Gaming

Deus Ex director Warren Spector is retiring after nearly 45 years in game dev

Aug 18, 2026 | 5 min read

Spector 'thinks' he's retiring for good, despite having ideas for three games he'd love to make.

Warren Spector, the veteran game developer who worked on the likes of System Shock, Deus Ex and most recently Thick as Thieves, is retiring after 43 years.

Spector shared the news earlier today via LinkedIn, where his profile now shows "retired" as his current job. "I'm retiring from game development," he writes. "At least I think so. I've been here before and changed my mind but this time I'm pretty sure I mean it."

The developer goes on to remember his career a month away from his 44th year in the industry. In that time he shipped 17 full games, and around "nine or so" add-on packs.

"I've run teams as small as a dozen and as big as 800," Spector says. "I've worked for big companies and done startups. I like to think I've helped some insanely talented people along in their careers. (That last is the most important.)"

Now, the developer says that with age and health catching up to him, he's feeling like he's done what he was set out to do. For the time being, he's set on writing and reading books, do lecturing, and potentially do consulting.

Yet, Spector admits having "mixed feelings" about the decision, especially since there are three games in particular he'd still like to make: one that's very big, one that's very small, and one he doesn't know how to make.

"But the game business has changed and it's just not as much fun for me anymore," he says. "Plus there's a new generation of developers coming up who deserve their time in the sun."

Spector's latest venture yielded uneven results. He helped lead OtherSide Entertainment along with the likes of fellow veteran developer Paul Neurath. The team released a stealth-action heist game called Thick as Thieves on May 30, which went through a massive reduction in scope. It was introduced as a larger competitive multiplayer immersive sim before being turned into a smaller, $5 game focused on single-player and co-op play.

OtherSide had another project in development, codenamed Argos, which was cancelled. This led to 17 jobs being cut at the studio at the end of May. Weeks after, the team laid off another group of employees, making for a total of 36 people losing their jobs in just about a month.

The company, which received a substantial investment from Swedish game conglomerate Aonic in 2023, continued to employ "fewer than 10" people to performance maintenance on Thick as Thieves as of July, with no plans to work on any future games.

"To all of you reading this I want you to remember that games are not a solved problem yet—there is, I hope, plenty of experimentation and innovation to come," Spector's LinkedIn post says. "And to all you young developers out there, I've said it before and I'll say it again, your job is to make people forget people like me ever existed."

He concludes: "Will I come back? Never say never. But I think it's time to ride off into the sunset. Now stop reading and make great games."

Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist and critic from Argentina. Video games helped him to learn English, so now he covers them for places like The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and more. He also runs Into the Spine, a site dedicated to fostering and supporting new writers, and co-hosted Turnabout Breakdown, a podcast about the Ace Attorney series. He’s most likely playing a rhythm game as you read this.

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Source: Diego Argüello · https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/deus-ex-director-warren-spector-is-retiring-after-43-years