Bittersweet news, but alas -- time waits for no one, as they always say. (If that's...even related, lol. :P)
Wish him the best, and hopefully, Naughty Dog will be able to hold their own without the darn guy! (In all respect, of course.)
Naughty Dog vet leaving to teach at USC
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Richard Lemarchand leaving Uncharted developer after eight years to join School of Cinematic Arts at California college.
Uncharted series developer Naughty Dog has lost one of its veteran designers. Gamasutra reports today that Richard Lemarchand is leaving the Santa Monica, California-based studio to join the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (USC).
Lemarchand most recently served as lead designer on the much-praised Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. He will teach at the university's Interactive Media Division--the department thatgamecompany's Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen trained at--and will also develop a string of "experimental games" for a future research project.
"For about ten years now, I've wanted to make a different kind of game, alongside my professional practice," Lemarchand said. "But… if I wanted to go out on a limb and take a chance to see some other opportunities, I always thought that the end of Uncharted 3 would be a good time to do that, and then I was very lucky that this opportunity came along."
Prior to joining Naughty Dog and working on the studio's now-famous Uncharted franchise, Lemarchand held high-level positions at Crystal Dynamics, where he worked on the Gex, Pandemonium, and Legacy of Kain franchises. Lemarchand began his game career as a designer for MicroProse.
Lemarchand plans to take a three-month backpacking trip across the world, where he'll get to work on ideas for his experimental titles. "Some are to do with procedural narrative; some are to do with space and exploration," Lemarchand said. "I've always been very interested in the power of environmental narrative."
USC was recently named the top game design school in the United States and Canada for graduate and undergraduate programs by The Princeton Review. The school topped the likes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology, and The University of Utah to secure the top spot.
For more on Lemarchand's latest body of work, check out GameSpot's review of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
37 comments
Well many thanks Richard for helping to produce my favourite franchise to date. It's been a pleasure. Now you teach them kids good and proper!! :D
It's nice to see professionals coming back to teach the students .In my school it's the opposite. Each teacher has a foot out the door and cannot stand the idea of students making more money than they do.There is very little pride in the practice of teaching sometimes.
It's good to see real industry experts teach the future generations. When these guys retire, we will still qualified individual to write the games and story lines.
I really wish him all the good fortune that may come his way, but I have to say that SC is going down.(I mean when we play them in Football)
I wish him all the best and my thanks for helping to bring us some truely awesome games.
Best of luck and teach your knowledge of making good games to the next generation so they don't end up making games like Activision and EA.
@Killer6b9, Couldn't have said it any better! Sad to see him go, but hey if you're gonna have Professor teach you the ways of game designing & developing; I can't think of a better teacher, lol.
Hope this does not mean U4 will not be as good as the first 3. I need more Uncharted goodness.
Why are all these developers leaving as of late, is the next generation really going to be that bad???
Best of luck to him. Uncharted might just be my all time favorite trilogy. Thanks for the GREAT games!
Well at least he is going to one of the best schools to teach how to make some stellar games! Mr. Lemarchand.....Good luck and hope to see your students make games at your par and better, we will all miss you!
Nooooo... Get back in there and start working on Uncharted 4. We need some good launch titles for the PS4.
Is it just my imagination or has there been lately a rather consistent stream of industry vets leaving the industry to try innovative or make retro stuff? Btw, @WCU_deva, I totally thought vet stood for veterinarian in the title before reading the article. ^^
He shall instruct the next generation of creative designers. I wonder what games he will come up with. Teaching his craft to the game makers yet to come.
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- Genre: Action
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