John Romero said Romero Games had reached a deal with a new publisher for its redesigned shooter, but he did not identify the publisher or say when it would be announced. Video Games Chronicle reported his comments on October 30, 2026.
The project is a different shooter
Romero Games lost Microsoft’s funding for the original project in 2025. Romero said the original plan, built for a team of 110, would not be completed as designed. The active project is a complete redesign into a different shooter that reuses selected characters, art, code assets and weapons from the earlier work.
Romero describes a much smaller team
Romero said the team had fallen from 110 people to five after the funding loss. Ten former staff members returned; they had led the project’s earlier sub-teams. He put the team working on the redesigned game at around 15–16 people.
Reported engine and creative direction
Inven Global reported that Romero separately told IGN the redesigned shooter uses Unreal Engine 5.8. Romero compared its exploratory freedom to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Romero also characterized the new publisher as leaving creative decisions to the studio while publishing the game.
