The Romeros: Developing digital games

0:00Brenda Romero:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

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1:17Brenda Romero:I've spent more hours than I should probably admit running through the demon-filled corridors of Doom. It was the game that rewired my imagination as a teenager, the one that made me wonder who on earth dreamt all this up. So when I got the chance to meet John Romero and his wife and creative partner Brenda, it felt like stepping through a portal into my own past. To be given the chance to follow them as they create their latest game would be a front row seat to a new megawatt. Okay, okay, I know there's only going to be gamers that get that.

1:47Kurt Brookes:When you make a game on a computer, it's one of the most complex things a PC can do is run a game in the service of making an experience that is better than anything that exists right now. Movies, books, everything. It is like this experience that is the next gen thing. To me, to be like the film director of that kind of an experience is really fun. And it's on the edge. It's like we're on the edge of the latest technology that is available we are at the edge of design and being at the edge like that is really really fun like coming up with what's going to happen in three years for gamers because when you're making a game you have to see into the future you have to know in three years that this idea is good and that people will be interested in it i mean that's

2:36Brenda Romero:i think that's it at its core i'm kurt brooks and this is the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service, with game-making supremos John and Brenda Romero as they embark on their latest creation.

3:04Brenda Romero:You might think a story about one of the most influential families in modern gaming would be centred somewhere else, somewhere with glass offices and venture capital, somewhere that calls itself the centre of the digital universe, Silicon Valley, Seattle, maybe Tokyo. But we're not in any of those places. Instead, I'm on the edge of the Atlantic, on Ireland's west coast, in Galway.

3:34Brenda Romero:A city known for traditional music, fishing boats and weather that arrives without warning. Not the obvious home for a global game studio. And yet behind these medieval streets and seafront cafes, you'll find a surprising creative community. Artists, coders, designers, storytellers. And it was enough to attract one of the most successful partnerships in gaming, John and Brenda Romero.

3:57John Romero:We were at the time in Silicon Valley where it's a very dog-eat-dog culture. And the notion of wanting to make enough from one game to be able to make the next game, that's almost not enough. Why do you just want to be able to keep doing your thing? It's always what is your exit? Neither of us wanted to exit. We just wanted to make enough to make the next game. We could live anywhere in the world we want to live. So we made the decision to move to Ireland and move to Galway specifically because it was weird. It was weird and arty and like you say people might not think of it as a tech center but Galway itself is home to 65 tech companies and there are tons of programmers in Ireland so it just it seemed like a really good decision hello hi John it's Kurt how are you how you doing come on in thank you very much so yeah what's

4:53Kurt Brookes:what's this John well let's see on my shelves I have a ton of stuff I got a British version of the ultimate doom box because that was like the biggest marketing thing that happened back then um actually doom 2 when doom 2 came out uh in england the the company that was marketing it sent guts to all the journalists and when they opened up the bags it was horrible it was the biggest nuttiest marketing thing ever quake is up here uh it was the game that made it was made after doom dangerous dave which was the first thing that we did so that dangerous dave game is is actually bigger than Doom in India and Pakistan because it was installed on every computer in those countries.

5:39Kurt Brookes:And I got a lot of characters, a lot of Doom characters all over the place. You know, Arch Viles and Pinkies and Soldiers and all that stuff. Pac-Man, the huge inspiration for me. Got a bunch of all the Pac-Man characters up there. But yeah, I got lots of Doom stuff. Here's a painting that Adrian Carmack painted of a demon with a bunch of rabbits in his stomach. It's basically a gamer's dream in this room. Polybius was a game that was never released in arcades but was made. And so it's like an urban legend kind of game. So that's an actual working version of it on this mini arcade, just like a dig dig over here.

6:17Kurt Brookes:And Empire of Sin. That was our last game that we launched in 2020. It was a grand strategy game. So it was like a 1920s mob game, and you basically take control of a mobster and try and take over the whole city of Chicago in the 20s.

6:33Brenda Romero:It really is amazing what John and Brenda Romero have achieved over the years. And after a lifetime of shaping everything from early shooters to modern role-playing games, the Romeros are now deep in another project. It's early 2025, and I'm excited to see where they're taking things now.

6:56Brenda Romero:But game development lives and dies on timing and perception, and I soon learn that there are limits to what can be shared.

7:02John Romero:Actually, John, I would like you to rephrase that. Every single thing that you're listing right now, I already see the article, so I would like you not to talk about specific features. Do you understand why?

7:13Brenda Romero:Yeah, yeah.

7:14John Romero:I know it's not ideal, but you can say it had lots of different modes, but please stay away from the specific features.

7:19Brenda Romero:As Brenda explains to me, one stray detail in the wild can jeopardise months of work.

7:25John Romero:Games are ferociously competitive. No games are more competitive than first-person shooters. So people hold their secrets very close to the vest until you're too far ahead to catch. I guess, you know, that's just the way the industry works. but also John and I have had two games that were, the ideas for those games were taken. One of them was actually released, and another one was developed and got canceled. And, you know, we're positive those were, with the gun shooting in the background, we're positive that those were our games. But the other thing is, especially when you're early in development, you might decide to cut something, right?

