Game Dev Legend Jane Whittaker Reflects on 44 Years in The Industry: From Alien vs Predator to Upcoming Xenomorph

INTERVIEW – In a career spanning more than four decades, Jane Whittaker has helped shape the video game industry from its earliest days to its current era of billion-dollar franchises and cinematic ambitions. He began coding in hospital as a child in the early 1980s, teaching himself on a Sinclair ZX81 before joining a games company full-time at just 16 years old. From that point forward, Whittaker never looked back, becoming one of the most quietly influential figures in game development.

Perhaps best known for his groundbreaking work on Alien vs Predator for the Atari Jaguar, Whittaker earned the moniker “Father of the Survival Genre” while navigating the chaos of developing for unfinished hardware. His stories from those years are more than just retro anecdotes – they are a window into an era when game development was wild, personal, and unpredictable. Whittaker not only survived that chaos, he thrived in it, helping to define what immersive design means to this day.

Now, as co-founder of his own studio Athena Worlds, Whittaker is building something new. His next title, Xenomorph, is a spiritual successor to AVP and a culmination of years of thinking about AI, storytelling, and mechanics. In this rare and candid interview, he reflects on his journey, shares his thoughts on the state of the industry, and explains why his passion for making meaningful games has never faded.

When did you first realize that video games could be more than a hobby for you?

Well, I taught myself to code in hospital. I had lots and lots of surgeries as a kid. And we’re talking 1980, 1981-ish. The Sinclair ZX81 was the machine of the day. It was kit built and I thought: ‘well, what am going to do with it?’ So I taught myself to code and built a game for fun. Then I got talent-spotted with that game. People saw it. I put it out in mail order and I got offered jobs and I thought, you know, I’m 14 years old. So it was literally at that point I thought, this is going to be my career. I love it. After school I didn’t go to university or any of those things, I went straight to a games company at 16.

Looking back at your career, there must have been a game or two that you turned down working on that turned out to be a success. Any regrets like that?

Going back to the early days, I’d have liked to have worked on Elite, David Braben’’s game. It’s called Elite Dangerous now, but that started in the 80s. David and I were the same publisher in 1982. The publisher was Microprose (under the Rainbird and Firebird labels), one of my first jobs, which was Sid Meier’s first studio, long before he set up Civilization and all of those big games. So I went to sit at that studio and I would have loved to have gotten involved with the code of Elite. I did have the opportunity to help out, I did turn it down because I was working on another project with the studio. I suppose that’s the one I probably regret.

Like you said, you joined the gaming industry at a very young age. So, what did the gaming world look like from the eyes of a teenage developer in the 80s?

Obviously, the budgets were zero, and it was a lot less corporate. I might get myself in trouble with the readership but it was a lot more fun as a developer back then. I mean, you did the whole game yourself from start to finish in six weeks. Everything, including artwork, music, sound effects – absolutely everything. That was the industry norm. But the fun was that we were part of a very small select group. Somebody told me last year, and I looked into it, they were actually quite right. They said that those of us in Europe, never mind just the UK, but in Europe, probably with the US too, but certainly in Europe and the UK could have all been fitted on the same bus.

If the original community of game devs was so small, did you all know each other?

Yes, we all knew each other. We spent time with each other, we’d socialise with each other, we’d be going to events together.

Do you have any funny anecdotes you can share from back then?

There was a show called the PCW show (Personal Computer World) in London, which was the UK version of E3, before the E3 show started. And then myself and our developers, we got together at a restaurant outside of London. And we had this lunch together, and then we thought, ‘okay, we’re all gonna head off to the show now and go and do our bit for our publishers,’ but we created a mass panic because we all got lost walking through London. When we were walking around central London it started to rain. I won’t name the developer but one very famous developer, still famous now, was out in front with an umbrella saying ‘follow me’ and it’s like Mary Poppins going round London as we’re walking round and round in circles.

Your big break came with Alien v Predator on the Atari and earned you the title “Father of Survival Shooters.” What was it like to work on the Atari and did you take any creative risks that you weren’t really sure of at the time?

