We’re still determining the extent of the effect the recent restructuring at Microsoft is having. Yesterday, the headlines were filled with less-than-stellar reports from Microsoft. We’ve seen a slew of layoffs at various studios, as well as the outright cancellation of games. Today, we’re learning that Romero Games was also affected by this move, despite being a private company.
John Romero, renowned for co-creating Doom, took to social media today. With his studio, Romero Games, it was announced that they had to cancel their new AAA FPS game that they had been working on. Although little to nothing was known about the project, it appeared that development of the title was progressing smoothly. Romero noted that the team hit every milestone on time and consistently received praise for their work. Despite meeting all the internal requirements, the cancellation was due to the publisher.
This title and studio were seemingly relying on funding from the publisher to bring the project to fruition. That publisher was Bethesda, and because Microsoft owns Bethesda, it was pushed to dial back. It appears that several projects published under Microsoft may have been pulled back. However, with this move, it seems that the entire studio has collapsed.
A report from IGN, which spoke with an employee at Romero Games, noted that the decision to pull back funding from the publisher had resulted in the entire studio being laid off. We may learn about other projects and studios that are not directly under the Microsoft banner but were affected by the latest restructuring plans at Microsoft in the coming days.
As for the official Microsoft studios that were recently closed down, it boils down to just one team. We’ve learned that The Initiative, which was developing the Perfect Dark reboot, has been closed down, with the video game project being outright cancelled.
