Ex-Battlefield lead Gordon Van Dyke joins Paradox Interactive as senior producer

After exiting the dev battlefield of DICE back in 2010, Gordon Van Dyke recently left his second EA gig at Visceral Games in favor of a different Swedish game company: Paradox Interactive. Before wild accusations start flying, know that his reason for leaving was rather heartwarming. "During my time back in California [with Visceral], I married my girlfriend from Sweden and we had a baby. We decided it was best to raise her in Sweden," Van Dyke told Joystiq this afternoon.

In the process of moving, a friend of Paradox CEO Fred Wester put he and Gordon in contact. The rest is Swedish history. "I got an email from a friend introducing me to Gordon. Two days later he was hired," Wester explained of his rapid hiring process. Van Dyke, unsurprisingly, had nothing but nice things to say about his new employer, explaining that the studio "offers me more room to explore, take risk, and work on creative niche IPs."

But for a man known as a creative lead on first-person shooters (as well as one still unannounced Visceral Games IP, according to his LinkedIn profile), it seems especially odd that Van Dyke is heading up production at a company known best for niche PC titles. He, of course, sees the contrary, telling us it's a perfect fit. "I'm a really quirky dude with a huge passion for the obscure ideas."

Van Dyke calls the new employment arrangement a "win/win for me and Paradox," with him bringing experience on bigger titles, and Paradox offering creative freedom. His first project? The still unnamed Project Postman, in collaboration with Lead & Gold developer Fatshark. "He will be heavily involved in Postman, which is a multiplayer-centric game," Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester told us. "His expertise will help raise the bar in terms of quality and player experience." Van Dyke will also be involved in "several other titles," though no specifics were doled out just yet.

And it's possible we'll see some of those titles on home consoles, rather than the usual Paradox approach of PC-only, as Wester points out that "nowadays almost half of our development -- most of the people we've hired in the past year -- have console experience." As we see it, the hiring of Van Dyke as senior producer is a solid step in the console direction. Now ... about that console version of Magicka ...