Darksiders Creative Director Leaves Studio
Joe Madureira, co-founder of Darksiders developer Vigil Games, has left the studio. Madureira is a well known comic book writer and artist who was well known for his work on such comics as The Uncanny X-Men as well as in video games. He was also the creative director for both Darksiders titles and was heavily involved in the creation of the setting and characters for both games. Madureira made the announcement via his Facebook page, in which he wrote the following across two separate posts:
Farewell and best wishes to all my brothers and sisters at Vigil Games! After 7 long years and 2 hit games ( Darksiders BABY! ) I’m afraid the time has come for me to move on to new adventures. I could not be more proud of what we achieved, or the awesome people who helped build up this studio. I can safely say Vigil’s future is in very good hands, so expect only awesomeness down the road. This feels surreal…I miss the place already.
I’ll be talking more about ‘The Next Big Thing’ in the coming months, but in the short term, I’m focusing on banging out a bunch of comics. Which should hopefully sate your hunger, you bloodthirsty savages!!! (*believe it or not that’s a term of endearment. )
Madureira in a third post assures that he is not leaving video games and left Vigil Games and publisher THQ on good terms, going as far as to say that he may work with them again as an external developer. Madureira has never left the comic book industry and has kept busy by contributing to the art as a penciller in the new comic book series entitled Avenging Spider-Man.
Vigil Games was founded in 2005 and acquired by THQ in 2006. The studio is best known for the Darksiders series, including the excellent Darksiders II that was released earlier this year. Vigil has also been working on Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium, which was originally supposed to be an MMO but isn’t any longer. The Wii U version of Darksiders II will be released on November 18th.
What do you think about Joe Madureira’s departure? Do you think this will hurt the Darksiders franchise? How about Vigil Games? Do you think this won’t impact either going forward? I know I really admired the art direction and environments in Darksiders II so its a shame to see him go. Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
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