Darksiders 2

After Homefront, it was time to move on. The project was on hold while THQ figured out its future, so I made the jump to Vigil Games. I'd always been a big God of War fan, and Darksiders 2 appealed to me in a lot of ways. Before joining, I played all the way through the original Darksiders and knew this was the right fit.

Stepping Into Operations

My role at Vigil Games was closer to a general manager than anything I'd done before. Production and operations were my primary responsibilities. It was a big step up, something I'd been working toward over the years. The days were packed with meetings, planning, and keeping the machine running.

Watching It Come Together

One thing I made sure to do every day was pull the latest build and play the newest version of the game. Watching Darksiders 2 come together day by day was genuinely exciting. The team at Vigil was talented, and the game was shaping up to be something special.

An Honest Realization

But as the months went on, I started to realize something I hadn't expected. I was too far removed from the actual development. The hands-on problem solving that had always driven me was replaced by spreadsheets and scheduling. I wasn't enjoying the role as much as I'd anticipated. It was a strange feeling, reaching a career goal and finding it wasn't quite what I wanted.

A New Spark

What I did find, almost by accident, was an interest in data and analytics. I worked with a junior programmer to build an HTML dashboard that scraped data from a tool we used called DevTrack. It was a relatively simple project, but it opened my eyes to the world of web development. That experience turned out to be a game changer and planted the seed for an entirely new career in web, server, and network development.

Looking Back

Darksiders 2 is likely the last AAA game I'll ever work on. It's a strange thing to say after spending most of my career in the games industry, but that little side project with the dashboard showed me there was something else out there. I still build my own projects on the side, always hoping to make something cool. The itch to create never really goes away.