Romero Games' shooter survives Xbox cut with new publisher, 16 devs

Darlings of the small-studio circuit, take your seats: the spotlight swings to Romero Games, where a shooter written off this summer has been pulled back from the wings. The studio’s unannounced first-person shooter lost its Xbox publishing deal, and on Friday, October 30, John Romero confirmed it has a new publisher and is moving forward again. ¹²

Here are the plain facts. The studio is Romero Games, the genre is shooter, and the engine is Unreal Engine. ³ Romero would not name the new publisher or give an announcement date. ² Platforms, price and release date have not been stated.

The survival story is the real headline. The earlier game was built by a team of 110, and funding vanished when the publisher pulled its deal during a wave of Microsoft layoffs. ²⁴ Romero says the team was kept on as long as possible while the studio hunted for money, but as people left, the original game could not be rebuilt. ² The studio went down to five people.

What saved it is ownership. Romero says the studio owns everything outright: the name, the IP, the art, the graphics and the code. ² That let him design a new, smaller game that reuses as much existing work as possible, giving the team a head start with characters, weapons and shared shooter code. ²

Ten people have since been brought back, the leads of the old sub-teams, and the team now sits around 15 to 16. ² Romero says that is where it will probably stay, because the game is scoped for that size. “We’re just super happy,” he said. ² He adds that the original design was a 110-person game that could not be finished at this scale, so this is a complete redesign rather than a trimmed copy. ²

My favorite detail is how he talks about the work. Romero says he prefers small teams because he can design by hand, make decisions himself and work in the editor, rather than sit in meetings. ² He describes the leads as self-driven, with a nearly flat structure and no producer, and says a small team can pivot completely in hours. ² He calls the game “a shooter” with everything around it “really new,” though he gives no specifics. ²

The project’s fall was widely reported at the time. Staff said the studio was left without work after the deal collapsed, and the studio’s own statement said the publisher’s decision was well above its visibility or control. ⁴⁵ Romero Games later said it was not closing and hoped another publisher could save the game. ²

Who is this for? Shooter fans who like a veteran designer with his hands on the controls, and anyone who loves an underdog comeback. There is no store page yet.

Our read: This is a rare happy second act for a cancelled project, and the lesson is ownership plus humility: because the studio held its IP and assets, shrinking the dream kept it alive. The open questions are the publisher’s name and what the game actually looks like, and both are worth watching.

Footnotes

1. GamesRadar, “Doom’s John Romero confirms his new FPS is saved after Xbox abandoned it”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩

2. Video Games Chronicle, “John Romero confirms his axed Xbox game has a new publisher and he’s rehired some staff”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

3. PC Gamer, “Romero Games has a new publisher for the game Xbox abandoned, but its 110-person team is now just 16 devs: ‘I needed to basically design a new game that could use as much of that stuff as possible’”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩

4. Eurogamer, “Doom creator John Romero’s next shooter project loses funding following Microsoft cuts”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩ ↩²

5. Kotaku, “Original Doom Designer’s New FPS Is The Latest Casualty Of The Xbox Cuts”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