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'
News Source
β’Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:33:30 +0000
π° What Happened
John Romero told VGC that Romero Games has found a new publisher for the shooter Xbox cancelled last year, but that the studio has gone from 110 people to 16, having fallen as low as five during the search for funding. He said the team owns all the IP, art and code outright, so the new project is a complete redesign built to reuse as much existing work as possible.
π The Backstory
Xbox defunded the unannounced project in 2025 as part of wider cuts across its studios. Romero, who co-created Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D, runs the studio with his wife Brenda Romero; he said the new publisher has no creative goals for the game and has told the team to make what it wants, and that the project is scoped for a team of 15 to 16.
π― Why It Matters
The story captures how cancellations cascade through studios even when the developer keeps its intellectual property, with headcount absorbing the risk rather than the platform. Romero's argument that his best work came from small teams also feeds an ongoing industry debate about whether scale is helping or hurting game development.
John Romero told VGC that Romero Games has found a new publisher for the shooter Xbox cancelled last year, but that the studio has gone from 110 people to 16, having fallen as low as five during the search for funding. He said the team owns all the IP, art and code outright, so the new project is a complete redesign built to reuse as much existing work as possible.
Xbox defunded the unannounced project in 2025 as part of wider cuts across its studios. Romero, who co-created Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D, runs the studio with his wife Brenda Romero; he said the new publisher has no creative goals for the game and has told the team to make what it wants, and that the project is scoped for a team of 15 to 16.
The story captures how cancellations cascade through studios even when the developer keeps its intellectual property, with headcount absorbing the risk rather than the platform. Romero's argument that his best work came from small teams also feeds an ongoing industry debate about whether scale is helping or hurting game development.