There were a number of risks, and I can list them for you. I’ll start with the biggest technical risk which was the hardware. The Atari Jaguar console wasn’t finished when we were making the game. So we’d been working our way through the code – there were only two programmers, myself and Mike Beaton on the project – and we’d go home one evening, come back the next morning and our code wouldn’t work. Mike and I coded the whole thing from start to finish, and we’re like, ‘what’s changed?’ They would change the hardware overnight. So it’s literally instructions in the microprocessor. Coding instructions and actual language instructions would change overnight because they were still writing the actual language and code for the console as we were making the game.

How did you manage a big project like that under those circumstances?

We’d get a list of changes every day. We’d find bugs in the hardware and we’d report that back in and so on. So we were beta testing the hardware and the hardware was changing around us. And we were getting briefed every morning about the current status of the hardware. It didn’t even look like a console. It looked like a jumble of wires and a circuit board sat in a PC case. It was literally changing and rewiring every night. There were like a handful of them in existence, like six or something, that Atari had and that was it. So we were working with the prototype that was getting changed constantly. Atari Jaguar and AVP became like a marriage in the sense that they were kind of like spurring each other on.

So in a way, the story of Alien vs Predator is also the story of the Atari Jaguar. What was it like to work on a console prototype?

There were only six of them in the world at that time for development. You can imagine how much these things would be worth to Atari – tens of millions probably. And I couldn’t drive at the time. And I had to bring one back from Heathrow on the train hundreds of miles to my house. And was I scared with this thing on the luggage rack on the train? I’m like, ‘I’ve got Atari’s new secret console that they haven’t told anybody about yet. It’s just sat here.’ I couldn’t take my eyes off it for the entire journey. It was a bit of a risk getting it over the train. That was interesting. Lots of train changes and walking around with this big heavy bag with a secret console in it.

With the regular changes to the hardware, were there any game mechanics that you worked on that got lost along the way?

The biggest challenge from the gaming side was memory space on the cartridge. I can’t remember the exact size, but ironically after we finished the game they doubled the standard cartridge size so we could have done a lot more. I worked for Atari, but the artwork was from Rebellion and we wanted it really, really photo realistic. And we actually got models from Fox from the movie sets – little miniature models that they’d used for the sets and for special effects. And we actually photo digitized those and imported them into the game. And that was the first time that had ever been done.

Technology has gone leaps and bounds forward since then – Do you believe the emotional maturity of game narratives has evolved as fast as the technology behind them?

There’s some very, very smart people out there working on narrative now, but I think there’s a lot more work that needs to be done. I’m looking at Clair Obscur (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) and they’ve done a fantastic job on the narrative. Absolutely amazing. I think that technology needs to start bringing in the very smart writers that the movie and the TV industry has, rather than game developers writing their own narratives, as sometimes happens. I don’t want to go down a corridor and shoot something. I want to be immersed in a story that I feel I’m part of. That’s why I’ve always liked working on games where there’s a story behind them. I think a lot of games now, they’re going for lovely graphics and flashy explosions. I was at EA for years as a dev and publisher, I would say to the teams: ‘Why is it there, apart from it looks nice? Where’s the gameplay? Where’s the fun behind it?’

Many games nowadays seem to be focusing on large environments even if it’s a sandbox game. And world maps are getting bigger and bigger, so what’s your take on open world fatigue that players are now experiencing?

I’m an open world developer. It’s what made my career. Still, people have this idea that if you make 100 square miles or whatever, that’s the way to go. It’s not, it’s not about the size of the world, it’s about the content you put in it. Does that hill have a reason? Does it benefit the gameplay? Is it fun? Nobody wants to walk two hours through a forest where it’s just a forest. After a while you’re used to looking at those trees. So I feel that every single thing in an open world game, even things that just look like pretty environmental things, actually benefit either the player, the player’s mindset or the gameplay. I’m sorry, but I’m a great believer in only making a world big enough for the content you plan to put in it. Lead with content and build the world around it, not the other way around.

