It was announced today that Vigil Games the people behind the Darksiders franchise has lost their co-founder Joe Madureira. He made the announcement via Twitter and then later made a formal announcement on Facebook. Here is the official statement from Madureira:
“Farewell and best wishes to all my brothers and sisters at Vigil Games! After 7 long years and 2 hit games 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.”
As for what Madureira will be working on next he stated that he will be “talking more about ‘The Next Big Thing’ in the coming months” and stated for right now he is “focusing on banging out a bunch of comics”. Madureira went on to say that working on Darksiders was his “career highlight.”
Vigil Games was started way back in 2005 and was purchased by THQ a year later in 2006 and has worked out well for both companies. However, THQ has a lot riding on the Darksiders franchise, and having the co-founder leave the company does not usually improve the quality of games. Darksiders II did top the NPD sales chart for August by selling 247,000 copies, but that may not have been enough considering the dire financial situation THQ is in.
In fact at this point we don’t even know if THQ has the money to fund another project from Vigil Games that is why it is so important that Darksiders II sells well. The game reviewed really well with the metacritic number sitting at 84%, not to mention fans loving the game as well. Showing that Vigil games knows what they are doing and honestly I can’t wait to see what their next project is.
I know they are supposed to be working on Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium but we really have had no update on the title other than that it is no longer a MMO.
