Brian Reynolds (born 1967) is an American

videogame designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

who is currently president of

Firaxis Games Firaxis Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Sparks, Maryland. The company was founded in May 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds following their departure from MicroProse, Meier's earlier venture. They were ...

. Reynolds has designed at SecretNewCo,

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its missio ...

Big Huge Games Big Huge Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Timonium, Maryland since 2000, known first for real-time strategy games such as ''Rise of Nations'', later for the console RPG '' Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning'', and more recently ...

and MicroProse and has been chairman of the

International Game Developers Association The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is a nonprofit professional association whose stated mission is to "support and empower game developers around the world in achieving fulfilling and sustainable careers." The IGDA is incorpo ...

. He has played a major part in designing a number of multi-million selling games including '' Civilization II'', ''

Rise of Nations ''Rise of Nations'' is a real-time strategy video game developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios in May 2003. The development was led by veteran game designer Brian Reynolds, of ''Civilization II'' and ''Sid Meier' ...

'', ''

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri ''Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri'' is a 4X video game, considered a spiritual sequel to the ''Civilization'' series. Set in a science fiction depiction of the 22nd century, the game begins as seven competing ideological factions land on the planet ...

'', and '' FrontierVille''. He has also founded or co-founded three game companies, SecretNewCo, Big Huge Games, and Firaxis Games.

Early life

Reynolds made his first game sale with Quest 1 to '' SoftSide'' magazine, its August 1981 cover feature. He was a gamer in high school, and a SysOp on

Randolph School Randolph School is an American independent private kindergarten-through-12th-grade college preparatory school chartered in 1959 in Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama. It started in a home on Randolph Avenue in downtown Huntsville with a handfu ...

's (

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in ...

) PDP-11 mainframe computer. A 1990 graduate of the

University of the South The University of the South, familiarly known as Sewanee (), is a private Episcopal liberal arts college in Sewanee, Tennessee. It is owned by 28 southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church, and its School of Theology is an official seminary of ...

, Reynolds briefly pursued graduate studies in Philosophy at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

Career

Reynolds initiated his game career with MicroProse where he worked as lead programmer for a number of

graphic adventure games An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

. These included '' Rex Nebular'' in 1992 and ''

Return of the Phantom ''Return of the Phantom'' is a Point-and-click adventure game, point-and-click graphic adventure game developed and published by MicroProse in 1993. It was produced by Matt Gruson and designed/written by future James Bond novelist Raymond Benson. ...

'' and ''

Dragonsphere ''Dragonsphere'' is a point-and-click graphic adventure game developed and published by MicroProse in 1994. It has graphics which were considered high-quality at the time it was published, considered a novelty. It is still a cult classic for many. ...

'' in

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...

. It was at MicroProse where Reynolds first worked with

Sid Meier Sidney K. Meier ( ; born February 24, 1954) is a Canadian-American programmer, game designer, designer, and video game producer, producer of several strategy video games and simulation video games, including the ''Civilization (series), Civiliz ...

and the two collaborated on a strategy title by the name of ''

Sid Meier's Colonization ''Sid Meier's Colonization'' is a video game by Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier released by MicroProse in 1994. It is a turn-based strategy game themed on the early European colonization of the New World, starting in 1492 and lasting until 1850 ...

'' which was released in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

. Reynolds went on to become lead designer for a sequel to ''

Sid Meier's Civilization ''Sid Meier's Civilization'' is a 1991 turn-based strategy 4X video game developed and published by MicroProse. The game was originally developed for MS-DOS running on a PC, and has undergone numerous revisions for various platforms. The pl ...

''. '' Civilization II'' was released in 1996 and sold multi-million copies. While at Firaxis, Reynolds contributed to '' Sid Meier's Gettysburg'' in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

, followed by the creation and design of ''

'' in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

. Alpha Centauri became his second multi-million selling title. In

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

Reynolds left Firaxis games and sold his share in the company to become CEO of

. On June 30, 2009,

announced that Brian Reynolds was leaving

to lead the formation of Zynga East, and serve the role of Chief Game Designer. In February 2013, Reynolds left Zynga. In March, he revived Big Huge Games (temporarily known as SecretNewCo). In July, the team announced their partnership with

Nexon Nexon Co., Ltd. is a global video game publisher, listed in Japan, that specializes in online Virtual World games for PCs, consoles and mobile. Nexon is one of the world’s ten largest interactive game companies based on market capitalization a ...

