John Romero, the legendary sport designer who co-founded id Software program has had a profession spanning 5 many years. Throughout that point he’s loved the very best of highs, corresponding to his seminal work on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, and the bottom of lows, most not too long ago when his present studio Romero Video games had its funding pulled by Microsoft amid the continued cuts throughout the Xbox enterprise that started final 12 months.
Talking with IGN throughout Gamescom Asia x Thailand Sport Present 2026 this week, the place he delivered a gap keynote deal with titled, ‘Why We Nonetheless Make Video games,’ Romero appeared upbeat concerning the path of his newest venture regardless of 2025’s devastating setback. In actual fact, virtually a 12 months on from the loss in funding and the ensuing discount of his studio from 110 members of employees down to only 5, Romero claimed that he was “doing higher than [he’d] executed in many years.”
“It actually sucked,” stated Romero of the brutal blindsiding by Microsoft in 2025. “[But] I haven’t got bitterness as a result of that is not who I’m, actually. I all the time transfer ahead. So it is like, that occurred. Now we now have to determine the place to go from right here.”
Whereas Romero remained tight-lipped on the specifics, he was completely happy to verify that Romero Video games’ newest venture has secured a brand new publishing accomplice and that growth is continuing properly regardless of the substantial discount in sources on the studio.
“I can not speak concerning the writer, the discharge date, you already know, something that we’re doing, what it’s, it is as much as them,” stated Romero. The one particulars he might verify was that “it’s a shooter, it makes use of Unreal Engine 5.8, and we’re bringing a number of stuff from the [cancelled] sport over.”
In an interview with Salón del Videojuego de Madrid final December, Romero stated of his latest venture that he’d “by no means performed a sport prefer it,” and claimed that though it’s a shooter, “the issues that you just do in it will likely be new to folks [in the same] manner that going by Elden Ring was a very new expertise.” Talking to IGN this week, he stopped wanting describing the brand new sport as being an open-world, however definitely implied that it might characteristic much more freedom than your common objective-based first-person shooter.
“Exploration is mostly a massive deal for me after I play a sport,” stated Romero. “I do not prefer to be instructed tips on how to play [it], you already know? The video games I like probably the most are those that simply let me go, ‘Okay, what is that this? This place is loopy or this place seems to be actually fascinating and identical to flip round and go that manner, you already know? Like, do no matter you need.”
“It’s like whenever you play Blue Prince,” continued Romero. “After a whilst you resolve to show round from that first room, and also you’re like, ‘Oh my god! There’s an exterior too?’”
Romero additionally in contrast his shooter to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, when it comes to the way it’s very straightforward to develop into sidetracked alongside the best way to a sure location or goal. By the sounds of it, Romero’s subsequent sport ought to characteristic loads of enjoyable distractions amid all of the gun-based destruction.
“You wish to go to that tower over there, however you are going to run into all types of stuff in between right here and there and which may change every part you are doing,” defined Romero. “You completely neglect that you just had been in your technique to the tower, proper?”
“And so, that is the form of gameplay that I like, and that’s what [we’re] injecting into [the new game],” continued Romero. “The sensation that I need is for folks to really feel like they’re simply going to have an journey and simply have enjoyable.”
After all, Romero was talking in summary phrases, and with valuable little concrete data we will solely speculate as to what precisely his studio’s yet-to-be-named shooter can be like. However definitely a freeform first-person shooter from an business legend who helped beginning the style sounds very attractive. Right here’s hoping that Romero and his group can ship on that promise.