Romero Games, the studio led by Doom designer John Romero, had been reported as one of the casualties of Xbox’s devastating layoffs last week. This was based on a statement from the studio itself, which announced that the publisher lined up for its next project had pulled funding. However, if you actually read the statement itself, it stops short of saying the company is shutting down. Today, June 7, the studio released another statement clarifying some of the information circulating online, including the status of the company.
Romero Games released a post on its various social media channels clarifying that, although its next game was indeed canceled due to pulled funding, the company itself is still actively exploring next steps. For now, Romero Games is seeking a new publisher to bring its game past the finish line. According to the statement, “several” publishers have reached out to the company about seeing the game through, and the team is “evaluating” its options. So while nothing’s set in stone, it does seem like there’s a chance that some interested party or parties will help salvage the game after Microsoft pulled out of the deal. (The statement itself says it cannot name the publisher due to “confidentiality agreements,” but members of the studio have already stated publicly that they were caught up in the layoffs at Microsoft.)
Hopefully, whatever Romero Games is working on sees the light of day. It would be nice to see at least one spark of hope emerge from all the destruction Microsoft put the Xbox studios through last week, such as the cancellation of the Perfect Dark reboot and Rare’s Everwild. Whatever Xbox manages to release this generation, the Xbox Series X/S generation has been defined by a lot of carnage for Xbox Game Studios and not nearly enough good games to show for it.
