John Romero’s new shooter is something ‘no-one has ever seen before’

One of the parents of the shooter has claimed his next game will advance the genre once again.

John Romero is renowned for co-creating Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein, among others, while working at Id Software during the 1990s.

After time at studios including Ion Storm, Midway and Slipgate Ironworks throughout the 2000s, Romero opened a new outlet, Romero Games, with his partner Brenda Romero in 2014, and announced that he had begun work on a new shooter.

Earlier this month, John released a reworking of the E1M8 boss level from Doom, which he later revealed was built as a design ‘warmup’ before developing his new title.

However, speaking to Develop at Zurich’s Ludicious games festival, he remained coy on further details about the forthcoming game, saying that its originality would set it apart from current shooters.

“I don’t want to talk about it because it’s a really cool idea, it’s a unique idea,” he said. “I’ve never seen a game like it.

“I’m really excited to start making it because it’s just a great idea. Instead of just pumping out game after game after game, it’s like waiting to come up with something that’s really unique, that no-one’s seen before, and enables you to make something that you hope will be really amazing. So, we’ll see. It’s got a pretty cool fiction around it. It’s got an interesting story.”

Brenda added: “I really like what he’s doing. There’s maybe 10 people that know what it is. It’s exciting. There’s some really cool stuff he will announce.”

Asked whether the idea had been gestating for a long time, John revealed that he had originally come up with a concept for a different shooter, which might still see the light of day.

“I actually had an idea for a shooter before this one, and it’s still a really great idea, and it might be something that I do after this one,” he detailed.

“This is a totally different idea to the previous one, and a lot of it has to do with the way that I wanted to design a new shooter. I’m not going to talk about the previous one either, because I want to do that one.”

Brenda revealed: “We have some concept art from the previous one. We were looking at it recently and it’s as if one idea showed up and then another– nothing, there’s nothing I can say.”

“It’s unique,” continued John. “That’s the cool thing. It’s not like you would ever look at it and compare it to any other shooter that’s out there.”

Speaking about the new Doom level, John and Brenda expressed their desire to launch the new shooter in a similar fashion – with as little being revealed before release as possible.

“The thing I liked about the new Doom level is that nobody knew it was coming – ‘Here you go’,” she recalled. “How about just nobody knows, and there’s no expectations and no nothing?”

John agreed: “I’d rather just go: ‘There’s this new thing.’”

“You wouldn’t make a game if you didn’t believe it was a great idea,” Brenda concluded. “Hopefully nobody makes a game if they don’t believe that. You just hope that you can carry that vision in the execution.”

We spoke to Romero back in 2014 about his plans to reinvent the first-person shooter. Read the full interview here.