EverQuest lead producer and designer Brad McQuaid has passed away

Enlarge / The original promotional art for EverQuest. (credit: Daybreak Games)

Brad McQuaid, the lead developer for the groundbreaking massively multiplayer online (MMO) game EverQuest, has died, according to an update from his development team. He was 51.

Details about the circumstances of his death have not been shared publicly, other than a mention that he passed away in his home. The Twitter account for Pantheon, McQuaid's project at the time of his death, and Visionary Realms, the company behind it, tweeted out the following announcement:

It is with deep regret we share that Brad McQuaid passed away last night. He will be deeply missed and forever remembered by gamers worldwide.

Thank you for bringing us together through your worlds. Rest in peace @Aradune.

VR offers our deepest condolences to Brad's family.

McQuaid worked as a game programmer and designer starting back in the late 1980s, but he is most well-known for his role as lead programmer, producer, and designer (at various times) on EverQuest, the 1999 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that defined the genre to this day. EQ, which adapted the DikuMUD formula from text games for a 3D persistent graphical virtual world, was a breakthrough moment for MMORPGs. Its success codified that model for the genre as other, different ideas of what MMORPGs might look like (such as those posited by Meridian 59, Underlight, or Ultima Online) largely faded into memory.

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