8:15John Romero:And, you know, I would say there are a few people in this industry who know the danger of a hype train as well as John. People talked about Daikatana when it was in molecular form. And it went through a lot of different challenges during its development. And what came out was not the hype that people wanted. So, you know, it's just best to say nothing until you've got something to show and something to say.

8:40Brenda Romero:So in the interest of not giving anything away, we have to agree on a codename.

8:46John Romero:Think of a name. Come on, you're good at that.

8:49Brenda Romero:Is Heavy Trigger okay? You okay with that?

8:51John Romero:Heavy Trigger. Let's call it Heavy Trigger. Go ahead.

8:54Brenda Romero:So Heavy Trigger it is. And with that codename confirmed, I'm keen to glimpse what Romero Studios are building. It's a vast undertaking, more than 100 developers across writing, design, animation. But what is the new game? Well, at this stage, John can only really tell us so much.

9:13Kurt Brookes:It's a shooter, yeah. I mean, it's still, it's a shooter. We're using all of our weapons, all of our enemies. You're a character with a gun.

9:23Brenda Romero:But he does hint it will take things in a new and exciting direction.

9:27Kurt Brookes:I want to make a really good game. I don't want to be like, well, I figured he'd do that. You know, he's just riding his doom laurels or whatever, because I know how important it is that when you're going to put a game into the world, there has to be a reason for doing it. You don't just do it because you feel like it. It needs to belong and be new. It needs to be something that when people see it, they learn something new or they're intrigued by some of the things it does. so you know I want people to not like what has he done since Quake because I've made a lot of games in games that people have never even heard of that went on to do better than Quake and I just want to make sure that the thing people hear about is cool and it's positive and people like it

10:22Brenda Romero:It's the summer of 2025 in Ireland and things have gone very quiet I haven't been able to reach John or Brenda for weeks and I'm getting concerned I'm under pressure to tell the BBC when we can deliver a finished edition of In The Studio and we still need a lot more recording before that can happen It's the 3rd of July and I send Brenda a text asking for an update. Hi Brenda, any word from the publishers? Moments later, I'm scrolling through the trade press and see a story about funding being pulled by different publishers from a number of major games projects across the industry. And suddenly, I get that sinking feeling.

11:06Brenda Romero:Something might be wrong. I text Brenda again. Hi Brenda, I've just seen the news. I'm so sorry. She confirms it's bad news. So what do you do when your funding is taken away partway through a major development? I'm trying to get my head around what John and Brenda are facing. And now I've learnt something else. Brenda is battling cancer. Suddenly they're dealing with a professional and personal crisis at the same time, all while carrying responsibility for a big team. The next time I speak to Brenda, she tells me she'd sensed something was afoot in the industry.

11:49John Romero:There'd been rumblings that our publisher was going to be doing big layoffs. However, I didn't think something was going to happen. But I mean, your job as a CEO is to be prepared in case it does, even if you think it's a lower percent chance. There's a team you only hear from at the beginning or the ending of the game. And that's the person who's getting all the contracts buttoned up. and that's the person you're going to hear from if everything's going awry. So it was six o 'clock, I think, and I saw an email come through from that guy. And I knew before I even looked at it, you know, I knew because he's not emailing me to say, hey, hope you're doing well.

12:30John Romero:And so I looked, you know, and there was, could you join us in a phone call? We went into the meeting and John thanked them for all of their faith in the game, everything that they had done up to that point in time to get the project from idea to where it currently was. In fairness, we have all the rights to everything. And they even provided us with a letter slash statement that said, like, this is a budget decision. This is a good idea.

13:04Brenda Romero:So the first task John and Brenda had was to tell their staff. One of the senior team who survived the impending call was Keith O 'Connor. It was absolutely gooding. It really was. It was such a horrible day. It was really difficult. I mean, there were tears. We were fully expecting before this that there would be sadness, there'd also be anger and there'd be blame and all of the normal things that people go through, that didn't really come through. It was just sort of universal love coming from the team, which made it actually harder. And at that point, you were dealing with a lot of staff, I take it, Keith.

13:43Brenda Romero:I think we were just about reaching our full team size. I think we only had a handful of roles left to fill. In fact, Romero Studios were employing 110 creators at the point their funding was pulled. The top priority was to make sure the team was OK, trying to match up other companies that were looking for people with our people. And game development is such a collaborative effort that when leadership is forced to lay people off and people lose their jobs, there's definitely a feeling of responsibility there. And you've been day in, day out, friends with these people and working with everybody and you want them to succeed.

14:27Brenda Romero:I'm Kurt Brooks and you're listening to The Documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service

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17:17Brenda Romero:So after finding many of their teamwork, what next for the Romeros and the heavy trigger game they've spent so many years developing? While they're in the middle of this hiatus in early autumn 2025, I learned that Brenda is now undergoing intensive treatment to tackle her cancer. But she's still working, and now travelling with John on a trip across Europe.