These days, John Romero would rather make you a taco than make you his bitch. As an id co-founder, Romero is best known as one of the principal creators of Doom – and as his Sigil project shows, he hasn’t altogether left the old days behind. Yet even with that in mind, he isn’t lost in nostalgia. In fact, Romero believes games today are better than ever.
“Games are incredible nowadays,” Romero says in a recent Reddit AMA. “Far better than they ever were. It’s not just because of graphics, but also because design language has evolved so much. And games keep getting better.” Separately, Romero says that hasn’t necessarily changed with new business models either, as “great games are always trying to be made.”
There’s loads more fun stuff in the full thread, including why id licensed out the SNES version of the Wolfenstein 3D engine for Super 3D Noah’s Ark. Turns out – “we just thought it would be funny to use the Wolf3D SNES engine in a religious game.”
In answer to the obvious question – is John Romero “about to make you his bitch?” – the designer asks “Can I make you a chilorio taco instead?” While Romero has a sense of humour about the marketing campaign for Daikatana, you should not expect that game to make a comeback.
“I’ve gotten the question about remaking Daikatana, or making a sequel to it, but there is just no viability to the idea. When Daikatana came out, the industry reviled the game and trashed it in all forms of media. Even though it’s been 20 years, the stigma hasn’t gone away. There are many people who love the game and ask me about this, but there’s no publisher that would pay for a sequel or remake (that I know of).”
If you’re lamenting the state of current FPS games, just remember: if they’re good enough for John Romero, they’re good enough for you.