Arnold Hendrick, creator of Microprose's 1992 RPG Darklands, has died. According to a message posted to a Facebook group of former Microprose employees, Hendrick passed away after a battle with cancer.

Hendrick was credited with multiple games during Micro-Rose's heyday, including "Gunship," "Sid Meier's Pirates! , "F19 Stealth Fighter," "Silent Service 2," and "The American Civil War: From Sumter to Appomattox." However, "Darklands" may be his best-known work. Although it was not a hit, mainly because it was plagued by bugs at the time of its release, it is a game world with an amazingly deep system, attention to detail, and a genuinely unique and "realistic" game world - a mythologization of the Holy Roman Empire of the 15th century, with creatures and dangers that people at the time believed were real and actually exist.

In 2009, Todd Howard cited "Darklands" as the inspiration for the "Elder Scrolls" games, and more recently, Obsidian's Josh Sawyer has been providing an extended live stream of "Darklands" on Twitch. You can read his 2012 retrospective interview with Hendrick at RPG Codex. Sawyer also pays tribute to Hendrick on Twitter:

Hendrick worked for developers such as Interactive Magic, Kesmai, Electronic Arts, and Area 52 Games after leaving Micro Rose, and in 2016 He became a freelance consultant. He is 69 years old.

Thanks, Gamasutra.