The Case of John Romero (PCGH-Retro August 8)

…1996: He’s a living legend: game designer John Romero. His career began at Softdisk, where he also brought Tom Hall and John Carmack on board, later he founded id Software with them – and made this developer one of the most renowned in the world. He and his company became famous primarily through the shooters in the Doom and Quake series, for whose level design Romero was jointly responsible; some of the best levels go to his account, so among gamers the designer enjoys almost rock star status. But on August 8th, the “dream team” made up of the technical genius Carmack and the highly creative designer Romero broke up: After internal differences, the latter left the company to set up his own studio. It is initially called “Dream Design” and plans to develop a shooter, of course based on the Quake technology of its former employer. Dream Design later becomes Ion Storm. The project becomes Daikatana – and a disaster. Romero has taken on too much, the game only comes onto the market after several postponements and flops. Ion Storm is closed, Romero devotes himself to smaller projects in the future. The glory of the id software days has faded.