Jake Solomon, who recently said he has no regrets about Marvel’s Midnight Suns and has had his publisher’s full support to make his dream game come true, will have been an important player in the revival of the turn-based tactics genre with the releases games like XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2. His new destination is not yet known, but he calls his time at Firaxis Games “23 wonderful years” in his parting message.
All gratitude. pic.twitter.com/pqe56mVvd5
— Jake Solomon (@SolomonJake) February 17, 2023
Next Civilization
To compensate for this announcement a little, the Take-Two press release sounds the gong of a new era for Firaxis by appointing Heather Hazen as studio head, with always the same mission, namely to release recognized strategy games and appreciated all over the world. Although she has only been part of Firaxis since 2020, Heather Hazen claims 22 years of experience in companies such as Epic Games (on Fortnite) and PopCap Games (on Plants against Zombies). The new director takes the place of Steve Martin, who ran the studio since March 2006 and will leave the organization.
Even if it’s not exactly a wild surprise, the press release reveals that Firaxis is at work on the next installment of the Civilization saga, with the return of Ed Beach as creative director, as on Civilization 6. Civilization franchise has over 65 million games sold worldwide.
“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to continue the studio’s legendary legacy, starting with announcing that Firaxis is developing the next iteration of the legendary Civilization franchise. I’m fortunate to work with some of the best developers in our industry, and we plan to take the Civilization franchise to exciting new heights for our millions of players around the world. Additionally, we will continue to support Marvel’s Midnight Suns with post-launch content, and explore new creative projects for our teams.“, commented Heather Hazen.