‘We’re still figuring it out’: John Romero hasn’t given up on his axed Xbox shooter
The Doom designer claims “a lot of companies” are interested in reviving his game
Doom and Quake designer, John Romero, says he hasn’t given up on reviving his unannounced shooter project, that was dropped by Xbox earlier this year.
This summer, Romero Games confirmed it had lost funding for the unannounced shooter project, after an unspecified publisher, later named as Microsoft, pulled its publishing agreement as part of a wave of layoffs across the corporation.
Multiple employees claimed the “whole studio” was let go as a result of the pulled publishing deal, though Romero Games later denied it was closing and said it still hoped another publisher could save the project.
In a fresh update provided to Game Reactor, Romero has said he’s still not given up on reviving the unannounced project, or using its completed work to build something new.
“Well, we’re still figuring out what we’re going to do with our big game,” he said. “We own the IP, we own the code, we own everything about the game, right?
“So we have a lot of companies that are interested and still working with us on it, because when you develop a game for years and you put in, say, $50 million into a game, if you move and start working with somebody else, they get $50 million for free.”
He added: “Lots of people want to continue working on something, you know, and even if that doesn’t happen, you have $50 million worth of assets that you can use to make another thing. So no matter what, you are shortcutting the end of your game, right? To be able to get your game done faster, you already have a lot there already.”
According to Romero, the its game was about “midway” through development at the time Microsoft pulled its publishing deal.
Speaking to The Journal following the initial news, an anonymous Romero Games staff member described the situation as “a big shock” and claimed that “everyone is out of a job.”
“We had meetings with the publisher the day before this happened, there was no mention of it… It seemed so far away for us. The title was pretty well developed at the time.”
