Brian Reynolds (born 1967) is an American videogame designer. Reynolds has designed at SecretNewCo,

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher known for its social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile an ...

, Big Huge Games, and

MicroProse MicroProse is an American video game publisher and video game developer, developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the ''Civilization (series), Civilizat ...

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 incorp ...

. 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 Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft Game Studios in May 2003. Designed as a fusion of concepts from turn-based strategy games with the real-time strat ...

'', '' Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri'', and '' FrontierVille''. He has also founded or co-founded three game companies, SecretNewCo, Big Huge Games, and

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 (game designer), Brian Reynolds following their departure from MicroProse, Meie ...

Early life and education

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 A sysop (, an abbreviation of system operator) is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online service virtual community.Jansen, E. & James, V. (2002). NetLingo: the Internet dictionary. Ne ...

on Randolph School's (

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is the List of municipalities in Alabama, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the List of United States cities by population, 100th-most populous ...

)

PDP-11 The PDP–11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers originally sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the late 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of a ...

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

. A 1990 graduate of the University of the South, Reynolds briefly pursued graduate studies in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

Career

Reynolds initiated his game career with

where he worked as lead programmer for a number of graphic adventure games. These included '' Rex Nebular'' in

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

and '' Return of the Phantom'' and '' Dragonsphere'' in

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

. It was at MicroProse where Reynolds first worked with Sid Meier and the two collaborated on a strategy title by the name of '' Sid Meier's Colonization'' which was released in

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

. Reynolds went on to become lead designer for a sequel to '' Sid Meier's Civilization''. '' Civilization II'' was released in

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

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

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

, followed by the creation and design of '' Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri'' 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 Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

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

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

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

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of Big Huge Games. On June 30, 2009,

announced that Brian Reynolds was leaving Big Huge Games 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. (formerly ) is a South Korean video game developer and publisher. It develops and publishes titles including ''MapleStory'', ''Crazyracing Kartrider'', ''Sudden Attack'', ''Dungeon & Fighter'', ''The First Descendant'', and ''Bl ...

, a

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

n game developer, to develop their first game, '' DomiNations'', a mobile game similar to Civilization or ''

Age of Empires ''Age of Empires'' is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. The first title in the series, ''Age of Empires'', focused on events in Europe, Afri ...

''. Big Huge Games was acquired by Nexon in 2016.

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 ''Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends'' is a science fantasy real-time strategy video game for Microsoft Windows, made by Big Huge Games, and published by Microsoft. It is a spin-off of the popular ''Rise of Nations'', released in May 2006. However, ...

'', a real-time strategy game,

published Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. Reynolds and

Klaus Teuber Klaus Wilhelm Heinrich Teuber (25 June 1952 – 1 April 2023) was a German board game designer best known as the creator of ''Catan''. Originally working as a dental technician, he began designing games first as a hobby then as a full-time care ...

collaborated to develop the

Xbox Live Arcade Xbox Live Arcade (or XBLA) was a video game Digital distribution in video games, digital distribution service that was available for the Xbox (console), Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles. It focused on smaller downloadable games from both major publisher ...

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

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Games

References

External links