Romero Games is Not Dead
Romero Games has recently faced a potentially substantial loss of staff, but refuted claims that it’s closing down. The studio, based in Ireland, is best known for its work on the Sigil games – unofficial Doom mods that have since been acknowledged by id Software as legitimate parts of the franchise.
Romero Games had been working with a major publisher on an all-new FPS with an original, new IP, but that project may now be dead. The studio, however, is not. Romero Games took to X recently to clarify recent reports on other gaming sites that it was closing its doors.
“We want to address recent reports regarding the status of Romero Games. 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 canceled. 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.”
“Romero Games is not closed, and we are doing everything in our power to ensure that it does not come to that. Any suggestion otherwise is factually incorrect. Indeed, we were in the studio today to discuss next steps with the team.”
“We’ve been contacted by several publishers interested in helping us bring the game across the finish line, and we’re currently evaluating those opportunities. We appreciate the outpouring of support and will share further updates as we are able.”
A Slim Portfolio
Romero Games was founded in 2014 by Brenda and John Romero. Gamers who know their industry history will recognize the latter as the “Father of First-Person Shooters,” as he co-founded id Software and was a core designer for DOOM, Wolfenstein 3D and Quake.
Although the Romero Games site only lists Sigil and Sigil II, the studio has made three other games: Dangerous Dave in the Deserted Pirate’s Hideout (a 2015 mobile port of an old DOS game), Gunman Taco Truck (2017), and Empire of Sin (2020).
These range from being side scrollers to platformers and strategy games, and critic and player reviews for these titles also vary wildly. Empire of Sin was generally panned on release for being a buggy, unfinished mess, although time (and patches) have been a little kinder to it.
Night of the Living FPS
No concrete news has been revealed about the new FPS the studio was working on, so any reports have all been based on speculation. However, it is fair to assume the publisher it was being done for is Microsoft, given that news broke on July 2 that the company was set to lay off 4% of its workforce (around 9,000 staff), and on July 3 Romero Games posted its bad news on X.
“Last night, we learned that our publisher has cancelled funding for our game along with several other unannounced projects at other studios,” the studio said. It then went on to say that this was a decision made above its visibility or control, and it’s not a reflection of the game’s quality as the studio consistently hit targets on time.
However, other news outlets quickly quoted an anonymous source who claimed that this meant Romero Games itself was also shutting down, joining the recently shuttered The Initiative studio, which was working on a Perfect Dark reboot. Everwild is another upcoming game cancelled due to job cuts, and studios Turn 10 (Forza Motorsport) and ZeniMax Online (Elder Scrolls Online) have also reported lay-offs.
Although Romero Games has stated it’s staying open, this isn’t the first time it’s had a project cancelled. Previously, John Romero teamed up with another id Software founder, Adrian Carmack, to launch a Kickstarter campaign for Blackroom, a brand new FPS. This was linked with Night Work Games, a subsidiary of Romero Games.
However, both this offshoot and the project itself ceased in April 2016. Although Blackroom was slated for release in 2018, and the campaign had raised $131,052 of its $700,000 goal with a substantial chunk of fundraising time still left, Romero and Carmarck cancelled the project with a promise of an update.
“You asked for it, and you’re getting it: a gameplay demo of BLACKROOM,” they said on the campaign’s page. “We’re pressing ‘PAUSE’ on the fundraising campaign for BLACKROOM to complete this gameplay demo. Simply put, this will take more time than the Kickstarter has left, so we’ve decided to suspend the campaign and launch a new one when the gameplay demo is ready.”
However, as of the time of writing, the last mention of Blackroom was in John Romero’s autobiography, Doom Guy: Life in First Person, published in 2023. Romero notes that the Kickstarter failed because he was told he wouldn’t need a demo first. He made one anyway, which was turned down by the publishers because the Kickstarter failed. Where this leaves Blackroom, and the current mystery FPS, is still up in the air.
