A candid sit down with John Romero in 2005
By Tuin
Oct 11, 2025
John Romero touches everything from the birth of Quake’s mood and movement to Daikatana’s big swings and hard lessons. The conversation begins with a quick shout to GameSpot Live, then settles into the timeline. Doom. Doom II. Final Doom. A team hungry to go fully three dimensional and faster than anything on a monitor. That is where Quake starts.
From D and D legend to 3D reality
Romero explains that the earliest Quake concept was not the military flavored rocket play we know. It began as a visceral third dimension brawler where your main tool was a growing, empowering war hammer. The name Quake was lifted from a tabletop character the team loved. The hammer would gain abilities as you progressed. The world would reward gruesome ritual and dark fantasy choices. Think sword and sorcery in a space where speed still ruled.
Production drifted. By late nineteen ninety five, the team made a hard pivot in a design summit. The goal was to finish a shipping game, not an eternal prototype. The solution was simple. Bring in a set of familiar firearms and refocus on episode structure. Assign levels quickly. Lock the mood. Ship. Seven months later, Quake arrived.
Shareware, a modem, and a Saturday upload
Distribution followed the id playbook. Break the game into episodes. Give the first one away. Let the internet pass it around. If people like it, they buy the rest. That model met a moment. In February nineteen ninety six the team released QTest, a network test that previewed the speed and 3D feel. The community went electric. By June twenty two nineteen ninety six Romero uploaded the real thing to the net on a Saturday. IRC nearly caught fire. LAN parties spun up around the world. New social patterns emerged. Players self organized into groups that the community named clans. Tournaments followed. The culture of competitive first person shooters found its spark.
How Quake changed the industry
Beyond the mood and the movement, Quake’s engine and licensing seeded a wave. Valve visited id to talk shop and license technology. Half Life followed and set a new bar for narrative first person design. Mod scenes and total conversions gave birth to Counter Strike and more. Ritual Entertainment landed its start building Scourge of Armagon. The ripple effect stretched across studios and genres.
Romero also draws a line between Quake and the idea of esports as a true sport. Deathmatch intensity deserved arenas and leagues. The community made it real.
Why Quake still feels different
Speed, grit, and a thick atmosphere make Quake singular in Romero’s eyes. Other games reached for parts of that identity, but the total package remains unique. Full 3D at real speed in the first person space was not new in concept, yet Quake nailed the frame rate and the feel that earlier role playing focused engines did not chase.
Daikatana’s ambition, risk, and aftermath
Daikatana was not a single dream concept so much as a studio sized ambition. Romero wanted a team shipping multiple games and he chose an expert level first person shooter to push variety, progression, and story with sidekicks. You would change across time, gear, and stats. Sidekicks like Superfly Johnson and Makiko Ebihara were designed to ride along some of the journey, not all of it.
The risk stack was huge. New company. New team. Many first time shippers. A design that tried to leap beyond the field. A tight schedule that stretched into years. A harsh marketing tagline did not help public sentiment. A deathmatch demo arrived after a team walkout, meant to show weapons, air control, and netcode. Some players still adore the feel of Daikatana’s movement and combat. Many bounced off a tough opening chapter with mosquitoes and frogs and the demand to aim vertically. Romero calls it a hard lesson in risk, scope, and reading the room.
From mega studios to mobile pocket rockets
After the Dallas office closed in two thousand one, Romero went hands on again. He co founded a mobile focused outfit and coded full time. Pocket PC screens, Win32 APIs, DirectX, ports to PC, Mac, Linux, even a GBA version. Hyperspace Delivery Boy shipped in about four and a half months from concept to release. Then came Congo Cube for the casual crowd. The team published and ported across platforms, supported third party titles, and even delivered the multiplayer deathmatch for Area 51 on PlayStation 2. Romero relished the speed and variety of small projects.
Casual meets hardcore
Romero maps out the market split that solidified in the two thousands. Casual games were always present, from early card games to Tetris and the match three boom. What changed was industry attention. The audience grew far beyond the hardcore scene. Meanwhile first person shooters branched into clear lanes. Pure action. Tactical squad and sim like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. Stealth forward design in Splinter Cell. He singles out F E A R as a strong mainstream action model of the time and praises Valve’s design in Half Life 2 for physics driven puzzles and outdoor variety.
