Project Hail Mary Author Andy Weir Worked On One Of The Biggest Video Game Franchises Ever – SlashFilm

Andy Weir is on top of the world. “Project Hail Mary” has been dominating the box office and ranks as one of the best-reviewed movies of 2026. It’s the second time one of his books has become a hit blockbuster, following “The Martian.” That means he’s now a best-selling author with multiple Hollywood hits to his name. But long before all of that, Weir made his mark on the world of gaming.

In the mid-1990s, Weir worked at Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind the “Warcraft” franchise, which has sold a combined 70 million copies and generated more than $15 billion since its inception. The “Warcraft” movie was similarly the most successful video game movie ever at one point. In a 2015 interview with Lightspeed Magazine, Weir discussed working at Blizzard as one of the programmers on “Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.”

“Blizzard was one of the most unpleasant jobs I ever had,” Weir admitted. “Most of the people were cool; it’s just the workload was so intense. The software industry has really calmed down, but back in the early to mid-’90s, software engineers were mistreated. At Blizzard, if you were awake, you were at work. I remember working 16 hours a day, every day, and on weekends and holidays.”

That’s just the start. Speaking further, Weir explained that a simple weekend trip with his friends turned into a huge problem during this era of toxic work culture at Blizzard:

“I had this reunion planned with my friends, we were all going to get together and meet up in San Diego. Blizzard’s office was in Irvine, so it’s a decent distance away. It was just a Saturday and Sunday; I told the people at Blizzard a month in advance, and I got a lot of s**t; people were angry at me.”

“While I was there, they called me many times with questions. The product we made was really good, and I’m proud to have been a part of it, but working at Blizzard was miserable,” Andy Weir added. “Working at any game company or start-up — Blizzard was a start-up at that time — was miserable, so it’s not Blizzard, that’s just how the industry was at the time.”

Weir was later fired from Blizzard, and his interview is a reminder that lousy working conditions in various corners of the entertainment industry is nothing new. Just a few years ago, many VFX artists were fed up with Marvel largely due to being overworked and underpaid, among other things. It’s unfortunately a thing that seems to happen over and over again, be it in gaming, movies, TV, or what have you. Weir got his taste of that early on. 

For someone fresh out of college, though, working at Blizzard was an enchanting prospect. The author added that the whole experience burnt him out on gaming in general:

“The idea of being a game programmer was exciting, being fresh out of college and in my twenties. I burnt out at Blizzard. Nowadays, I’m not much of a gamer. I guess I never really was.”

Fortunately, everything worked out. Weir’s best-selling sci-fi book “The Martian” started as a series of blog posts but later became a huge movie directed by Ridley Scott, in addition to a hit novel. He’s been working as an author ever since, and a mighty successful one at that. But at least he can say he had a hand in forging one of the most important video game franchises in history.

“Project Hail Mary” is in theaters now.