John Romero hasn’t actually started working on a new FPS but he’s definitely going to do it and his plans are big.
I can understand having to explain who Jane Jensen is, but John Romero? Come on. He’s only the guy who, as a part of id Software, basically invented the FPS genre and gave the world online shooters; think Wolfenstein, Doom or Quake and you’re thinking Romero. Of course, the same can be said about Daikatana and that slowed things down for him a bit, at least in that particular genre, but he said last month that he’s not done with shooters yet and apparently he means it.
“I’m definitely going to be making another shooter and it will be on the PC first,” Romero told Eurogamer. “I don’t want to talk about the details but I already know what it is. I’ve already kind of designed the thing and it’s pretty cool – though of course, I am going to say that.”
The plan is to create an “MMO-ish” shooter, with a persistent world that lets players grow and improve their characters over time. It will “feel” like a shooter, presumably because it will be a shooter, “but the specifics of your situation, narrative wrapper and reward system are all unique,” he said. And while he said it won’t be an “old-school shooter,” he made it clear that he’s not a fan of modern shooter conventions like cover system or “bullet sponge” characters, either.
“I do realize that a lot of the movement in new shooters is directly attributable to the console controller because you can’t play well and fast with them so they had to come up with some design to make it so the player can do something else if they can’t skillfully move quickly. They have to do something different,” he said. “But I’m a PC mouse and keyboard type player. I love twitch 180s, fast targeting, fast firing, fast movement. So anything that’s not like that – like current shooters that are basically a track going through a level to the exit and everything is closed off – is not interesting to me.”
Whatever Romero has in mind, don’t expect him to fire up the hype machine anytime soon. “I wouldn’t want to give out any specifics until I’m close to shipping it,” he said. “I’ve learned my lesson about talking too soon about specific game features and release dates.”
Romero’s Loot Drop studio is currently working on Ghost Recon Commander, a mobile and Facebook social game based on the Ubisoft shooter franchise that’s expected to come out this summer.
