Adrian Chmielarz

Adrian Chmielarz (born 1971 in Lubin ) is a Polish video game designer, programmer, creative director, producer and writer specializing in adventure games and first-person shooters. Chmielarz has co-founded and led Metropolis Software, People Can Fly and The Astronauts. He is one of the most prominent Polish video gaming figures, and has been described as one of the "most divisive" figures in the industry.

Life and career

Piracy business and amateur game development Born in Lubin on April 9, 1971, Adrian Chmielarz moved into game development in a roundabout way. In 1985, at the age of 14, Chmielarz attended the first Polcon science fiction convention in Błażejewko, where he first discovered an affinity for computers. He soon went through a Star Wars fan phase that saw him interact with a computer for the first time. By the late 1980s, he had become fascinated with computer games such as Knight Lore and Bugsy by reading about them in Przegląd Techniczny. The Wrocław marketplace where such goods were sold often had access to newer titles earlier. According to Chmielarz "many people would buy games, if only it would be possible." While he had a computer engineering company, the times were getting tougher and only giants with big money could survive on the market. Chmielarz decided to leave his profitable business and study at Wrocław University of Technology. However, he became bored and left without finishing his degree; he would later regret wasting his time at university.

By 1990, Chmielarz had his own computers and his obsession led to him playing and making games all the free time.

Founding the video game development studio People Can Fly in 2002, he went on to create the successful first-person shooter Painkiller (2004) and its follow-ups Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell (2004), Painkiller: Hell Wars (2006), and Painkiller: Hell & Damnation (2012). A partnership with Epic Games and the work on the Gears of War series of third-person shooters, in which he personally went from a multiplayer level designer for the first two games to being the original creative director of Gears of War: Judgment (2013), led to Epic acquiring People Can Fly in 2007 and the creation of their next first-person shooter, Bulletstorm (2011).

After leaving People Can Fly (by then fully owned by Epic) in 2012, Chmielarz formed the independent video game studio The Astronauts, which developed and published its debut game, the first-person adventure The Vanishing of Ethan Carter in 2014. His next game and a return to the first-person shooter genre, Witchfire, is to be released "when it's done".

Chmielarz has also written commentary articles for Polish video game magazines, including his monthly columns "Gawędy bez fai" and "Gawędy po fai" in Secret Service and NEO+. In English, he has written blogs at Gamasutra and Medium.

Games Year Title Role 1995 Teenagent Scenario designer 1997 Blaster! Designer 2007 Gears of War Additional level design 2013 Gears of War: Judgement Original creative direction 2014 The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Creative director, Developed as part of The Astronauts 2026 Witchfire Creative director, Developed as part of The Astronauts