Empire Of Sin Features John Romero's Great-Grandmother To The Game As A Crime Boss

Empire of Sin, the upcoming 20s-set mobster strategy game from Romero Games Ltd, will feature a real-life figure from developer John Romero's family tree. Elvira Duarte was Romero's great-grandmother, an eccentric character who developers John and Brenda Romero wanted to honor in the game. The announcement has been made to coincide with Mother's Day.

In the video below, John and Brenda explain that Duarte was an interesting character--she walked around with a green parrot on her shoulder, who would deliver punchlines to jokes she told. She ran three brothels, but quit and retired after winning the lottery. And now, a century later, she's a video game character.

Duarte will be a playable mob boss in the game, with her own powers and a revolver that she can take enemies down with. She's introduced in the trailer below.

Elvira Duarte's "mob ability" in the game is called Devil's Breath, which allows her to take control of enemy characters and use them to kill their own people.

The in-game model of Elvira is based on John's grandmother Socorro, one of Elvira's nine children. As Brenda says, she kind of looks like John, too. In any case, it's a cool bit of character trivia--if you pick Elvira, you know you're playing as a real person.

Empire of Sin is coming to Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC this year. The game will release in Fall 2020.