John Romero, the legendary sport 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, corresponding to his seminal work on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, and the bottom of lows, most just lately when his present studio Romero Games had its funding pulled by Microsoft amid the ongoing cuts across the Xbox business that started final 12 months.
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 in regards to the path of his newest challenge regardless of 2025’s devastating setback. The truth is, virtually a 12 months on from the loss in funding and the ensuing discount of his studio from 110 members of workers down to simply 5, Romero claimed that he was “doing higher than [he’d] carried out 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 to determine the place to go from right here.”
Whereas Romero remained tight-lipped on the specifics, he was joyful to substantiate that Romero Video games’ newest challenge has secured a brand new publishing accomplice and that improvement is continuing effectively regardless of the substantial discount in sources on the studio.
“I can not speak in regards to the writer, the discharge date, you recognize, 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 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 challenge that he’d “by no means performed a sport prefer it,” and claimed that though it’s a shooter, “the issues that you simply do in it will likely be new to folks [in the same] approach that going via 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 actually implied that it could characteristic much more freedom than your common objective-based first-person shooter.
“Exploration is known as a large deal for me after I play a sport,” stated Romero. “I do not wish to be advised easy methods to play [it], you recognize? 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 appears to be like actually attention-grabbing and identical to flip round and go that approach, you recognize? Like, do no matter you need.”
“It’s like if you play Blue Prince,” continued Romero. “After a when you determine 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 turn out to be 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 little thing you are doing,” defined Romero. “You completely neglect that you simply had been in your method 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 folks to really feel like they’re simply going to have an journey and simply have enjoyable.”
In fact, 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 actually a freeform first-person shooter from an trade legend who helped start the style sounds very attractive. Right here’s hoping that Romero and his workforce can ship on that promise.
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN primarily based in Sydney, Australia. He has 25 years of expertise masking video video games, having served as Deputy Editor on Official PlayStation 2 Journal Australia and as Editor of Official Xbox 360 Journal Australia, earlier than becoming a member of IGN in 2009. Yow will discover him on Bluesky @tristanogilvie.bsky.social