So, how do you manage to stay creatively fulfilled in this industry now when it’s so bent on monetization and commercialization?

That’s a really good question. I have games that I really want to make, I got a list as long as your arm. So I’ve got the passion, I’ve got ideas that I want to do. Obviously I want those ideas to be commercial. So I talk to the commercial people about whether we think we can make money with this and survive. But I’m not driven by commerce, I’m still driven by passion. I think it is something that comes with me after 40 years of doing this. There wasn’t anything but passion when we first started this business. And that hasn’t changed. And I’ve always worked in environments that have been great, that haven’t been a sweatshop environment.

Is this the message you share in your studio, Athena Worlds?

The studio that Mike Meaden and I have just founded, we have a sense of excitement, a genuine sense of excitement because we have the passion for the projects we’re making. There’s two things I always say when you’re making a project: ‘Make sure that the customer has a passion for it, and then make sure you have a passion for it.’ Because if you have passion for both, the money will follow. If you look through my CV, you’ll find that I’ve never done a derivative of an existing type of game or genre. Everything I’ve worked on and picked in my career has been something that stood out as new in its field. I’m proud of that and that’s what’s kept the passion going for 44 years.

I suppose this would now be the perfect moment to talk about your next passion project – Xenomorph. I understand that there’s probably not too much you can share, but where are you in development of this new title?

There’s been a test code for three or four years. The studio has been very quiet for a long time. We’ve been prototyping, creating test codes for multiple projects, designs against multiple projects. Xenomorph came to life maybe four years ago or something. People kept saying to me over and over, ‘you’ve done AVP, can you produce something else?’ About four years ago, I started writing it up and I’ve been basically toying around with designs and scripts and lots of sheets of paper and lots of things I want to do. And then with our studio, it started to come to life. We got an investment earlier this year that really allowed me to hit the go button on all these design ideas that I’ve come up with.

How close are you to a playable demo? How long till we can actually see something?

It’s going to be quite a while because we’ve started various prototypes. We’re putting various things and tests together on the screen and we have internal players in front of it and seeing what works and what doesn’t. We’re testing out various mechanics to make sure we’re happy with them and then they’ll be blended into the overall design. We’ve got a test world that the team has created and we’re reiterating through various systems to see what sits nicely inside that test world and how they interact with each other. And then once we’re satisfied with all the gameplay elements, the art team will come in over the top and create the pretty art around it.

And are you going for consoles or PC first?

PC first, consoles to follow. The publisher wants us on Steam first, and I agree. We’re likely doing early access on Steam. That’s still in discussion with the publisher. I’m not telling any tales out of school, but we’re still working out how we want to do that, if we want to do that. And then, once we get initial PC feedback, we use the feedback into making the game for consoles. What I don’t want to do is a straight port to console.

In terms of intellectual property, what are you allowed to actually use? Because it was mentioned as a spiritual sequel to Alien vs Predator.

The entire IP is ours. This isn’t a Fox or Disney IP. We’re not even mimicking a Disney or Fox IP. We have been very, very careful. What we want to do is create our own entire world. I want to take what I learned from AVP and put it in a whole new sandbox with all new creatures and a whole new design. So, even though it was very tempting to go and say, ‘Disney, can we have this IP?’ We realised very early on that we’re better off creating our own design because we can do things that just wouldn’t fit within anything but I own IP. So things that I would like to do technically and creatively, some of the way of creature thinking, some of the things that are going to happen in the environment, we want it to be really, really fresh. So when I say spiritual sequel, I’m building on the idea of the AI and my skills and experience in creating tense “jump out of your seat” environments.

So it’s more like an homage?

Yeah, that’s it, exactly that. Learning from techniques, AI techniques and survival techniques that I picked up with AVP and other titles. There’s lots of alien games out there now. I wanted to say that I’ve learned so much about survival over the years from this and other games. I’ve learned about crafting and all these systems that are in these games. I want to have a free run where I can just pick up these tools and build what I want. It’s picking up tools in terms of technologies and ways of writing code and creating a whole new universe with that, which means that my imagination could go absolutely crazy.

