John Romero, the legendary recreation designer who co-founded id Software program has had a profession spanning 5 a long time. Throughout that point he’s loved the very best of highs, reminiscent of his seminal work on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, and the bottom of lows, most lately when his present studio Romero Video games had its funding pulled by Microsoft amid the continuing cuts throughout the Xbox enterprise that started final yr.
Talking with IGN throughout Gamescom Asia x Thailand Recreation 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 course of his newest mission regardless of 2025’s devastating setback. In actual fact, nearly a yr 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] finished in a long time.”
“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 at all times transfer ahead. So it is like, that occurred. Now we’ve got to determine the place to go from right here.”
Whereas Romero remained tight-lipped on the specifics, he was completely satisfied to substantiate that Romero Video games’ newest mission has secured a brand new publishing associate and that growth is continuing effectively regardless of the substantial discount in assets on the studio.
“I can not discuss 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 affirm was that “it’s a shooter, it makes use of Unreal Engine 5.8, and we’re bringing loads of stuff from the [cancelled] recreation over.”
In an interview with Salón del Videojuego de Madrid final December, Romero stated of his latest mission that he’d “by no means performed a recreation prefer it,” and claimed that though it’s a shooter, “the issues that you simply do in will probably be new to individuals [in the same] method that going via Elden Ring was a extremely new expertise.” Chatting with IGN this week, he stopped in need of describing the brand new recreation as being an open-world, however definitely implied that it will characteristic much more freedom than your common objective-based first-person shooter.
“Exploration can be a massive deal for me once I play a recreation,” stated Romero. “I do not prefer to be instructed easy methods to play [it], you already know? The video games I like essentially the most are those that simply let me go, ‘Okay, what is that this? This place is loopy or this place seems actually attention-grabbing and identical to flip round and go that method, you already know? Like, do no matter you need.”
“It’s like while 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 simple to change into sidetracked alongside the way in which to a sure location or goal. By the sounds of it, Romero’s subsequent recreation ought to characteristic loads of enjoyable distractions amid all of the gun-based destruction.
“You need 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 overlook that you simply have been in your strategy to the tower, proper?”
“And so, that is the type 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 individuals 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 info we are able to 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 trade legend who helped beginning the style sounds very engaging. Right here’s hoping that Romero and his crew can ship on that promise.