The Romeros: Developing digital games
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brenda and John Romero are towering figures in modern game development, creators whose work has shaped how millions of players experience digital worlds. From their base in Galway on Ireland's west coast, the couple continue to push their craft into new territory. Presenter and long‑time gaming fan Kurt Brookes follows the Romeros as they embark on another major project, an ambitious game that brings together a large team of artists, designers and developers. Kurt gains rare access to the creative heartbeat of the studio, witnessing the intensity, imagination and unpredictability that come with building a game at scale. What drives two industry legends to keep reinventing themselves after decades at the forefront of their field? And what does it take to steer a project through an ever‑shifting landscape? An intimate, behind‑the‑scenes portrait of creativity, resilience and the relentless pull of making something new
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:18.5 | I've spent more hours than I should probably admit running through the demon-filled |
| 0:23.4 | corridors of doom. It was the game that rewired my imagination as a teenager, the one that |
| 0:28.8 | made me wonder who on earth dreamt all this up. So when I got the chance to meet John Romero |
| 0:33.7 | and his wife and creative partner Brenda, it felt like stepping through a portal into my own |
| 0:38.6 | past. To be given the chance to follow them as they create their latest game would be a front row |
| 0:43.9 | seat to a new megawad. Okay, okay, I know there's only going to be gamers that get that. |
| 0:48.9 | When you make a game on a computer, it's one of the most complex things a PC can do is run a game. In the service |
| 0:57.0 | of making an experience that is better than anything that exists right now, movies, books, everything. |
| 1:03.0 | It is like this experience that is the next-gen thing. To me, to be like the film director of |
| 1:10.0 | that kind of an experience is really fun. And it's on the edge. |
| 1:14.4 | It's like we're on the edge of the latest technology that is available. We are at the edge of design. |
| 1:20.7 | And being at the edge like that is really, really fun. Like coming up with what's going to happen in three years for gamers. |
| 1:26.9 | Because when you're making a game, you have to see into the future.'s going to happen in three years for gamers, because when you're |
| 1:27.8 | making a game, you have to see into the future. You have to know in three years that this idea |
| 1:32.5 | is good and that people will be interested in it. I mean, that's, I think that's it at its core. |
| 1:39.8 | I'm Kurt Brooks, and this is the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service, |
| 1:47.3 | with game-making supremos John and Brenda Romero as they embark on their latest creation. |
| 1:53.0 | Thank you. You might think a story about one of the most influential families in modern gaming would be centred somewhere else. |
| 2:12.3 | Somewhere with glass offices and venture capital. |
| 2:15.6 | Somewhere that calls itself the centre of the digital universe, |
| 2:19.0 | Silicon Valley, Seattle, maybe Tokyo, but we're not in any of those places. Instead, I'm on the |
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