Doom and Quake co-creator John Romero has confirmed that the unannounced shooter Romero Games lost when Microsoft pulled its funding has signed with a new publisher, and that ten former leads have been rehired.
Romero shared the news in an interview with Video Games Chronicle (VGC) at Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show 2026 in Bangkok. He did not name the publisher. "I just contacted somebody that I knew, and we basically did a deal, and so we have a new publisher," Romero told VGC. "Can't say anything about who it is, or when the announce is, or any of that stuff."
From 110 staff to a team of leads
Romero said the studio kept its staff on for as long as it could after losing funding last year, while it looked for money to finish the game. It then made people redundant, going from 110 staff to five. Because the studio owns the name, the IP, the art and the code, Romero designed a new, smaller game that reuses as much of that work as possible.
The studio has since "brought 10 people back", all leads of its former sub-teams, which puts the team at around 15 to 16 people. Romero said that is the size the new game has been scoped for. "We're not getting that game to the end," he said of the original project. "So this is a complete redesign of a totally different game, but it uses a lot of the work that we had in the previous games."
Romero told VGC the new publisher has "zero creative goals for this game" and lets the team make what it wants. He added that he would not want to work with a large publisher again, as he prefers to design hands-on in the Unreal Editor rather than sit in meetings.
What Romero has shared about the game
Speaking separately to IGN, Romero said the game is a shooter built in Unreal Engine 5.8 that carries over a lot from the cancelled project. He compared its sense of freedom to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. "You want to go to that tower over there, but you're going to run into all kinds of stuff in between here and there and that might change everything you're doing," he said.
Romero co-founded id Software and designed Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake. According to the show's organisers, he is set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award on the main stage at this year's event, which runs until November 1st.
