John Romero's next shooter survives Microsoft cuts, eyes Zelda-style freedom

Specimen of the week: a first-person shooter that nobody can name yet, built by five people, and aimed at the feeling of wandering off course. John Romero’s next game caught my eye because it came out of a bad year in better shape than most would.

The plain facts: Romero Games, the studio of the id Software co-founder, lost its Microsoft funding in 2025, and the team shrank from 110 staff to five.¹ Romero says the project now has a new publishing partner and is moving along well.¹ He is not naming the publisher, the release date or what the game is, saying that is up to the publisher.¹ What he did confirm: it is a shooter, it uses Unreal Engine 5.8, and a lot of material has been carried over from the cancelled game.¹

So what sets it apart? Freedom, by Romero’s account. He compares the pull of the design to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, where you head for a tower and get so sidetracked on the way that you forget the tower.¹ “Exploration is really a big deal for me when I play a game,” he said.¹ He also pointed to Blue Prince, where turning around in the first room reveals an outside you never knew existed.¹ Last December he told a Madrid festival that he had “never played a game like it,” and that its actions would feel as new as Elden Ring did.¹

Field note: Romero was upbeat about his own situation, saying he was doing better than he had in decades, and shrugged off the Microsoft blow with “I don’t have bitterness because that’s not who I am.”¹

This is a lot of ambition riding on very few hands, and nothing has been shown yet. Everything here comes from one interview, so treat the Zelda comparison as intent, not a promise.

Who is it for? Shooter fans who would rather get lost than follow a checklist. There is no store page to link yet.

Worth knowing: no title is announced, and Romero declined to share the release date.¹

Our read: A five-person team promising open-ended exploration is a big swing, but Romero’s track record with the genre makes it one worth watching. The next real information will have to come from the publisher.

Footnotes

1. IGN, “John Romero’s Next Shooter Survived the Microsoft Purge, Now He’s Taking Inspiration From The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