Romero Confirms His Cancelled Shooter Has Been Saved And Completely Reworked

John Romero’s cancelled shooter has returned to active development after losing funding earlier this year. The project, once left without a publisher following Microsoft’s wide round of summer cancellations, is now back in production with a redesigned structure and a smaller, more hands-on team. Romero confirmed the update during a session at Salón del Videojuego de Madrid, where he explained that the game had “survived cancellation” and was moving forward under a new arrangement.

The original version of the shooter lost momentum in July, when Microsoft cut multiple projects across its portfolio and several studios reported sudden shutdowns. Romero Games was not closed, but its publisher withdrew support from the team’s unannounced shooter. The studio spent the following months evaluating options and searching for a path to continue development. Romero said the team eventually secured the backing needed to resume work.

Romero described the revived game as “basically completely redesigned,” with the team extracting selected systems from the previous build and placing them into a new framework. He said the foundation has changed enough that the current version no longer resembles the project that stalled in the summer. Despite this shift, certain mechanics and ideas that survived the transition continue to inform the direction of the redesign. He noted that the team is not working from zero and is drawing on preserved material where it still fits the new concept.

The rebuilt version is intentionally smaller, which Romero framed as a benefit for the developers now shaping it. The studio’s leads are working directly on code, design, and implementation after spending much of the earlier cycle in higher-level roles. The reduced scale has given them room to handle core tasks themselves and steer the project without the overhead required for a larger production. Romero said the game is “more fun” to make under this structure because the people driving it are contributing at the craft level.

While he did not outline specific mechanics or narrative details, Romero said the shooter includes ideas he has not seen in other games. He compared its sense of discovery to Elden Ring, not in genre but in how players will encounter unfamiliar spaces and unexpected interactions. He emphasized that the format remains a shooter, but the actions players take and the way they move through the world aim to break from familiar patterns.

The renewed version aligns with Romero Games’ shift toward a more independent scale after the loss of its previous publishing deal. The studio now operates with clearer constraints and greater autonomy, which Romero said helped focus the redesign. He pointed to the preserved elements from the earlier build as a practical advantage, allowing the team to carry forward working components rather than discarding the entire foundation. At the same time, the new structure allowed them to rethink the underlying design without being bound to the original production plan.

The studio has not given a timeline for when the game will be shown publicly. Romero said he is not yet able to discuss its specific design, but he stressed that the creative reset allowed the team to define a sharper identity for the project. The Madrid appearance marked the first direct acknowledgment that development had fully restarted since the summer setback.

Read also, Doom creator Romero highlighted Dusk during an episode of his FPS Fridays stream, calling the retro-style shooter “super-cool” and telling its developers they “chose well.” His playthrough of New Blood’s 2018 release showed how naturally he adapts to its fast, low-poly design, moving through encounters with practiced precision.