Why MMOs captured hearts and hours
Romero sees online worlds as the natural evolution from Quake’s networked play. Massive player counts, social layers, economies, and characters that grow through time beat the short sprint of a fixed single player campaign for many players. World of Warcraft proved the appetite. He notes the cost and complexity but believes the model will keep spreading. He once prototyped an online first person world with network ideas similar to what Guild Wars later popularized. He expects MMO thinking to hybridize with many genres.
On the near future and tools of the trade
Romero avoids bold predictions beyond a couple years. The landscape shifts whenever a standout design introduces a new baseline. Half Life 2’s gravity gun is his example. When a breakthrough lands, it becomes a standard, so you respond, adapt, and fold it into your next build.
New startup, fresh target
At the time of this conversation Romero is in the Bay Area as an executive vice president at a new MMO studio. Super stealth. Two placeholder names. No project title shared. The aim is not to copy the giant in the room. It is to find a different space on PC with a hook worth the leap.
Quick hits
Quake 3 Arena gets high marks as a focused deathmatch machine. Rocket Arena 3 earns special praise for control and tight curation of the experience.
Doom movie did not impress him. The story veered from the source. The best part of the disc was the making of documentary.
All timers of the era include Half Life 2 for PC first person design and Resident Evil 4 for console precision with context sensitive controls. World of Warcraft stands tall as a once in a generation online achievement.
The through line
From tabletop roots to shareware storms, from clan culture to esports, from hard pivots to hard lessons, Romero’s story in this interview reads like a blueprint for how games move forward. Try something wild. Ship something great. Listen to players. Learn. Then push again.
Key Takeaways
• Quake began as a dark fantasy brawler with a magical hammer before pivoting to firearms to finish on time.
• Shareware, QTest, and a Saturday upload fueled a worldwide launch and birthed clans and tournaments.
• The Quake engine and id’s openness seeded Half Life, Counter Strike, and new studios like Ritual.
• Daikatana chased variety and sidekick driven storytelling but overreached on risk and difficulty.
• Romero’s mobile and casual phase rekindled hands on coding and fast iteration across many platforms.
• He views MMOs as a durable future across genres and favors near horizon planning over far future bets.
One line verdict
John Romero’s path in this talk is pure momentum. Bold ideas, blunt pivots, and a career long love of speed, mood, and getting it into players’ hands.
From D and D legend to 3D reality
Romero explains that the earliest Quake concept was not the military flavored rocket play we know. It began as a visceral third dimension brawler where your main tool was a growing, empowering war hammer. The name Quake was lifted from a tabletop character the team loved. The hammer would gain abilities as you progressed. The world would reward gruesome ritual and dark fantasy choices. Think sword and sorcery in a space where speed still ruled.
Production drifted. By late nineteen ninety five, the team made a hard pivot in a design summit. The goal was to finish a shipping game, not an eternal prototype. The solution was simple. Bring in a set of familiar firearms and refocus on episode structure. Assign levels quickly. Lock the mood. Ship. Seven months later, Quake arrived.
Shareware, a modem, and a Saturday upload
Distribution followed the id playbook. Break the game into episodes. Give the first one away. Let the internet pass it around. If people like it, they buy the rest. That model met a moment. In February nineteen ninety six the team released QTest, a network test that previewed the speed and 3D feel. The community went electric. By June twenty two nineteen ninety six Romero uploaded the real thing to the net on a Saturday. IRC nearly caught fire. LAN parties spun up around the world. New social patterns emerged. Players self organized into groups that the community named clans. Tournaments followed. The culture of competitive first person shooters found its spark.
How Quake changed the industry
Beyond the mood and the movement, Quake’s engine and licensing seeded a wave. Valve visited id to talk shop and license technology. Half Life followed and set a new bar for narrative first person design. Mod scenes and total conversions gave birth to Counter Strike and more. Ritual Entertainment landed its start building Scourge of Armagon. The ripple effect stretched across studios and genres.
Romero also draws a line between Quake and the idea of esports as a true sport. Deathmatch intensity deserved arenas and leagues. The community made it real.
Why Quake still feels different
Speed, grit, and a thick atmosphere make Quake singular in Romero’s eyes. Other games reached for parts of that identity, but the total package remains unique. Full 3D at real speed in the first person space was not new in concept, yet Quake nailed the frame rate and the feel that earlier role playing focused engines did not chase.
