Industry veteran John Romero has announced that he has co-founded an as yet un-named new video game company in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to postings Romero has made on
his own website’s forums.
Additional details of the new company, including its other co-founders, were not given, but Romero suggested that he was: "Much better off in many ways than I was at Midway. Much happier now."
Romero has had a tumultuous career in the video games industry, gaining early fame with his work on
Doom and
Quake, before falling out with other id Software founders – as documented in the book Masters of Doom. Romero then went on to work on the infamous
Daikatana at Ion Storm for publisher Eidos, before founding his own mobile games company Monkeystone, and then
joining Midway alongside Monkeystone colleague Tom Hall in late 2003.
Romero
departed Midway in July 2005 amid unconfirmed reports that he had been taken off the company's
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows project – just days before J.E. Sawyer, the game’s other lead, also left Midway. Neither Romero nor Midway has ever clarified the situation, which has since become just another chapter in Romero’s colorful and controversial history.
Work has apparently already begun at the new studio on a new title, with Romero commenting: "When news of my new game somehow gets out, I think everyone will be a bit shocked." In a subsequent post, he added: "It's going to be a very new experience for me in many ways and I'm really excited about it. And yes, I have complete control over this one."
