Doom Creator John Romero Revives Xbox-Canceled Game at New Publisher

The future of the upcoming first-person shooter from industry legend and Doom co-creator John Romero hung in the balance after Microsoft scrapped the venture last year. Fortunately, Romero recently announced in an interview that the endeavor has been successfully revived, thanks to a partnership with a brand-new publisher.

Romero Games secures a fresh publishing partnership

John Romero and fellow veteran game designer Brenda Romero established Romero Games over ten years ago, building a diverse portfolio that includes Gunman Taco Truck, Empire of Sin, and Sigil episodes for Doom + Doom II. The studio originally set its sights on breaking into AAA shooter development with backing from Xbox Game Studios. However, that arrangement dissolved amid massive structural layoffs by Microsoft in 2025, forcing Romero Games to implement heavy staff reductions.

Speaking in a recent interview with Video Games Chronicle, John Romero shed light on the turbulent journey of the title and shared the encouraging news that he has managed to welcome back several previously laid-off developers. Following the loss of their primary funding, the team had temporarily downsized from 110 employees down to a core group of just five. Despite retaining complete ownership of the intellectual property, they had to patiently seek out alternative financial backing.

“I simply reached out to an acquaintance, we worked out an agreement, and now we are officially teamed up with a new publisher,” Romero explained, though he noted that he is currently bound by discretion regarding the partner’s identity and the official announcement timeline.

As of October 2026, Romero Games operates with roughly 15 staff members. Consequently, the scope of the game has been adjusted to fit the leaner team, as Romero acknowledged they could no longer execute the massive scale originally mapped out under Xbox.

“It essentially involves completely redesigning a fresh experience, but we are recycling a substantial amount of foundational work from our earlier phases,” Romero elaborated. “We can seamlessly transition characters, artwork, and technical frameworks—after all, shooters share a lot of underlying code. Bringing those assets over gave us a tremendous head start, allowing us to hit the ground running with stellar visuals and weapons.”

Regardless of the final shape this project ultimately takes, it is heartening to see that substantial portions of the original effort were preserved and will eventually reach players. Sadly, many other independent developers facing similar setbacks have not shared this fortunate outcome.

Doom creator John Romero is making a new FPS

‘An all-new FPS with an original, new IP’

Source: Polygon