Leading Civilization V Designer Leaves Developer Firaxis

Jon Shafer, who was the leading designer working on the turn based strategy game Civilization V has left developer Firaxis, where he has worked for almost six years and where he contributed to the development of other strategy titles.

News was broken by the Flash of Steel strategy oriented blog and is based on the work history that Shafer has included in his LinkedIn profile, with confirmation coming from the designer himself.

He reacted to the information, saying, “I very much enjoyed my time Firaxis, worked on many projects that I’ve very proud of and got to know a lot of amazing people. I’m appreciative of the opportunities provided by Firaxis and 2K, and hope to see (and play) more great games from them in the future.”

It's not clear where he is heading next in terms of video games related work or whether he is more interested in taking a break before taking on another big project.

The separation between Jon Shafer and Firaxis, which is a subsidiary of Take Two, has been agreed upon by both sides.

It's not clear whether Shafter has left the company because of the issues which Civilization V has been having since launch, but it is known that he has recently contributed to the big patch that the turn based strategy has recently received.

The game was launched in late September this year and brought a lot of changes to the familiar Civilization formula, including hexes instead of squares and a bigger focus on battle tactics for both the player and the Artificial Intelligence.

Unfortunately, the complexity level seems to have been a bit too much for the A.I. which has not been capable of putting up a good fight against the player, leading for some veterans of the series to advocate a return to Civilization IV and its significant line up of excellent mods.