The project that was in development at Doom co-creator John Romero’s studio Romero Games has seemingly been rescued. In a discussion at Salón del Videojuego de Madrid (as caught by Eurogamer), Romero confirmed that the project had been saved, albeit after having gone through some major changes.
In the discussion, Romero noted that the project has “been basically completely redesigned,” and ultimately, while it not have much in common with what it used to be, it still “incorporates a lot of the elements” from the original incarnation of the game. He further spoke about how the studio isn’t starting from scratch with the redesign. Rather, it has been trying to take pieces of the older project to see how it can fit into the new one.
“We’re not starting at ground zero,” explained Romero. “We can take pieces out of and put into a brand new indie game. We have a lot of stuff we can put in the game. The design is completely different, but the team is very excited about the new design.”
He also noted that the scope of the game has changed, with the redesign having made it a “much smaller game” than what it used to be. He also spoke about development on this project being a lot more fun for the team since a lot of different members of the studio are getting to work on it. He said that, “the people working on it are all directors from different departments, and they didn’t actually get to the code or design or whatever to do it themselves, but now we get to actually do that”.
“[We get to] do the thing we are really good at, ourselves. And, that’s why small teams are great,” he continued.
Ultimately, Romero didn’t provide much in the way of specific details about the project. Aside from the fact that it will be a shooter, Romero did bring up an interesting comparison when describing. “The things that you do in it, will be new to people, the way that going through Elden Ring was a really new experience,” he said.
“It was a very crazy place, and a different world, and it was really cool to explore it and be like ‘what is that?’ That’s the idea behind what we are doing in this game.”
Romero Games CEO Brenda Romero had originally announced the project being cancelled back in July. While she didn’t give confirmation at the time of what the game was going to be, she did note that its development was going quite well and that it had been hitting all of the milestones that had been set by the publisher. Despite this, however, the studio noted that it wasn’t going to close its doors.
“We want to address recent reports regarding the status of Romero Games,” said the studio. “These reports have contained inaccuracies, and we feel it’s important to set the record straight.”
“The funding for our project was pulled, and our game was cancelled. Due to confidentiality agreements, we cannot disclose the publisher’s identity, though some may infer it from public information. As a result, we now have to reassess the entire staffing of our studio.”
