Darksiders Creative Director Joe Madureira Leaving Vigil Games

Darksiders 2 downloadable content continues to roll out, but series creative director Joe Madureira is leaving Vigil Games, the renowned comic artist announced on Facebook today.

“I'm afraid the time has come for me to move on to new adventures,” he said. “I could not be more proud of what we achieved, or the awesome people who helped build up this studio. I can safely say Vigil's future is in very good hands, so expect only awesomeness down the road. This feels surreal...I miss the place already.”

Madureira teased news about “the next big thing” in the “coming months,” but it’s unclear if it will again involve video games.

Just a few days back, the official Twitter account for Darksiders teased this image with the tagline: “A new adventure awaits Death!”

Madureira had been with Vigil Games since its inception, racking up seven years with the company.

cool news!

Edit: not so cool actually. Wish him good luck.

RIP darksiders, we hardly knew ye.

So Darksiders is dead then?

Guessing there will be no Darksiders III, or at least it isn't coming anytime soon so he's moving on?

Maybe he is finally going to finish Battle Chasers. HA! Like that would ever happen.

lol

Hmm. Really didn't like the art style in Darksiders. But really didn't like the gameplay or art in Darksiders 2.

I'm ready for the gritty Unreal engine reboot. Wii U Exclusive: The Darksiders.

Rise from your grave.

He's going to work with Cliffy B

When founding members leave so soon, it doesn't look good. I hope they don't go the way of... wait, I've already forgotten who made Kingdoms of Amalur.

Joe Mad is quitting something again? Big surprise.

I never liked Darksiders but it's a shame that Joe Mad won't be working on any other new IP (AFAIK).

I'm guessing as Creative Director he ok'd all the changes from Darksiders 1 to 2. Changes i pretty much disliked so i'm not sure how i feel about this, maybe it'll be good for the studio?

I'd be super curious to know if his work ended with Darksiders 2 or if he's leaving Vigil with a stockpile of concepts and designs to use for potential sequels.

I would think someone of his skill and experience would be able to create ten games worth of artwork in the time it takes to develop two.

Maybe he can finally finish Battle Chasers now.

I hope this doesn't mean Darksiders is dead.

I don't think I realized he was an actual employee of the company. Let alone creative director. I just assumed he worked freelance for them. That's pretty cool, especially considering he was still doing some comic work during that time.

@patrickklepek: I still think that your ex G4 co-worker, Abbie Heppe, was completely off the mark when she called the art direction in the first game "uninspiring".

Hope he'll be back in the comic book world soon. His work on Battle Chasers was awesome.

Awww :(

Can't wait to see what he does next though. Darksiders is one of my favorite series now.

Sales of Darksiders 2 pretty much killed any chance for a Darksiders 3.

Darksiders 2 was such a let down. Hopefully if they make a third one they can recapture what made the first one so great.

@alternate said:

Sales of Darksiders 2 pretty much killed any chance for a Darksiders 3.

Didn't it do ..okay? I know it started out pretty strong. Maybe they tanked immediately after.

Darksiders 2 felt a lot like diablo. Not a lot of story but a lot of dungeons.

:(

Can't say I'm surprised after the lackluster Darksiders II. Joe Mad is a great artist, Darksiders II is a mediocre game. It's a pity, because the first one was terrific.

and....that's the end of Darksiders. :(

edit - oops, corrected it, replied to the wrong person

@Efesell said:

@alternate said:

Sales of Darksiders 2 pretty much killed any chance for a Darksiders 3.

Didn't it do ..okay? I know it started out pretty strong. Maybe they tanked immediately after.

Sold 250k in August (came out on the 14th) and then wasn't in the top 10 for September - which mean no data but the game 10th sold about 100k.

These are not awful sales, beat Sleepy Dawgz for example, but given that THQ loaded expectations I bet the series is either canned or at least rested until next gen.

@alternate: That's US sales only and does not include PC sales from digital sources. Last article I saw was it needed 2 million to be profitable and with holiday retail upon us it still has a shot.

@Jolt92: Oh gosh yes, this.

