Jake Solomon, game designer (Marvel’s Midnight Suns; XCOM: Enemy Unknown.)

My guest today is the American designer of some of the finest strategy video games yet made. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in Computer Science in 2000, he accepted a job to become a business consultant. Before he arrived for work, however, he saw an advertisement for position at Fireaxis, the development studio founded by the legendary designer, Sid Meier, which he successfully applied to.

Having worked as a programmer on Civilization III and IV, in 2012 he relaunched the cult classic strategy series X-COM, a chess-like game in which players direct a squad of troops in skirmishes against alien invaders. More recently he steered the creation of Marvel’s Midnight Suns, one of the best games of 2022, that carried the lessons learned in X-Com into Marvel universe.

Earlier in 2023 he announced his departure from Fireaxis, the company where he worked for more than 20 years. “My brain is on fire with a new dream,” he said. “Time to go chase it.”

Play the console:

• Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
• UFO: Enemy Unknown a.k.a XCOM: UFO Defence
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
• Rock Band
• Minecraft

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