The publisher we are working with now doesn’t impose any creative goals on the game. They say: ‘Do what you want. We will publish the game and we are not going to tell you what to make.’ It’s the perfect deal.
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