Interview: Soren Johnson - Spore ’s Strategist

Designer and programmer Soren Johnson came to work at Maxis on Spore in late 2007, after more than 5 years working as a designer on the Civilization series at Firaxis. Most notably, he programmed the AI for Civilization III and then stepped up to lead designer and AI creator on the acclaimed Civilization IV - so adding him was a significant coup for Will Wright’s Emeryville-based team.

He brings to the now almost-finished Spore project, which will debut in full this September, an understanding of what gamers want and expect - both from the micro level of how the controls work, to the macro level of how AI should behave in a strategy game.

At a recent event related to the game, Gamasutra sat down to talk in-depth with Johnson, somewhat of a public face for the game in its late stages.

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