The Romeros

In the world of video game development Brenda and John Romero are giants in their field; John was one of the lead developers on the iconic first-person-shooter "DOOM", which rocked the gaming industry on its release in the early 1990s, and Brenda is a multi-award winning developer, designer and ambassador for the industry.

They married in 2012 and in 2015 they founded their eponymous games studio, Romero Games, in Galway, in the West of the Republic of Ireland. After several releases, the Romeros and their staff started development on a game that would see John return to his roots in first-person-shooters, a genre that made him famous and arguably made famous because of him. This new game, backed by a multi-billion dollar publisher, allowed the company to expand to over 100 employers to make it a reality. The studio was deep into development on the unnamed project, and all was well until a fateful day in July 2025, when things took an unexpected turn for the worse that threatened to completely derail years of work.

With the gaming industry in a state of transition where mass layoffs and studio closures are sadly par for the course, presenter Kurt Brookes follows the Romeros and some of their fellow developers as they plot their next moves in the wake of being thrust into a position that no creative wants to find themselves in, and asks how, and why, they do what they do.

A Made in Manchester production