Stardock Hires Civ Lead Jon Shafer

Firaxis saw its lead designer for Civilization V, Jon Shafer, leave them after 5 years of devoted service and work on the vast Civ community. That has to be a strange feeling and even I was a bit struck by that news. Luckily for Shafer, he found safe refuge in the arms of Stardock, where he will work on the Elemental: War Of Magic series.
 

Jon Shafer

 

After also hiring Derek Paxton from the well-known Fall From Heaven mod in Civilization, this can hardly be called a coincidence anymore. This should prove to considerably aid the Elemental franchise, after the backlash from its abysmal release last year. Also responsible for games such as Galactic Civilizations, Stardock falls right in line with the all-round strategy games, so that synergy could be very beneficial for them.
 

Peace will soon be restored in the land of Elemental: War Of Magic

 

In addition, they also announced to have picked up science fiction writer Dave Stern. Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock stated in a press release: “One of the things we felt was weak in Elemental: War of Magic was how little the world's fantasy lore came through in the game." That’s an easy way to circumvent the fact the game was unplayable on release and required heavy patching, just to give fans a chance to play. But as said failure resulted in a dramatic layoff of employees, this fresh blood should inspire new hope into the flunkies; if anything, you’ll get some people in who thoroughly know their stuff.

I’ll go out and say I loved the Galactic Civilization series. It was directly in line with everything I love from Civilization and mixed that with Masters Of Orion and blended into a game with its own face and feel. Hopefully mixing more of these great elements together will aid their most recent title to spawn new life.

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed.