Doom Creator John Romero’s Cancelled Shooter Revived — Completely Overhauled with Inspiration from Elden Ring

John Romero’s mysterious cancelled shooter is back from the dead. The legendary game developer behind Doom has confirmed that the once-doomed project has survived its near-cancellation, emerging with a bold new design and a fresh burst of creative energy.

This turnaround comes after a brutal wave of layoffs at Microsoft earlier this year. With funding suddenly yanked by its publisher, Romero Games found itself forced to shelve this unannounced shooter. While Romero never pinned the decision directly on Microsoft, the timing and context made it clear to observers who was behind the move.

How the Game Survived, and What’s Changing

During his appearance at Salón del Videojuego de Madrid, Romero broke the silence on the fate of the project. “The game survived cancellation,” he announced to a roomful of applause. Just months ago, the team was scrambling for a lifeline — now, Romero reveals the project has found a new publisher or a deal that lets the development continue.

But this isn’t just a simple reboot. Romero explains, “It’s been basically completely redesigned.” The new title has little in common with what came before, aside from a handful of mechanical and creative elements the team decided to carry over. “We’re not starting at ground zero,” he emphasised. The developers are pulling across what’s salvageable, yet pushing forward in a totally new creative direction.

There’s a big shift in scope, too. The shooter is now a “much smaller game” than Romero’s original vision, but that’s very much by design. “It is more fun for the team,” he told the crowd, explaining how the smaller scale puts the creative leads, directors from multiple departments, on the front lines of both code and design. “We get to actually do that…the thing we are really good at, ourselves. And, that’s why small teams are great.”

What Fans Can Expect: A First-Person Shooter with a Twist

Romero is still holding back the juiciest gameplay specifics. But he’s adamant: this isn’t just another rehash for shooter fans. When pressed for details, Romero flat out said, “I’ve never played a game like it before.”

The shooter label still fits, but Romero is promising a unique blend of mechanics and exploration. He draws a direct line to the sensation of playing Elden Ring for the first time: “The things that you do in it will be new to people, the way that going through Elden Ring was a really new experience,” he explained. The emphasis is on mystery, discovery and the unpredictable; a world that’s genuinely enthralling to explore. “It was a very crazy place, and a different world, and it was really cool to explore it and be like ‘what is that?’ That’s the idea behind what we are doing in this game.”

Romero made it clear that while the blueprint is entirely different, elements from the game’s unfinished past are baked in. The DNA of the studio’s earlier efforts hasn’t vanished, just adapted into something bolder and less constrained by publisher pressure.

For Romero and his team, this is a rare chance to build an indie project on their own creative terms. The development is now being spearheaded by a group of directors actually getting hands-on with the work, rather than overseeing from a distance.

Details on a title, gameplay footage, or a firm release date are still under wraps. But the spirit of experimentation is clearly alive, not something you might expect after such a close brush with oblivion.

Of course, Romero knows how to surprise the industry. The co-founder of id Software and a titan behind genre-shaping classics like Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein, he’s spent decades redefining what a first-person shooter can be.

His latest rescue act proves he’s still betting on big creative risks; the kind that turned his games into legends and earned him a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award at GDC 2023.