Terry Hess, a longtime environment artist for Obsidian Entertainment, passed away last week. The developer has launched a GoFundMe, whose funds will go solely to the late artist’s family.
Hess first worked as a 3D environment artist for BlackOps Entertainment and Manifest Games in the mid-2000s. In 2005, he joined Treyarch, where he worked on Spider-Man 3, 007: Quantum of Solace and 2010’s Call of Duty: Black Ops.
From 2010 to 2012, he stayed in the military shooter realm. After working on DICE’s Medal of Honor: Warfighter, he joined Visceral Games and EA Montreal on Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel.
In 2013, Hess started at Obsidian with its free-to-play game, Armored Warfare. He’d later be assigned to the team working on The Outer Worlds as an environment art lead.
Obsidian deemed Hess “one of the main contributors” to its early demo to publisher Private Division. The demo helped the team hone “in on the [game’s] look, and is still a meeting that gets talked about with our colleagues at Private Division to this day.”
Of his Outer Worlds 2 work, the studio noted he “pushed on what he felt we could, and should, be doing with the worlds we create from a visual standpoint.”
“As we continue development of the sequel,” it continued, “we will strive to make sure that vision is achieved.”
“Terry was absolutely wonderful and can’t be replaced,” wrote Obsidian producer Mikey Dowling. “Tell people you love them.”
“Last week Obsidian had an incredible loss of Terry Hess. He was a great friend and a lovely individual,” added lead animator Cathy Nichols.
On his GoFundMe, Obsidian recalled Hess as “someone who anyone from any department could talk to. [He] was warm, welcoming, and a fantastic mentor. His loss will be felt for a long time and will be impossible to replace. He will be missed greatly.”