Knighthoods are on the way to three notable Games Industry figures from the French Order of Arts and Letters, the first time anyone involved with videogames has been knighted.

The first recipient will probably come as no surprise, being eveyone’s favourite uncle Shigeru Miyamoto! As I’m sure you’ll be aware he’s the creator of most of Nintendo’s best loved games, including Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and Pikmin. If a game has come from Nintendo, chances are Mr. Miyamoto has had some influence in it’s creation, however minor.


The next recipient is Ubisoft’s Michel Ancel, who most recently was hand chosen by Peter Jackson to create the videogame for the King Kong movie. Jackson is said to have loved Beyond Good & Evil, Ancel’s game which while critically acclaimed failed to sell. While King Kong may be big, Ancel’s most successful creation is the limbless Rayman.

And last but not least is Frederick Raynal. He’s probably the least well known of the three, but he was the designer of Alone in the Dark, which he created while at Infogrammes. Don’t underestimate his contribution to videogame history though. If it weren’t for Alone in the Dark, we may never have had the Resident Evil series, which originally used the same mix of rendered backdrops and polygon characters first invented by Raynal. Raynal left Infogrammes and set up his own company Adeline, where he created the PC hit game Little Big Adventure.

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