Back in the ’90s, id Software wasthegaming company, responsible for bringing the worldDoomandQuake. Two of the founding members of that company were John Carmack andJohn Romero, both now considered giants in their field.
However, since Romero’s departure from id in 1996 (post-Quake 1), the two Johns have never come together to work on another project. And if you were hoping they would reform and create something together, Carmack has pretty much shot that idea down.
@romero‘s autobiography is out, filled with tons of details about the old days. To be completely clear — I wish him the best!
To preempt the inevitable question, no, we aren’t planning to make a new game together 😀https://t.co/j0NAvQeDPc
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack)July 12, 2025
In a post on hisTwitter page recently, the formerDoomdeveloper praised Romero on the recent publication of his autobiographyDoom Guy: A Life in First Person. Carmack then pre-empted an inevitable question about whether the two programmers would make anything together again.
And never the Johns shall meet
Unfortunately, the answer is no. He pretty much spells it out in black and white: “we aren’t planning to make a new game together.” It’s said in a good-natured way, though, and there doesn’t appear to be any bad blood between the two.
It’s possible that many were hopeful that somethingDoom-esque (or anything from the two legendary developers) would eventually come to fruition, thanks to a recentReddit AMAfrom Romero.
In response to one question, Romero says the pair “could have stayed working together if we did things differently at the start ofQuake.” He also added that he and Carmack have talked about options, which features in his book.
John Romero is still active in the development world (it looks like he’s in talks for anew FPS through a major publisher). Conversely, John Carmack has pretty much left video game creation behind, having been a major player at Oculus VR up until 2022, and now works on AGI—artificial general intelligence—underKeen Technologies.
