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Talking about all things FPS with John Romero at Gamelab Tenerife

As the father of Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Quake among others, it's always great to catch up with John Romero and to talk about the genre in which he's currently developing a completely new game at Romero Games, other than looking back at the 1920s' strategy title Empire of Sin.

Audio transcription

"We're at Gamelab in Tenerife with this summer-like background and it's really nice to meet you again John and many things have changed both in the world and in video games since last time we spoke which was in 2019 if I'm correct."

"So let's focus on shooters.
How do you feel the genre has changed and you know now we have small really fast indie games and then up to the you know traditional realistic war games so how do you feel about the genre itself?
I really like that the genre is so varied in the kind of shooters that we can play today."

"The indie games are turning out really great you know I've been playing Turbo Overkill, Ultra Kill, Dusk you know lots of really great stuff out there from indies and then like huge triple-A games you know Apex Legends and the Ghost Recons, Wildlands and Breakpoint and yeah there's a lot of you know just really big games out there, small indie games and they just go into all different directions."

"There's military sims, there's tactical shooters, there's hero shooters like Overwatch, there's Battle Royale like crazy, Player Unknown, Battlegrounds.
I met Brendan Green here at the show just it's all over the place like everything you know so it's been it's I love that there's so much choice in what kind of shooter you want to play today."

"The way games were designed with sort of these sort of easter eggs that we no longer see with modern games so with this church that we just mentioned about you know for shooters can we expect do you think can we expect to be back to those little nods and little you know like very classic style secrets, secret rooms etc."

"Yeah that's you know that's like the 90s aesthetic you know and that's something that a lot of these like indie games will do as well.
They'll add secrets and easter eggs and stuff like we used to do back in the old days.
It's really fun players love exploring and they love finding things you know."

"Other than Doom that you as you said you play Doom regularly and you beat pretty much everyone's ass?
Yeah a lot of people yeah yeah.
Other than that one which other shooter are you enjoying or could be you know trying something different?
Jeez I've been playing a lot of Borderlands 3 I really like Borderlands 3 it's funny and has a lot of cool stuff in it."

"That's probably the one I'm spending most of my time on right now is playing that game.
That's interesting because it's also an RPG and it has some narrative to it and the points going out of the hats and yeah lots of cool stuff.
So when we met it was 2019 and you guys were releasing Empire of Sin which is a game that I personally loved and then it got expansions and mod support which you know a lot about mods and it also got on Game Pass so how do you feel about the project looking back at it and these additions that it got how did it you know cater to the community?
Well it was a very different game you know that was one of the things about Empire of Sin that made it stand out is like it's a 1920s gangster game that's a strategy game and it's turn-based like XCOM 2 you know so people really liked it you know when it came out and we put out updates as soon as fast as we could during the entire time we just kept on updating it and then we delivered a DLC basically a year ago the first DLC that had a lot of really cool content in it and bug fixes and everything but yeah I think you know people really liked working on the game and it was very different for the genre for the grand strategy genre and it was not like other games you know that's one of the things that we like to do is make something that's not just like a copy of someone else's stuff it stands inside of a genre that has developed for years now and it stands out as just like a very different kind of title you know and but it's cool it's hardcore great combat you know lots of dialogue lots of VO it's you know sounds great lots of people being aggressive towards each other yeah it pushes you to do that yeah all right so how's life at Romero Games now of course you had to hire some talent for that game and now you said that you're expanding that you're moving to a new space how's Brenda with her also with her ideas and her direction and how's everything going great yeah we're we're just developing the game or we're growing the team we're like moving from one big office to a bigger office and you know we were working with a really great dev partner that understands games extremely well so so there's a lot of you know there's a lot of really good work between us and the publisher we've just had a really good time working together so it's you know it's been going really well I've been able to like hire a COO to take over a lot of the work that I've been doing so I can be just focused on game direction and and so we're finally getting you know most of our seniors in to the team so we can start hiring you know mid-level and junior talent so we can you know start making this this game bigger and this is still based in Ireland right yeah yeah the game is based in Ireland we're in Galway which is yeah we're in the west coast of Ireland a lot of people most of the team is is from Galway or is in Ireland but we do have people that are that are remote you know from the UK and and all that so in about a month your autobiography is going to be released so what can you share about that that book and so fans and viewers you know look forward to its release in January if I'm correct it's actually been pushed to July all right yeah that's news to me thank you that's new news but yeah it's been pushed it's been pushed back and it's you know it is a different different than Masters of Doom because Masters of Doom was written by you know some independent author and he interviewed a lot of different people for it and this is it's very different than a book that's just like an autobiography where you're writing about your own life and and things that happened and your ideas and like it's totally different you know but it's about from when I was born you know like you know Masters of Doom starts when I was 12 and a lot of stuff happened before I was 12. 12 was you know 11 is when I first got on a computer but before that there's like how how how did I grow up you know and where did I grow up so that's all in there and it goes from you know all the way to today Masters of Doom goes to 2005 at the latest so it's got like a lot more information in it what have I been doing since Daikatana you know like what have I been doing past that point all the way to making a shooter right now looking forward to it in July in July looking forward to to reading it so thank you so much for your time once again John and so nice to see you yeah thank you same"

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