Something went wrong. Try again later

Giant Bomb News

75 Comments

Darksiders Creative Director Joe Madureira Leaving Vigil Games

Details on Madureira's "next big thing" to be revealed in the months ahead.

No Caption Provided

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!”

No Caption Provided

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

Patrick Klepek on Google+

75 Comments

Avatar image for geraltitude
GERALTITUDE

5991

Forum Posts

8980

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 17

User Lists: 2

Edited By GERALTITUDE

Well, as someone who never liked Joe Mad's style, this could be good news. Maybe D3 will appeal to me.

Avatar image for joeybagad0nutz
joeybagad0nutz

1500

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By joeybagad0nutz

@algertman said:

@Joeybagad0nutz said:

@I_Stay_Puft said:

Please not Greg Land. Please not Greg Land.

What's wrong with Greg Land?

His super power is tracing.

Oh that Greg land. My bad. I thought we were talking about a greg land in the gaming industry. Not comic book.

Avatar image for driftspace
DriftSPace

137

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By DriftSPace

I guess I'm done with the Darksiders franchise now.

Avatar image for bobby_the_great
Bobby_The_Great

1140

Forum Posts

11

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Edited By Bobby_The_Great

I really hope we get a Darksiders 3.

Avatar image for algertman
algertman

871

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By algertman

@Joeybagad0nutz said:

@I_Stay_Puft said:

Please not Greg Land. Please not Greg Land.

What's wrong with Greg Land?

His super power is tracing.

Avatar image for stahlbrand
Stahlbrand

905

Forum Posts

24

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 9

Edited By Stahlbrand

The next big thing is shoulder pads, right?

Avatar image for trylks
trylks

995

Forum Posts

144

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 8

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

If games are not involved, I don't care about whatever that is. Sorry.

Avatar image for draugen
Draugen

1007

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 20

Edited By Draugen

Quit screwing around and finish Battlechasers!

Avatar image for joey_ravn
JoeyRavn

5290

Forum Posts

792

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 3

Edited By JoeyRavn
Avatar image for joeybagad0nutz
joeybagad0nutz

1500

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By joeybagad0nutz

@I_Stay_Puft said:

Please not Greg Land. Please not Greg Land.

What's wrong with Greg Land?

Avatar image for damodar
damodar

2252

Forum Posts

1248

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Edited By damodar

Hmm. I, like the rest of you, wonder what this means for the Darksiders series. Maybe if they do another, he can do some freelance work on it or something.

Avatar image for retrovirus
retrovirus

1669

Forum Posts

130

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 17

Edited By retrovirus

Man, I wonder if that means we'll ever see Darksiders III.

Avatar image for i_stay_puft
I_Stay_Puft

5581

Forum Posts

1879

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

Edited By I_Stay_Puft

Please not Greg Land. Please not Greg Land.

Avatar image for musubi
musubi

17524

Forum Posts

5650

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 8

User Lists: 17

Edited By musubi

@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.

Haha damn so did I.

Avatar image for mayorfancyhat
mayorfancyhat

6

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Edited By mayorfancyhat

Maybe he'll just go back to doing cover art for PSM. His Soul Reaver cover is still one of my favorite 90's magazine covers of all time, just for how Image Comics the whole thing was.

Avatar image for klumzee
KlUMZeE

328

Forum Posts

359

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 0

Edited By KlUMZeE

Man, that sucks; Darksiders 2 was great and I would've love to see this guy complete the saga. Best of luck to you Joe, in whatever you do!

Avatar image for deranged_midget
Deranged

2022

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 10

User Lists: 5

Edited By Deranged

Wow this extremely saddening. Darksiders II was a fantastic game and quite an improvement over the first in some regards. Best of luck to you Joe!

Avatar image for cannibaldeth
CannibalDeth

13

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Edited By CannibalDeth

Jeez, what's with everybody leaving game studios? CliffyB, The Dr.'s from Bioware, now Joe Madureira. If Todd Howard leaves Bethesda, I'm quitting gaming.

