R.I.P & Tear
N.B : This article was written before the 7th of July, but an updated paragraph and statement from Romero Games has been added to the end of it. In short, they're still open, if not flush with cash.
It’s no secret that Microsoft’s games division is poorly managed. Early success with hands-off approaches and acquiring existing studios instead of spinning up new ones has snowballed into an unsustainable and unmanageable mess of studios with a $69 billion expense to justify to investors. So what do Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, Matt Booty and all of the other higher ups with more money than sense do? They close entire studios, lay off literally thousands of people and cut off the lifelines for outside studios they had been working with. The one that’s hit hardest for me has been Romero Games.
Founded by Brenda and John Romero in 2015, Romero Games is, sorry, was a game development studio based in Galway, Ireland. During its time the studio developed Empire of Sin (published by Paradox Interactive) among smaller games and were working on and actively hiring for several titles, including a first-person shooter. The company also served as a publisher for Romero’s Doom mod packs Sigil and Sigil II.
I wrote before about visiting Ireland for the FÍS Games Summit, which Romero Games was no small part of. I met at least five people proudly clad in team jackets and the company was a major sponsor for the show. Senior member Tom Hall gave the last talk of the day where he whipped out the iconic Doom chainsaw at the end to much delight. I interviewed Romero’s daughter and community manager Maezza, who was patient and gracious with her time. Things felt positive at FÍS, a rare bit of optimism in 2025 bolstered by Romero Games becoming the backbone of local game development.
And now it’s all gone.
On the 2nd of July, Microsoft went ahead with its cost-cutting measures and the next day Brenda Romero put out a statement. “Our publisher,” it read, naming no names, “has cancelled funding for our game”. Rare in these statements is her assertion that “this absolutely isn’t a reflection of our team’s work, performance or the quality of the project itself”. If the past few years of layoffs have told us anything, it’s that the game industry is far from a meritocracy. Wrapping up, Romero mentions how much of the team has “worked together for more than a decade, some for over 20 years” and encourages anyone with opportunities to reach out to them or the team.
In the hours that followed several members of the team took to social media to announce their layoffs from the studio as reported on by IGN, VGC, and others. It is estimated that close to 100 jobs were lost as a result of Microsoft’s cuts, the whole studio shutting down if posts from Leslie Stowe and Eric Wong are to be believed. Although most affected have not explicitly mentioned Xbox or Microsoft as the publisher responsible, former Hard Surface Artist Christoph Redl did name them in their post.
It’s tempting to lionise the memory of Romero Games as I eulogise them here, but I want to at least acknowledge how enthusiastic every employee I encountered was about working there. I imagine that the pretty generous benefits like four weeks of time off per year and a strong dedication to diversity helped with that. Take the corporate bumf with a pinch of salt of course, but it’s undeniable that everyone was proud to work there from all levels of game development.
Back in my FÍS travelogue, I promised to write up the things I’d cut for pacing like Tom Hall’s talk and my interview with Maezza Romero. I’ve…been pretty busy and I’ll admit that writing up several hour-long presentations to then pick quotes from to write around, maybe reaching out to those I’d spoken to for further clarification, was all a bit daunting alongside deadlines and moving. However, I feel a responsibility to at least write these up now, as artifacts from a point in time already passed. Probably not going to be able to get the slides from Tom Hall, but hey I’ll try.
For now, as I type this article using Windows 11, I can’t help but feel disgusted with Microsoft in all new ways and more complicit than I’d like to be. If the company’s involvement with the genocide in Gaza, their commitment to wasteful and intrusive AI or their paltry showing as far as games up to this year hasn’t convinced you to divest yourself of at least their Xbox arm, maybe this will.
UPDATE : Hours before this article was set to publish, Romero Games put out another statement.
As suspected, confidentiality agreements have meant that the studio is unable to name Microsoft as the publisher who has cut funding, but the studio is not closed, even if they need to rethink their staffing. Additionally, it seems that their original publisher did not retain the rights to the game as Romero Games is looking to "bring the game across the finish line" with a new partner. I have decided to leave the rest of my article as I wrote it last week (that's what I get for scheduling these things so far in advance) as the studio's future is still uncertain.
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