[VGC] Romero Games now ‘completely closed’ following Microsoft cuts, it’s claimed

Topher

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The studio's over 100 staff have lost their jobs, according to an employee


Romero Games, the Ireland-based studio founded by celebrated designers John and Brenda Romero, has now completely closed following this week's Microsoft cuts, it's claimed.


On Wednesday, the studio confirmed it had lost funding for its unannounced shooter project, after an unnamed publisher, later named as Microsoft, pulled a publishing agreement.

It later emerged that employees had lost their jobs after they posted messages on LinkedIn. Now, one employee has claimed the studio has been closed entirely, with all of its over 100 staff members losing their jobs.

Speaking to The Journal, the anonymous Romero Games staff member described the situation as "a big shock".

"Everyone is out of a job," they said. "We had meetings with the publisher the day before this happened, there was no mention of it… It seemed so far away for us. The title was pretty well developed at the time."

Romero Games was working on a first-person shooter made in Unreal Engine 5. According to the anonymous employee, there is a chance another publisher could swoop in and save the project – and Romero Games – but as of now, its operations have ended.

"We're trying to find other ways of funding the project," the employee said. "But for now, it's completely closed, and the studio is closed."

Romero Games is the latest casualty in a week that has seen mass job losses at Microsoft and high-profile cancellations across Xbox.

Microsoft announced the sweeping layoffs on Wednesday, which could amount to over 9000 staff losing their jobs. The publisher's troubled reboot of Perfect Dark has been cancelled, and The Initiative has been closed.

Rare's Everwild has also been cancelled, and several senior developers have left the historic studio.

ZeniMax Online Studios boss Matt Firor has also announced that he is leaving the studio amid the cancellation of Project Blackbird, a long-in-development project at the studio.



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But 343 get to stick around and ruin halo some more. How about putting a competent developer with your legacy franchise instead of continuing to let 343 shit on it repeatedly.
 
Tis the rapture, good folks. So many storefronts closing and I keep just smiling. Less and less microtransactions for the peasants to be pushed into through their games and grinds.

Excellent news.
 
Meh. John Romero hasn't worked on anything of significance for over two decades.
My thoughts. I will always appreciate his contributions to Doom and Quake, but the industry has LONG passed him by and he still has the failure of Daikatana hanging over him.

However, I have actually heard that Daikatana is remotely decent since modders have apparently fixed the game.
 
It's a shame honestly, it would've been interesting to see what they were working on.

I still can't believe how much of a shit show this whole thing has been. 🤦‍♂️
 
Microsoft is where games, studios and careers go to die.
Yep, I allowed myself to be optimistic when Bethesda was acquired. I was always cautious in that I felt even then that it was more likely that Microsoft would screwn up Bethesda than Bethesda would boost Xbox.

Turns out I was right. Indiana Jones is the only great game they have to show from that acquisition. Starfield very underwhelmed. Redfall was a disaster. Doom Dark Ages was OK, but not as good as 2016 or Eternal.
 
Imagine hiring an all time legend and videogame icon like John fucking Romero, have him set up a huge studio with 100+ people and just shut the whole thing down before anyone even knows what they're working on.

Absolute insanity.

How can any studio ever do business with Xbox, knowing their pedigree? Who the fuck would want to give Microsoft the keys to their studio at this point?
 
Imagine hiring an all time legend and videogame icon like John fucking Romero, have him set up a huge studio with 100+ people and just shut the whole thing down before anyone even knows what they're working on.

Absolute insanity.

How can any studio ever do business with Xbox, knowing their pedigree? Who the fuck would want to give Microsoft the keys to their studio at this point?
This is even exactly what i think of this. How a dev can work with MS when they do this type of thing?
 
It's a shame honestly, it would've been interesting to see what they were working on.

I still can't believe how much of a shit show this whole thing has been. 🤦‍♂️
Yeah, I mean NeoGaf was so hyped for his next game and had countless threads with how much Neo was looking forward to his next game on Xbox *rolleyes*
When I bet most didn't even know he was working on a new game..
 
Yeah, I mean NeoGaf was so hyped for his next game and had countless threads with how much Neo was looking forward to his next game on Xbox *rolleyes*
When I bet most didn't even know he was working on a new game..
so? we werent aware of an unannounced game. good gotcha!
what are you guys even trying to defend at this point? get help asap
 
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Imagine hiring an all time legend and videogame icon like John fucking Romero, have him set up a huge studio with 100+ people and just shut the whole thing down before anyone even knows what they're working on.

Absolute insanity.

How can any studio ever do business with Xbox, knowing their pedigree? Who the fuck would want to give Microsoft the keys to their studio at this point?
I'm sure other publishers were just lining up to throw tens of millions at a guy whose last major game was two decades ago and flopped, and who's been doing indie games and Doom level packs since. He seems like a nice guy but nobody else would consider trusting him with such a large team.
 
Yeah, I mean NeoGaf was so hyped for his next game and had countless threads with how much Neo was looking forward to his next game on Xbox *rolleyes*
When I bet most didn't even know he was working on a new game..
It was talked about for awhile so I was genuinely curious. I don't care if anyone else was or wasn't, lol. I'm not broken up by it either, but it would've been neat to see anything that isn't just more DOOM 1/2 maps and/or mods, lol.
 
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If they can treat a legendary icon like Romero, in this way, no one's off the table, not even Kojima and his cloud game, OD.

rescue kojima's game from these morons asap

They (Kojima Productions) own the IP, unlike MS's previous deals like Scalebound, where they own everything, including the assets.
 
It's wild how many years of people's lives have been wasted working on games which never got released. Like digging a hole and filling it back in, over and over again. How depressing.
 
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