Industry Has "Barely Scratched the Surface" of FPS Genre, Doom Designer Says

Some gamers might have let out a sigh when John Romero, the famed designer known for his work on Doom, announced a new project last month that was another first-person shooter. But in a new interview with Develop, Romero--without giving away any details on his new game--claims the FPS genre is far from tapped out. In fact, he argues that we have only "barely scratched the surface" of the FPS genre overall.

"There are unbelievable amounts of new stuff to do in that genre," Romero said. "The idea of a shooter is running around with weapons, in first-person, blowing things away. But what are you really doing? What is the world like? Who are you, and what do you care about? What are you doing in the world that’s different?"

To add to his point, Romero said what if World of Warcraft, a popular MMO with almost no shooter qualities, was made into a shooter? Such a game would be groundbreaking, Romero said. "You have a giant world full of quests, and tons of people with PvP already in the game," he said. "If World of Warcraft was a shooter, that would be brand new--nobody would have seen something that big and that cool."

But a World of Warcraft shooter wouldn't really resemble the current PC game, Romero said. Instead, it could be something similar to Valve's class-based multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2. "Perhaps villages would become like TF2 levels, where you would try to score as much as you could before deciding to move on," he said. "Or that area would have specific goals, like taking out five snipers and two demo guys to retrieve some key items. Perhaps once you've exhausted that village, you could go to another one down the road. And maybe the planet's full of them--nobody's played a game like that."

Overall, Romero said he would like to see developers branch and give something new a shot in the FPS space. "Shooters have so many places to go, but people just copy the same thing over and over because they're afraid to try something new," he said. "We've barely scratched the surface."

During Gamescom last month, Romero revealed that he is working on a new FPS, and said it would be made by Romero Games, and not a mobile studio. Beyond that, however, we don't know anything more.

Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch