Canceled Xbox Shooter Could Return Despite Microsoft Blow

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Canceled Xbox Shooter Could Return Despite Microsoft Blow

Romero has his say

As far as individual game developers go, you'd be hard pressed to find one who is quite as universally accomplished and celebrated as John Romero, the co-founder of iD Software and co-creator of DOOM, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D.

With a resume like that, you'd think it would be fairly safe to say that the big companies in the gaming industry would give him just about whatever he wants resource-wise to put into his next game.

It turns out you would be wrong to think that, as it was confirmed by Romero himself over the summer that Xbox had pulled funding for an unannounced FPS being worked on by Romero Games, causing a temporary cessation of development and seemingly putting pay to any potential plans for release in the future.

It turns out there may be light at the end of the tunnel for the company, though, after Romero confirmed in a new interview that there are still some options on the table.

Rosdiana Ciaravolo/Getty Images
Rosdiana Ciaravolo/Getty Images

Publishers Are Interested in Working With Romero on the FPS

In a recent interview with Game Reactor as part of San Diego Comic Con Malaga, Romero confirmed that the studio is talking to several publishers who are interested in working with Romero Games to pick up exactly where Xbox left off.

"Well, we're still figuring out what we're going to do with our big game. We own the IP, we own the code, we own everything about the game, right? So we have a lot of companies that are interested and still working with us on it, because when you develop a game for years and you put in, say, $50 million into a game, if you move and start working with somebody else, they get $50 million for free," Romero confirmed.

"So lots of people want to continue working on something, you know, and even if that doesn't happen, you have $50 million worth of assets that you can use to make another thing. So no matter what, you are shortcutting the end of your game, right? To be able to get your game done faster, you already have a lot there already."

That will inevitably come as both very good news to fans of Romero's work, as well as the team at Romero Games who have lost their jobs in the intervening period thanks to the financial rug pull.

Here's hoping they manage to get it off the ground once again, so we can see what they've been cooking up.

Featured Image Credit: Stuart Wilson/BAFTA/Getty Images for BAFTA