id Software co-founder and Doom designer John Romero says Romero Games still has a number of publishers interested in the studio's axed shooter after it reportedly lost its funding from Microsoft earlier this year.
As a part of Microsoft's sweeping layoffs, which impacted its gaming division, resulting in the cancellations of Everwild, the Perfect Dark reboot, and Zenimax Online Studios' unannounced MMO, Romero Games announced it had lost funding on an "all-new FPS with an original, new IP" that it had been working with "a major publisher" on for a few years. While Romero Games' statement didn't mention Microsoft, former employees identified them as the "major publisher" when discussing the cancellation.
While it was reported that the studio had closed due to this, Romero Games confirmed shortly after that it still exists and is actively looking for a way forward. And in a new interview with Game Reactor, co-founder John Romero gave an update on the project.
"We’re still figuring out what we’re going to do with our big game," Romero says, adding, "We own the IP, we own the code, we own everything about the game." Mirroring the studio's comments earlier this year, Romero reaffirmed, "we have a lot of companies that are interested and still working with us on it," noting that "when you develop a game for years and you put in, say, $50 million into a game, if you move and start working with somebody else, they get $50 million for free."
Romero notes that the game was about "midway" through development, and that even if it doesn't get picked up by another publisher, "you have $50 million worth of assets that you can use to make another thing. So no matter what, you are shortcutting the end of your game, right? To be able to get your game done faster, you already have a lot there."