Daikatana’s ambition, risk, and aftermath
Daikatana was not a single dream concept so much as a studio sized ambition. Romero wanted a team shipping multiple games and he chose an expert level first person shooter to push variety, progression, and story with sidekicks. You would change across time, gear, and stats. Sidekicks like Superfly Johnson and Makiko Ebihara were designed to ride along some of the journey, not all of it.
The risk stack was huge. New company. New team. Many first time shippers. A design that tried to leap beyond the field. A tight schedule that stretched into years. A harsh marketing tagline did not help public sentiment. A deathmatch demo arrived after a team walkout, meant to show weapons, air control, and netcode. Some players still adore the feel of Daikatana’s movement and combat. Many bounced off a tough opening chapter with mosquitoes and frogs and the demand to aim vertically. Romero calls it a hard lesson in risk, scope, and reading the room.
From mega studios to mobile pocket rockets
After the Dallas office closed in two thousand one, Romero went hands on again. He co founded a mobile focused outfit and coded full time. Pocket PC screens, Win32 APIs, DirectX, ports to PC, Mac, Linux, even a GBA version. Hyperspace Delivery Boy shipped in about four and a half months from concept to release. Then came Congo Cube for the casual crowd. The team published and ported across platforms, supported third party titles, and even delivered the multiplayer deathmatch for Area 51 on PlayStation 2. Romero relished the speed and variety of small projects.
Casual meets hardcore
Romero maps out the market split that solidified in the two thousands. Casual games were always present, from early card games to Tetris and the match three boom. What changed was industry attention. The audience grew far beyond the hardcore scene. Meanwhile first person shooters branched into clear lanes. Pure action. Tactical squad and sim like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. Stealth forward design in Splinter Cell. He singles out F E A R as a strong mainstream action model of the time and praises Valve’s design in Half Life 2 for physics driven puzzles and outdoor variety.
Why MMOs captured hearts and hours
Romero sees online worlds as the natural evolution from Quake’s networked play. Massive player counts, social layers, economies, and characters that grow through time beat the short sprint of a fixed single player campaign for many players. World of Warcraft proved the appetite. He notes the cost and complexity but believes the model will keep spreading. He once prototyped an online first person world with network ideas similar to what Guild Wars later popularized. He expects MMO thinking to hybridize with many genres.
On the near future and tools of the trade
Romero avoids bold predictions beyond a couple years. The landscape shifts whenever a standout design introduces a new baseline. Half Life 2’s gravity gun is his example. When a breakthrough lands, it becomes a standard, so you respond, adapt, and fold it into your next build.
New startup, fresh target
At the time of this conversation Romero is in the Bay Area as an executive vice president at a new MMO studio. Super stealth. Two placeholder names. No project title shared. The aim is not to copy the giant in the room. It is to find a different space on PC with a hook worth the leap.
Quick hits
Quake 3 Arena gets high marks as a focused deathmatch machine. Rocket Arena 3 earns special praise for control and tight curation of the experience.
Doom movie did not impress him. The story veered from the source. The best part of the disc was the making of documentary.
All timers of the era include Half Life 2 for PC first person design and Resident Evil 4 for console precision with context sensitive controls. World of Warcraft stands tall as a once in a generation online achievement.
Deathmatch is so intense that it should be a sport. The community made it real.
The through line
From tabletop roots to shareware storms, from clan culture to esports, from hard pivots to hard lessons, Romero’s story in this interview reads like a blueprint for how games move forward. Try something wild. Ship something great. Listen to players. Learn. Then push again.
Key Takeaways
• Quake began as a dark fantasy brawler with a magical hammer before pivoting to firearms to finish on time.
• Shareware, QTest, and a Saturday upload fueled a worldwide launch and birthed clans and tournaments.
• The Quake engine and id’s openness seeded Half Life, Counter Strike, and new studios like Ritual.
• Daikatana chased variety and sidekick driven storytelling but overreached on risk and difficulty.
• Romero’s mobile and casual phase rekindled hands on coding and fast iteration across many platforms.
• He views MMOs as a durable future across genres and favors near horizon planning over far future bets.
One line verdict
John Romero’s path in this talk is pure momentum. Bold ideas, blunt pivots, and a career long love of speed, mood, and getting it into players’ hands.