For a long time, everyone involved with Nightwatch has associated the project with original creator Andrew "KungFuSquirrel" Weldon. Things, however, change over time, and his outstanding leadership in directing the mod coupled with his extensive previous level design experience have secured him a professional game development position at Raven Software working on Quake IV.

As a result of his new obligations, Andrew has been forced to step down from active participation in the administration of Nightwatch in order to concentrate on his duties at Raven. He had prepared a statement for release along with the media update that will occur later this week, but I don't think it does justice to his contribution to have the statement drowned out in the frenzy of a content release. The statement follows in its entirety.

When I first formed Nightwatch as a concept in my head, it was a simple map pack with two level designers and a single programmer. I had no idea that 2 1/2 years from the formation of that first concept I would ever see it develop into what it has today... In particular, I never imagined that my work in building Nightwatch to what it is today would play a great part to land me a position as a level designer at Raven Software.

My employment at Raven begins June 24th, and as this happens it is with great disappointment I announce my departure from Nightwatch. This has been a huge part of my life since its inception and as incredible an opportunity as Raven offers me, it is still greatly saddening to leave the project now when it has come so far. This project has grown on a fine line between evolution and feature creep, bringing itself to the point of being the largest SP episode attempted for Half-Life, dwarfing even Opposing Force and Blue Shift in total content.

People often have asked me how I've made this mod what it is, or what (if anything) will become of it when I'm gone. The answer? I haven't made it what it is. The team creating it has. Countless people at one time or another have contributed their talents to this project, each one building upon what was there before in a constant cycle of improvement. The Nightwatch of now is far beyond the early days. It is this same team of people that will carry Nightwatch to its completion. I'm merely the administrative figurehead that put together a few crappy pieces of some maps and set the stage for the rest of the team to make the evolution it has to this point. My ideas set this in motion, my work formed the base for later works, but the biggest changes and improvements have come from the sometimes ignored team members, the real heroes of this endeavor. This team is among the most talented group of people I have ever been involved with and it has been a great pleasure working with them and getting to know them over the course of development. I have not only worked with these people, but come to call them my friends.

To those of you who have been following Nightwatch: Keep it up. Your support has been pivotal in getting the project this far and, as time goes on, will become more and more important. The word of mouth spread on this project has been unbelievable, and I thank every one of you who has ever said to another, "Hey, check this out."

And, of course, to those working on Nightwatch now and who will work on it in the future... All my best. You guys are making something really special and I would give anything (except a job at Raven, heh) to stay with it to the end.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's been fun. I'll see you around.

Andrew "KungFuSquirrel" Weldon
Nightwatch Project Founder