John Romero’s Shooter Finds a New Publisher a Year After Xbox Pulled the Plug

John Romero has confirmed that Romero Games, the studio he runs with his wife Brenda Romero, has found a new publisher for its in-development shooter, more than a year after Xbox pulled funding for the project. Speaking to Video Games Chronicle at Gamescom Asia, Romero said the deal came together after months spent figuring out how to keep the studio alive.

From Five Developers Back to Fifteen

When Xbox canceled funding for Romero Games’ large-scale shooter in mid-2025, the studio’s roughly 110-person team was cut down to just five people as it searched for a new path forward. Rather than trying to finish the original, much bigger game, the team used the technology, art, and ideas it already owned to design a smaller project built specifically for a team its current size.

Romero told VGC he reached out to a contact directly to secure the new deal, though he isn’t able to share who the publisher is or when the game will be formally announced. The studio has since rehired around ten former staff, bringing the team to roughly fifteen people, which Romero said is exactly where he wants to keep it.

“We don’t need to be bigger than that.”

John Romero, co-founder of Romero Games

Romero Games has gone from roughly 110 staff to five and back up to around fifteen over the past year and a half.

Part of a Rough Stretch for Xbox Studios

Romero Games’ funding was pulled as part of a wider wave of cuts tied to Xbox’s cost cutting, a period that also hit several other studios and unannounced projects across the industry. It mirrors a pattern seen elsewhere this year, including at Sucker Punch, which laid off staff despite Ghost of Yotei’s strong sales, and at Microsoft itself, which recently offered buyout packages to roughly a quarter of its global workforce. Despite the setback, Romero says the redesigned project, which reuses a lot of assets from the canceled game, is coming together well with its smaller team.

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Picture Source: Official GDC, Romero Games