Earlier this year, Doom and Quake co-creator John Romero and his studio, Romero Games, made a shocking announcement online that the publisher (which it strongly suggested was Microsoft) had divested from its new project, a first-person shooter from the industry legend.

In the days since, speculation has circulated online about the studio's staffing situation, with rumors that the Galway-based developer has been forced to close due to a lack of funds.

Less than a week later, the studio issued a statement dispelling the false rumors, indicating that the studio was not shutting down, and providing potentially good news: it had received "contacts from multiple publishers interested in helping it complete the development of the game" and was evaluating cooperation opportunities for these rescue projects.

Since then, Romero and the studio have understandably kept a low profile on the progress of these negotiations.However, in a recent interview with GameReactor, Romero revealed the latest progress: The team is still "planning" the future of this "large-scale" project, but many companies have "showed interest and continue to stay in contact."

Romero hinted that the prospects are optimistic. They hold the game IP, code and all assets, and the project has received US$50 million in investment.If a publisher takes over, it will directly enjoy these existing results.Even if no one takes over in the worst-case scenario, they still have $50 million worth of assets available to turn to other developments—possibly on a much smaller scale than originally planned.

When asked about the degree of completion before the project was cancelled, Romero revealed to GameReactor that the development progress was "about halfway through", which means that strong partners are needed to step in to complete the remaining development.