John Romero Says New FPS Has Been Rescued With a New Publisher

John Romero has confirmed that the first-person shooter previously left in limbo after Xbox withdrew its support is moving forward under a new publishing agreement. The project will not be the same game Romero Games originally planned, however. Following severe layoffs that reduced the studio from roughly 110 people to just five, the team has rebuilt the concept around a much smaller development group and has brought back 10 former employees.

The update is a significant turn for Romero Games, which had publicly announced work on an all-new FPS based on an original intellectual property in 2022. While the game's publisher was not initially named, the situation became clearer in summer 2025, when the project was seemingly cancelled amid another round of Microsoft and Xbox cuts. The loss of funding put the studio itself in a precarious position.

More than a year later, Romero says the company has secured a new partner and has begun reshaping the project into something achievable for its present circumstances. The publisher has not been identified, and there is still no public title, release window, confirmed platform list, or gameplay footage for the game. But the project is no longer described as cancelled, and Romero's comments indicate that development has a viable path ahead.

A studio reduced from 110 people to five

Romero explained that the company attempted to retain its staff for as long as possible while seeking the funding needed to complete the FPS. Ultimately, that was not sustainable. Romero Games had to make roles redundant and work out how it could proceed with only a tiny internal group.

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At its lowest point, the studio went from a team of around 110 developers to five people. That scale of contraction makes completing the original version of the game impossible. Romero was direct about that reality: the prior production had been designed as a 110-person game, and the current team cannot simply carry that exact plan through to release.

Instead, the studio has treated the new publishing agreement as an opportunity to reset the project. Ten people have now returned to Romero Games, with those hires consisting of leads from the different sub-teams that had worked on the earlier version. This gives the new production experienced staff familiar with the work already completed, while keeping the overall team far below its former size.

That distinction matters. Rehiring key leads does not mean the company has returned to its earlier headcount, nor does it suggest that the original project has been restored in full. The new game is being designed around the staff Romero Games has now, rather than around an expectation that the old 110-person operation will return.

The original FPS is not being finished as planned

Romero characterized the current effort as a complete redesign and effectively a different game, even though it is drawing upon material created during the earlier production. The original scope cannot be taken to the finish line without the level of staffing it was built for. Rather than pursue an unmanageable version of that plan, the studio is making a new FPS that can be completed by a smaller team.

That approach allows Romero Games to avoid throwing away everything made before the Xbox-backed version was halted. Romero said the team has transferred a substantial amount of work into the new project, including art and weapons. Those assets provide what he described as a considerable head start, giving the smaller team a foundation instead of forcing it to begin with an entirely blank slate.

For a shooter, reusable work can be particularly valuable. Visual direction, weapon concepts, environmental assets, prototypes, technical systems, and design knowledge can all shorten the route from pre-production to a playable build. Romero did not specify exactly which elements have survived, how much of the prior game will be recognizable in the redesign, or whether any story and setting ideas have remained intact. The key point is that the team is carrying useful work forward without claiming to preserve the original game's full ambitions.

It is also important not to mistake the shared assets for a revival of the cancelled version. Romero's description makes clear that the scope, team structure, and overall design have changed. The new FPS may benefit from the cancelled project's development history, but it is being constructed as a distinct production with its own practical limits.

A hands-off publishing arrangement

Romero has not revealed the identity of the new publisher, but he described the arrangement as unusually supportive from a creative standpoint. In his account, the publisher is allowing Romero Games to make the game it wants to make rather than directing the studio toward particular creative objectives.

That freedom appears especially meaningful after the uncertainty caused by the previous deal's collapse. A smaller studio rebuilding after layoffs has to balance creative goals against its available resources, and a publisher demanding major shifts in direction could make that process more difficult. Romero presented the new partner's lack of creative mandates as the ideal situation: funding and publishing support without attempts to dictate what the game must become.

Of course, the practical details of the agreement remain unknown. There has been no announcement of the game's budget, its target launch window, the size of its final team, or whether Romero Games intends to expand further. The publisher's identity is also being kept private for now. Until a formal reveal, it is impossible to say how far along the redesigned FPS is or when players may get their first look at it.

Still, the confirmation offers a much more hopeful outcome than the one facing the studio after the Xbox project ended. The difference between a five-person survival operation and a team that has rehired 10 experienced developers is substantial, even if it remains modest next to the 110 people once involved.

What the update means for Romero Games

The news is notable not just because of Romero's long history in first-person shooters, but because it illustrates the disruptive effect that publisher cancellations can have on independent and mid-sized studios. A project can be far into development, staffed around a particular budget and schedule, and then suddenly require a complete business and production rethink when financing disappears.

Romero Games' response has been to reduce its plans to a sustainable scale rather than attempt to recreate the old model immediately. In development terms, that is a hard choice. It means accepting that the originally envisioned game will not exist in its intended form. But it can also be the difference between preserving a studio's future and allowing an abandoned project to end the company altogether.

The retained work from the earlier production gives the studio an advantage that a brand-new team would not have. Equally important, the return of former sub-team leads means the project has people who understand the previous pipeline, the material that can be repurposed, and the creative goals that motivated the FPS in the first place. The challenge now is translating that knowledge into a design appropriate for the revised team size.

Romero's comments do not promise an enormous blockbuster or a return to the exact game first announced in 2022. They point to something more grounded: a studio that survived a period of extreme contraction, found new backing, and is rebuilding an original FPS around a realistic production scope.

What has not been announced

Despite the encouraging update, many major questions remain unanswered. Romero Games has not announced the new FPS's name, setting, characters, gameplay systems, release timing, or supported platforms. There is also no indication of whether the game will be revealed soon, how much of the former project's visual identity has carried across, or whether the studio will add more staff beyond the 10 people it has rehired.

Players hoping for details will need to wait for Romero Games and its new publisher to make their plans public. For now, the clearest takeaway is that the FPS has been saved in a changed form. The former Xbox-backed project cannot be completed as originally designed, but its art, weapons, and other development work are helping fuel a new game that the studio believes it can build with a smaller, focused team.

After a difficult period that saw the company shrink to only five people, Romero Games has regained momentum. The next step will be showing what this redesigned project actually is--and how much of the promise behind its original FPS concept remains within its new, more sustainable form.