[DELICIOUS POISON]

I don't know how I missed this news, but it's very sad and a terrible loss for the gaming community.

On January 15, 2008, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Metroid Prime's lead programmer, passed on after a long battle with cancer. While you probably haven't heard of him before, you certainly know about his games, and he was a well-known and well-liked industry veteran. In fact, when you begin to learn about what all he accomplished, Mark should be considered nothing less than one of game development's finest.

Originally from England, Mark started out in the industry porting early titles like Paperboy (1987) and programming Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1993), the latter of which he got famous for. Afterward, he worked for LucasArts on such well-known games as Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995), Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996), and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998). He was the project leader for both Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron, and we've also been told he programmed all those memorable boss sequences in Shadows of the Empire.

Mark Haigh-Hutchinson was one of the founding members of Retro Studios. He was the senior engineer throughout the Metroid Prime series, and is credited with creating the game's excellent camera system as well as the critically acclaimed Wii-mote control system for Metroid Prime 3, certainly one of the finest control systems ever designed. His book, Real-Time Cameras, should be completed later this year with help from his co-workers at Retro Studios.

On behalf of the Metroid Database and our community, we would like to send our most sincere condolences to Mark's family and friends. His memory will live on in his games, from the urban dystopia of Zombies Ate My Neighbors to the lurking depths of Xizor's Palace, and the melancholy vistas of alien worlds seen through Samus's visor he helped create – as well as in the hearts of those who knew him. Mark was 43 years old and will be dearly missed.

Source: The Metroid Database :: Welcome!

RIP Mark.