It sounds a little bit like James Cameron’s Avatar project where he had to wait for technology to catch up with his creative ideas.

I’ve had some of these ideas for a long time, waiting so I could have the processing power to do it. So there’s lots of things in there that I hope are ground breaking, and that’s not BS in saying that, it’s the mention of my reputation for being ground breaking. So I want to bring in lots of new ideas that this current technology, just about now, is allowing us to do. So the IP is our own IP, we can take it whatever direction we want, we want to do sequels and build this IP into years, we don’t want a one-off game, we want to create our own universe and build stories. What I don’t want is to create a procedural survival game. We’ve all seen them, I’m not going to name them. I get bored within 10 minutes of just seeing procedurally generated environments. I want the environment to tell a story. This is part of the design for Xenomorph. Each and every way you go should have its own story that drives the narrative and we can put surprises in there that you wouldn’t expect as a player.

So over the last year or so, which titles stand out to you that have been released?

I’m still addicted to Baldur’s Gate 3, absolutely addicted. I’m loving it and I’ll be playing it this weekend again for my umpteenth playthrough. There’s been things that have stood out. Veilguard stood out for me. I saw the negative reviews and the issues that people had with it. But what I liked about Veilguard was that I loved the environment, the graphics and the whole feel and movement. If they wouldn’t have tried to link it to the original IP, Dragon Age, it would have been great, and would have probably done better, which is part of what I was saying about what we want to do. But I really enjoyed that environment and going through that environment and exploring it. I don’t mean from a gameplay point of view, I mean from a visual point of view. The visuals were stunning.

As someone who knows all the ins and outs of how games are made from the ground up, you must have come across games and gone ‘what were they thinking?’

Yeah, I won’t name any of them but I could give you a string of about 20 MMOs off the top of my head because that was cut and paste gaming to the extreme to me and it drives me crazy. Now, I know people love them, but for me, it’s just a giant spreadsheet. There’s no soul to it. You’re doing the same thing over and over. The character model changes, but the actual mechanic of the game doesn’t. There’s never anything new, it’s just the fights get harder. Regardless of the pretty characters that are walking around the screen, I’m realizing what’s going on. The stats underneath and I see a spreadsheet where variables are getting changed around all the time. 

Now, have you ever thought about writing a book about your life in gaming?

I get asked that once a week. I just need to sit down and find the time to write the book.

What would you mainly focus on if you wrote that book?

It’s been an incredible journey. I’ve travelled the world, I’ve worked as a publisher, I’ve travelled the world buying games and I’ve travelled the world creating games. I spent a year in Lake Tahoe making games. I’ve been all over the world and done so many things. It’s been quite the ride. People said they really want to see all these stories of what it’s really like to make games. I think I’ve seen pretty much every angle of the games industry. So I’d like to talk about what’s been real, how 1981 has changed to 2025 and what it’s been in terms of the industry.

Is there too much bickering going on in this industry? Why do you think there’s so much anger and vitriol in this industry nowadays?

People say the vitriol is because of passion. I honestly don’t know the root cause. I think it’s something that needs addressing. The good news is it’s a small minority. I think it’s wrong and it needs to stop. I spend a lot of time mentoring and working with various groups in the background. I do my bit for diversity and equality groups. I try to get involved wherever I can to bring people together to help fight against that as I’ve been a victim of personal attacks. Gamers are turning on each other, but they’re also turning on developers such as me. I can list you quite a lot of developers who’ve had huge amounts of hate mail, huge amounts of attacks. There’s a very famous development studio in the UK where they had to hire guards for the developers because of all these attacks.

You’ve been interviewed many, many times throughout the years, obviously. So what’s the one question journalists never ask you, but you wanted them to ask?

Have I enjoyed the 44 year ride? The answer is a resounding yes!