Paradox Interactive and former Civilization V lead designer Jon Shafer are no longer an item. Their split was announced today through a Paradox press release.
Shafer was hired by the company just six months ago, in May 2017, and put in charge of a new project. The status of that project is now highly uncertain, and unconfirmed by Paradox’s announcement. Safe to say it wasn’t all that far along, though.
“It has become clear that we want different things creatively and we have therefore taken the mutual decision that it is best to part ways,” Paradox’s executive VP of studios Mattias Lilja writes, in the statement. Lilja adds that “[Shafer] has led some good discussions in our teams over the past few months.”
After a long spell at Firaxis, Shafer spent some time at Stardock where he contributed design work to Galactic Civilizations 3. In 2013 he launched a Kickstarter campaign for a strategy title called At The Gates. That project raised a little over $100,000 USD but has yet to be released. The latest update on the Kickstarter page is from May 2017, the month he was hired by Paradox.
