John Romero says he has secured a new publisher and brought ten former colleagues back to Romero Games, rebuilding the studio around a substantially smaller team. Speaking to VGC on October 30, the Doom co-creator described a fresh development plan rather than a straightforward restart of the previous project.
The studio had fallen from 110 people to five. Its current group of roughly 15 to 16 developers includes returning leads from its former departments, and Romero says the new game is designed around that scale.
Because Romero Games retained its intellectual property and production assets, the team can reuse work such as art and code. However, Romero said completing the original, much larger design with the remaining staff was impractical.
He also described a personal benefit: a smaller team lets him spend more time designing and building the game directly instead of managing departments.
The publisher’s identity remains undisclosed. Romero Games’ own website confirms that its new shooter is still in development following a change in scope. The studio has not supplied a title or release date in these updates.
John Romero at GDC 2023. Photo: Official GDC, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Scaled for display.
