While there has been plenty of doom and gloom surrounding the recent round of lay-offs, project cancellations and studio closures at Microsoft, with Romero Games being one of the studios affected by the company’s belt tightening, the studio has released a new statement denying claims that it will be shutting down. As caught by VGC, in its statement, Romero Games wrote about how, while the funding for its next game was pulled and the game itself got cancelled, the studio itself is fine for now.
“We want to address recent reports regarding the status of Romero Games,” said the studio. “These reports have contained inaccuracies, and we feel it’s important to set the record straight.”
“The funding for our project was pulled, and our game was canceled. Due to confidentiality agreements, we cannot disclose the publisher’s identity, though some may infer it from public information. As a result, we now have to reassess the entire staffing of our studio.”
Continuing its statement, Romero Games confirmed that it “is not closed, and we are doing everything in our power to ensure that it does not come to that.” The studio continued: “Any suggestion otherwise is factually incorrect. Indeed, we were in the studio today to discuss next steps with the team.”
“We’ve been contacted by several publishers interested in helping us bring the game across the finish line, and we’re currently evaluating those opportunities. We appreciate the outpouring of support and will share further updates as we are able.”
Romero Games had confirmed that its in-development project was cancelled earlier this month through a post on LinkedIn. In the post, co-founder of the studio Brenda Romero wrote about the game turning out to be in good shape until the publisher – which hasn’t yet been disclosed – ultimately decided to cancel the title.
“We have some difficult news to share,” posted Romero. “Last night, we learned that our publisher has canceled funding for our game along with several other unannounced projects at other studios. This was a strategic decision made at a high level within the publisher, well above our visibility or control. We deeply wish there had been something, anything, we could have done to prevent this outcome.”
“This absolutely isn’t a reflection of our team’s work, performance, or the quality of the project itself. We hit every milestone on time, every time, consistently received high praise, and easily passed all our internal gates. We are incredibly proud of the work being done, and of the talented team behind it. The best we’ve worked with.”
In light of this, Romero had posted about the studio and its leadership doing everything it can to ensure that the studio isn’t hit hard enough by this project cancellation in order to avoid potential lay-offs. However, she did ask peers in the industry to keep eyes and ears open in case opportunities for some of the developers from Romero Games pop up.
The last major release by Romero Games was tactical strategy title Empire of Sin back in 2020.
