Doom co-creator John Romero has rescued his first-person shooter from cancellation and brought it back into active development with a major redesign.
The project was originally funded and set to be published by Microsoft. When the tech giant walked away from the publishing deal, Romero Games lost its financial backing and was forced to lay off around 110 developers. The shooter went dark.
Romero has now confirmed the game has been saved. New funding is in place and development has restarted at his Ireland-based studio.
The revived shooter is getting more than just a second chance. Romero is significantly redesigning the game with inspiration drawn directly from Elden Ring‘s approach to exploration and world design.
Specifically, he’s looking at how FromSoftware structures vistas and points of interest. In Elden Ring, players can spin 360 degrees from almost any location and spot multiple intriguing landmarks that naturally pull their attention. Romero wants that same philosophy in his FPS.
The game is described as a dark, large-scale FPS with high-skill combat. It’s still firmly a shooter, not a Souls-like melee game. The Elden Ring connection is about world structure and non-linear exploration, not stamina meters or difficulty spikes.
Romero Games had scaled up significantly for the Microsoft partnership, hiring over 100 staff for what was shaping up to be the studio’s biggest project. Before this, the studio had developed Empire of Sin, a 1920s mafia strategy game that launched in 2020 to mixed reviews and technical issues.
The Microsoft cancellation hit hard. Without publisher funding, the studio couldn’t maintain its expanded team. The downsizing was severe and the project appeared dead.
No official reason for Microsoft’s withdrawal has been made public. The company regularly funds third-party projects through Game Pass and ID@Xbox programs but also routinely cancels projects mid-development for various business reasons.
From Doom legend to Elden Ring student
Romero’s return to pure FPS design has been anticipated since his studio’s founding. His most recent shooter work came through SIGIL and SIGIL II, fan-made episodes for the original Doom engine that released in 2019 and 2023.
This marks Romero’s first attempt at leading a completely new shooter since Daikatana in 2000. That game became infamous for troubled development, delays, and poor reception despite ambitious ideas.