Avatar image for mrcraggle
mrcraggle

3104

Forum Posts

2873

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

Edited By mrcraggle

If DS3 gets made and is more like DS1, then I'm in. More of DS2 and I really don't care.

Avatar image for devyn
Devyn

12

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By Devyn

@Slay3r1583: Legit lol. I forgot Batle Chasers was even a thing that existed.

Avatar image for giantstalker
Giantstalker

2401

Forum Posts

5787

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 15

User Lists: 2

Edited By Giantstalker

This bodes ill for Darksiders, but to be fair, I never saw the series having particularly long legs anyway. The other 2 "horsemen" sucked compared to War and Death.

Avatar image for popmasterruler
popmasterruler

689

Forum Posts

111

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

Edited By popmasterruler

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Avatar image for megalombax
MegaLombax

457

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By MegaLombax

Bummer...the thing that got me really hooked with Darksiders was the art style. Such a shame.

Avatar image for mktacuara
mktacuara

49

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By mktacuara

Oh no..... now who's gonna do nothing at Vigil. No seriously.... I know a bunch of artists at Vigil he was basically never there it wont affect the studio at all. Wish him the best.

Avatar image for jayzilla
Jayzilla

2709

Forum Posts

18

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 7

Edited By Jayzilla

@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.

Avatar image for legalbagel
LegalBagel

1955

Forum Posts

1590

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 7

User Lists: 7

Edited By LegalBagel

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.

Avatar image for vorbis
Vorbis

2762

Forum Posts

967

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 11

Edited By Vorbis

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.

Avatar image for suits
Suits

495

Forum Posts

48

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Edited By Suits

@Enigma777: sound like Jeff's words

Avatar image for saturdaynightspecials
SaturdayNightSpecials

2593

Forum Posts

92938

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 26

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

No Caption Provided
Avatar image for slightconfuse
SlightConfuse

3996

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Edited By SlightConfuse

Maybe he will finish battle chasers now

Avatar image for viking_funeral
viking_funeral

2881

Forum Posts

57

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 6

User Lists: 5

Edited By viking_funeral

@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.

Avatar image for superbobafett
superbobafett

111

Forum Posts

19

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 5

User Lists: 12

Edited By superbobafett

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.

Avatar image for enigma777
Enigma777

6285

Forum Posts

696

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 8

Edited By Enigma777

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

Avatar image for whiskeyjack
Whiskeyjack

123

Forum Posts

9

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 6

Edited By Whiskeyjack

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

Avatar image for phrosnite
phrosnite

3528

Forum Posts

1

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

Edited By phrosnite

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

Avatar image for pluckylump
pluckylump

61

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By pluckylump

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.

Avatar image for damian
Damian

1521

Forum Posts

10

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By Damian

@TheVideoHustler said:

He's going to work with Cliffy B

TestosterPWN Interactive.

Avatar image for crithon
crithon

3979

Forum Posts

1823

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 11

Edited By crithon

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

Avatar image for cybexx
Cybexx

1697

Forum Posts

1458

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 9

Edited By Cybexx

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.

Avatar image for deactivated-5d7bd9e4bef30
deactivated-5d7bd9e4bef30

4741

Forum Posts

128

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@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!

Avatar image for ultimaxe
UltimAXE

887

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By UltimAXE

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.

Avatar image for lugixx
Lugixx

75

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Edited By Lugixx

@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.

Avatar image for the_ruiner
The_Ruiner

1801

Forum Posts

28

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Edited By The_Ruiner

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

Avatar image for pixel_kaiser
Pixel_Kaiser

86

Forum Posts

68

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 7

Edited By Pixel_Kaiser

@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.

Avatar image for zirilius
Zirilius

1700

Forum Posts

49

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 2

Edited By Zirilius

@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.

Avatar image for alternate
alternate

3040

Forum Posts

1390

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

Edited By alternate

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.

Avatar image for scarlet_rogue
Scarlet_Rogue

542

Forum Posts

27

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

Edited By Scarlet_Rogue

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

Avatar image for joey_ravn
JoeyRavn

5290

Forum Posts

792

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 3

Edited By JoeyRavn

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.