Warren Spector, the designer behind Deus Ex, has announced that he is retiring from game development, writing in a post on his LinkedIn page that he has done what he set out to do. Video Games Chronicle reported the announcement.
Let me cut right to the chase. I'm retiring from game development. At least I think so. I've been here before and changed my mind but this time I'm pretty sure I mean it.
Spector spent several years making tabletop roleplaying games before joining Origin Systems in 1989, where he co-produced Ultima 6 and Wing Commander. In the decades that followed he created the Deus Ex series, served as creative director on Epic Mickey and worked on System Shock, Crusader: No Remorse and Thief: Deadly Shadows.
In the post he set out the arithmetic behind the decision: he is a month away from his 44th year as a developer, has worked on roughly 17 full games and about nine add-on packs, and has run teams ranging from a dozen people to 800, at both large publishers and start-ups. Some of those games, he noted, are still being played 15, 20 and 30 years later.
With all that behind me and with age and health (my business) catching up with me I'm feeling like I've done what I set out to do. It's time to write some books, do a lot of reading, do some lecturing, maybe do some consulting.
Three games he still wants to make
Spector said he has mixed feelings about stopping. He listed three games he would still like to build — one very big, one very small, and one he does not know how to make — but indicated that the industry as it stands has made that unappealing, writing that the game business has changed and is no longer as much fun for him, and that a new generation of developers deserves its time in the sun.
Recent years brought frustrations, including his planned System Shock 3, which he implied in 2022 had essentially been killed off. His most recent game, the stealth heist adventure Thick As Thieves, was released in May; weeks later, developer Otherside confirmed it had laid off the majority of its staff and ended planned post-launch development on the game.
To all of you reading this, I want you to remember that games are not a solved problem yet — there is, I hope, plenty of experimentation and innovation to come. And to all you young developers out there, I've said it before and I'll say it again, your job is to make people forget people like me ever existed.
He stopped short of ruling out a return, writing that he would never say never but that it was time to ride off into the sunset.
