Nick Heindl

Nick is an engineer-turned-designer who has worked on games enjoyed by over 10% of the planet, including Call of Duty and PUBG.

Most recently at ZeniMax Online Studios (ZOS), Nick was the Accessibility Team Lead and Principal Technical Designer.

At ZOS, Nick was responsible for overseeing all features related to accessibility for an unreleased AAA MMORPG built with a new ECS-based engine from the ground up. This role brought Nick into tight collaboration with various teams, internal and external. Coordinating, designing, and diving into code all made up a typical day for him.

Prior to this role's creation, Nick's primary focus at ZOS was on Technical Design, where he established many best practices, processes, and procedures. Nick's implementation efforts were focused on scaling up various systems to withstand the needs of live-service, including technical feature ownership of narrative systems and pipelines as well as helping stand-up a new script environment similar to Blueprints.

Prior to ZOS, Nick was a Gameplay Engineer at Raven Software and PUBG Corp., where the games he worked on were often featured on bags of Doritos. His claim-to-fame was advocating for and implementing the ping system used in Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Warzone.

Fortunate to be making games throughout his life, Nick's passion for game development stems from a love of creation, collaboration, and empowering teams to do their best work.

Outside of games, Nick is passionate about Language, Lego, and Learning new things. He also adores spending time with his various pets: The cats, Jiggle Billy and Goob, as well as Leonard the bearded dragon.

Currently Playing: Fantasy Life i, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Unnamed Space Idle

All Time Favs: Dark Cloud, Katamari, Fallout 3/NV, Pokemon Snap, Timesplitters, Edith Finch, Harvest Moon, SOMA, Red Dead Redemption (1), and Conker's Bad Fur Day.