RIP Brad McQuaid

Brad McQuaid, once considered one of the giants in the MMORPG field for his work on EverQuest, died Monday night. The news was posted on the Pantheon forums yesterday.

It is with deep regret and profound sadness that we share that Brad McQuaid, Chief Creative Officer of Visionary Realms passed away in his home last night.

Brad was a visionary, a mentor, an artist, a trailblazer, a friend, a husband, a father. He touched thousands of lives with his dreams and concepts. He changed the landscape of video games forever. He will be deeply missed and forever remembered in life and in Pantheon.

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

All of us at Visionary Realms offer our deepest condolences to Brad’s family and during this most difficult time, we kindly ask that you respect the privacy of Brad’s family.

McQuaid's fall from the pantheon of top MMORPG developers occurred with the development and lanuch of Vanguard. My only experience with a Brad McQuaid project was Vanguard. I went out and bought a new computer and intended to leave EQ2 to play the new game. When the new computer couldn't run Vanguard, I returned to EQ2 and found the computer ran the game wonderfully.

I wasn't the only player to have issues running Vanguard. Articles and videos abound describing the decline and fall of McQuaid's studio, and subsequently the game. Those events colored the views of potential players and I believe led to the failure of the Pantheon Kickstarter effort. The game then received enough funding in 2017 to continue development.

People getting into the MMORPG genre today may only know McQuaid from his efforts of the last 10 years. But back at the end of the 20th century and beginning of this one, he was a giant.