I really hope this means he's going back to comics, that dude can draw some great funny books. His Avenging Spider-Man issues were soooooo great.

Yup...that's his pattern. WHERE THE FUCK IS BATTLE CHASERS #9 !?!?!?!?

@Pixel_Kaiser said:

@Jolt92: Oh gosh yes, this.

I really hope this means he's going back to comics, that dude can draw some great funny books. His Avenging Spider-Man issues were soooooo great.

I remember thinking that it was so great having him as a regular artist, then I found out he'd be leaving and we got Greg Land instead.

My heart was broken that evening.

I absolutely adore Joe Mad's style, and am very sad that I probably won't be seeing it in any video games any time soon. I can only imagine that he's moving on because Darksiders is being put to rest for a bit. A shame if true. Who doesn't want the implied Fury game, Strife game, and the inevitable Four Horsemen game?

@Pixel_Kaiser said:

@Jolt92: Oh gosh yes, this.

I really hope this means he's going back to comics, that dude can draw some great funny books. His Avenging Spider-Man issues were soooooo great.

This would be okay with me. I've only read the Spider-Man/Red Hulk team up story, but goddamn was it fantastic.

@Slay3r1583 said:

Maybe he is finally going to finish Battle Chasers. HA! Like that would ever happen.

@Knigge said:

Joe Mad is quitting something again? Big surprise.

@rolanthas said:

Maybe he can finally finish Battle Chasers now.

@The_Ruiner said:

Yup...that's his pattern. WHERE THE FUCK IS BATTLE CHASERS #9 !?!?!?!?

ALL OF THIS!

Goddamn you Joe, I believed in you! I even have the goddamn first issue in the gimmicky stupid chromium cover somewhere!

He drew the first story-arc of Avenging Spider-man last year, which was his first comics work since he joined Vigil. So it is highly probable that his next move could be back to comics.

man I'm getting flashbacks of when he ended battle chasers early.

@TheVideoHustler said:

He's going to work with Cliffy B

TestosterPWN Interactive.

I am worried by this. I feel like any attempts for future Darksiders games to emulate his aesthetic is not going to successfully walk the tightrope of evoking over-the-top 90s comic art without falling into the trap of horrible that much of 90s comic art is remembered for.

People leaving left and right. WTF is going on? What's next?

Clearly I'm not the only one wanting more Battle Chasers.

I think Darksiders 2 is my biggest disapointmet for the year so far. Not a bad game, just not the game I wanted...

XBLA/PSN/iOS App Store/Droid App Store/Kickstarter continue to prove to developers that the big studio development meat house isn't their only option anymore. Smaller studios and bigger ideas are continuing to prove themselves as worthwhile ventures financially (and unquestionably personally).

One of the biggest stories of this year, 2012, has to be the massive number of extremely talented people abandoning the big studios in an effort to make something more worthwhile than the massively budgeted, over-marketed, deadline-riddened flops that just fail to sell alongside the Maddens/CoDs/Halos of the industry and ultimately cost them their jobs.

@Slay3r1583 said:

Maybe he is finally going to finish Battle Chasers. HA! Like that would ever happen.

What did we get to, 4 issues over several years? Easily the laziest man to ever work in comics.

Maybe he will finish battle chasers now

Oh no, whatever will become of my favorite aspect of Darksiders, the character designs?

@Enigma777: sound like Jeff's words

Real disappointed, Darksiders is an amazing franchise and without Joe we won't see a third or at the very least it won't be the same.

Which makes the fact that both games built up to the same cliffhanger even worse.

If this was last year, I'd be upset. But after surprise hit Darksiders 1 and lots of expectations/hype for the sequel, Darksiders 2 was kind of not that great. No idea what they were doing with that game's story and they messed up the gameplay with the loot and leveling systems. No idea if there will be a 3, with or without Joe.

@believer258 said:

When founding members leave so soon, it doesn't look good. I hope they don't go the way of... wait, I've already forgotten who made Kingdoms of Amalur.

he was with the company 7 years. that isn't soon.