, a

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

n game developer, to develop their first game, ''

DomiNations ''DomiNations'' is a 2015 freemium mobile massively multiplayer strategy video game developed and published by Big Huge Games. The game was released on April 1, 2015. Gameplay ''DomiNations'' is a massively multiplayer online game. Players buil ...

'', a mobile game similar to Civilization or '' Age of Empires''. Big Huge Games was acquired by Nexon in 2016. Reynolds later returned to Firaxis as its president.

Contributions

Although marketed under Sid Meier's name, ''Civilization II'', ''Sid Meier's Colonization'' and ''Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri'' all credited Reynolds as lead designer. The credits for ''Civilization II'' only list Meier as the designer of the original ''Civilization'' game, and Reynolds stated in an interview that for this game Meier "was no longer involved except in name." The credits for ''Alpha Centauri'' state that the game was "Created by" Brian Reynolds and Meier is listed with several other team members on the "With" line - in the Designers Notes in the game manual Reynolds also thanks him for all his sage advice. Brian Reynolds' first major break was the design of ''Sid Meier's Civilization II''. Meier had created ''Civilization'' but had moved on to other projects. MicroProse wanted to make a sequel and asked Reynolds to design it. MicroProse put Meier on retainer for consultational advice and for the use of his name, but Meier only had peripheral involvement in the design of this game. The sequel game, hence, was primarily designed by Reynolds. ''

'' was Reynolds' first game at Big Huge Games. Later came '' Rise of Legends'', a real-time strategy game,

published Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, news ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

. Reynolds and

Klaus Teuber Klaus Teuber (born June 25, 1952) is a German former dental technician and designer of board games. He is best known for designing the strategy board game Catan. Career Teuber won the Spiel des Jahres ("Game of the Year") award four times: for ...

collaborated to develop the

Xbox Live Arcade Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) is a digital video game download service available through the Xbox Games Store, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360. It focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent ...

game ''

Catan ''Catan'', previously known as ''The Settlers of Catan'' or simply ''Settlers'', is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) as ''Die Siedler von Catan''. P ...

''. Reynolds led the development of '' FrontierVille'' and '' CityVille 2'' for

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

Games

* '' Quest 1'' (1981) (Author) * ''

Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender ''Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender'' is a point-and-click graphic adventure game developed and published by MicroProse in November of 1992. The game is the first graphical adventure game developed by MicroProse, '' Return of the Phantom'' a ...

'' (1992) (lead programmer) * ''

'' (1993) (lead programmer) * ''

'' (1994) (technical director) * ''

'' (1994) (designer and programmer) * '' Sid Meier's Civilization II'' (1996) (lead designer and programmer) * ''

Sid Meier's Gettysburg! ''Sid Meier's Gettysburg!'' is a 1997 real-time wargame developed by Firaxis Games and published by Electronic Arts. It was designed by Sid Meier, and followed by '' Sid Meier's Antietam!'' in 1999. Gameplay The game allows the player to control ...

'' (1997) (contributions) * ''

'' (1999) (lead designer) * ''

'' (2003) (lead designer) * '' Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots'' (2004) (lead designer) * '' Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends'' (2006) (project lead and lead designer) * ''

'' (2007) (project lead and AI) * '' Age of Empires 3: The Asian Dynasties'' (2007) (creative director) * '' FrontierVille'' (2010) (chief game designer) * ''

'' (2014) (chief game designer)

References

Interview with Brian Reynolds
at

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

Top 100 Game Creators of All Time
at

* 49 Greatest Developers, PC Gamer magazine, April 2009 *
Legendary Game Designer Brian Reynolds Joins Zynga as Chief Designer
on Press Release
Zynga's Chief Game Designer Brian Reynolds Resigns

Brian Reynolds on Zynga, Games, and the Future

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Brian American video game designers People from Huntsville, Alabama 1967 births Living people MicroProse people Zynga people Sewanee: The University of the South alumni