John Romero’s gaming library is a time capsule of the industry’s evolution—a sprawling archive that stretches from the 8-bit era to today’s most ambitious indie titles. His current setup, a 49-inch ultrawide monitor that dominates his workspace, is a testament to both his professional rigor and his unyielding curiosity. But the hardware itself is secondary to the software that lives on it. Romero’s PC is a graveyard of deleted games, yes, but also a museum of the ones he’s refused to purge.
At the core of his collection is an almost religious devotion to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint*. The game, released in 2019, has remained installed since day one—not just for nostalgia, but for its sheer depth. Romero’s Steam profile shows he’s explored over 100% of its open world, a stat he admits with pride. What draws him isn’t just the tactical gameplay or the expansions like *Desert Siege and Island Thunder*, but the randomness. For two decades, he played the original *Ghost Recon*, drawn to the unpredictability of enemy spawns and dynamic missions. Breakpoint refined that chaos into an open-world sandbox, where every helicopter ride over the map at night reveals a different layout of lights, installations, and hidden paths.
Yet for all his love of tactical shooters, Romero’s current obsession is *Arc Raiders*, a game he describes as a battle royale without the player pressure. Unlike traditional PvP arenas, *Arc Raiders pits players against AI-controlled Arc bots, creating a high-stakes environment where the tension comes from environmental threats rather than teammates—or rivals. Romero plays it daily, often in personal progression mode when his friend isn’t available. The game’s design, he argues, could have been a blueprint for Doom if the technology had allowed it. We didn’t have the internet to handle 100 players in real-time, he notes. But the core idea—time pressure, limited exits, PvE focus—it’s all there.
His library also includes titles that defy genre expectations. Balatro*, the roguelike deckbuilder, has been a staple since its release, and Romero remains determined to achieve a C+ or higher—though he’s not quite there yet. What fascinates him isn’t just the meta-design of taking a familiar mechanic (like chess or checkers) and twisting it into something new, but the lone developer’s ability to craft a game that feels both polished and deeply personal. It’s like *Minecraft*, he says. One person’s vision, executed flawlessly.
But Romero’s PC isn’t just a graveyard of modern hits. Buried in its folders is *Dodge ’Em*, a game he wrote in 1982 when he was 15. The code is primitive by today’s standards—the game freezes when you fire, the enemy moves in a linear pattern, and the only feedback is a beeping sound. Yet it’s the first entry in his Mobygames listing, a relic of his earliest experiments with sound effects and joystick inputs. It wasn’t good, he admits. But it was mine.
The one game he’s logged the most time in, however, is *World of Warcraft*. His Steam profile shows over 3,000 hours, a testament to a period where he immersed himself in the MMO for six hours a day, six days a week. He wasn’t just playing; he was studying. As he worked on his own MMO, he analyzed *WoW*’s systems—why certain mechanics worked, how players engaged with content, and how the game balanced progression with social interaction. I had five main characters, all geared differently, he recalls. And I could level a new one to six in 30 minutes because I knew the optimizations. His approach wasn’t just about enjoyment; it was about understanding the architecture of a game that millions played for years.
Romero’s workspace reflects his discipline. His desktop is immaculate—no clutter, no shortcuts to games or documents. Instead, he uses folders to organize everything from PDFs to developer screenshots, and even those are hidden behind clean icons. If I saw 1,000 files on my screen, I’d organize them, he says. But I don’t want to see them. The same philosophy applies to his physical space. His kitchen must be spotless before bed, his desk free of unnecessary items. Why is that there? he’ll ask, pointing at an out-of-place object. Anytime I see something messy, I fix it.
Yet for all his order, his gaming habits are anything but. He’s currently working on *Hellion*, a *Doom 2 WAD that follows Sigil and Sigil 2*, and an unreleased FPS project from Romero Games, a studio he saved from cancellation last year. The challenges of those projects—balancing legacy code with new ideas, reviving a nearly dead studio—mirror the same problem-solving he applied to *Doom and Quake decades ago. We’re still alive, he says simply. We’re still working.
On his ultrawide, notifications from apps like In Your Face dominate the screen, forcing attention where modern life often scatters it. The tool, installed on every device, ensures nothing slips through the cracks—whether it’s a calendar alert or a critical update. It’s a stark contrast to the fragmented world of social media, where alerts are buried in corners and easily ignored. I don’t want to miss anything, he explains. So I make sure I don’t.
Romero’s gaming library, then, is more than a collection of titles. It’s a living archive of his career—a blend of technical mastery, relentless curiosity, and an unwillingness to let go of what matters. And on his pristine desktop, the only things that remain are the games he’s chosen to keep forever.
