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Elder Scrolls and Kingdoms of Amalur lead designer joins Turbine

Kingdoms of Amalur

Ah! Ken. Ken Rolston. Ken led the good ship Bethesda for a number of years as lead designer for Morrowind, its two expansions, and finally Oblivion, before consigning himself to a well-deserved rest from game development. He since came out of retirement for one last job – Big Huge Games’ Kingdoms of Amalur and 38 Studios’ linked MMO, Project Copernicus – but in a cruel Hollywood twist, was laid off alongside all of his colleagues when both studios shut down this summer.

Fortunately, Rolston has been picked up and dusted off by Turbine, them of the quite good Lord of the Rings: Online, and put to work as design director.

Turbine say that Rolston is “one of the most accomplished fantasy RPG computer and video game designers of all time, with over a decade of lead designer experience on the award-winning Elder Scrolls franchise.”

He joins alongside new tech and engineering types NetherRealm’s Alan Villani, Zynga’s Jai Singh, and Petroglyph’s Demetrius Comes – a crack team brought together to help
“design and deploy the next generation of online gaming”.

Rolston has always built worlds, and nothing’s set to change here. But would you prefer to see his efforts funnelled into single player RPGs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks, GamesIndustry.