Brad McQuaid, American game designer and co-creator ofEverQuestseries and developer onPantheon: Rise of the Fallen, has passed away at 51. Once upon a time, McQuaid stated that his mission in his career asa unique MMO creatorwas “to create worlds, not games.” It was with deep sorrow that the officialEverQuesttwitter account announced his passing on Monday of this week.
McQuaid was largely associated withEverQuestbut also had a hand in many other games. McQuaid initially caught the attention of John Smedley of Sony Interactive while he was developing one of his first gamesWarWizards 2, a shareware RPG demo that released in 1995. Smedley hired McQuaid and his partner Steve Clover to Sony Interactive Games to work on a mass multi-online role-playing game later to be namedEverQuest. Later on, McQuaid would go on to found Visionary Realms in 2013 and would work onPantheon: Rise of the Fallen, andsought out help from fans to help fund the project via Kickstarter. As of the release of this article, the fund had raised $460,657 of a $800,000 goal.
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Now, several fans and coworkers alike have been sharing their condolences with the community. The official Facebook page ofPantheon: Rise of the Fallenmade the announcement on their page earlier this morning and said, “Brad was a visionary, a mentor, an artist, a trailblazer, a friend, a husband, a father. He touched thousands of lives with his dreams and concepts.” Many fans on their page have noted that McQuaid was practically the father ofthe modern-day MMORPGs and paved the way for games likeWorld of Warcraft.
A developer ofPantheonand coworker at Visionary Realms, Benjamin Dean left a message on the MMO forums stating, “Thank you, Brad, for bringing us together through your worlds. Rest in peace, Aradune. All of us at Visionary Realms offer our deepest condolences to Brad’s family and during this most difficult time, we kindly ask that you respect the privacy of Brad’s family.” Aradune was McQuaid’s Twitter handle, an account whose last messages were used to promote the upcoming gamePantheon. One user on the Visionary Realms Facebook page commented, “I hope there is a memorial of him inPantheon,“a gesture not uncommon within the gaming community.
There is no word yet surrounding the circumstance of exactly how McQuaid passed, but it was stated that he was at home with his family. At this time, the family is asking theEverQuestcommunity to respect their grief and privacy.
