Harvey Smith bows out of ION Storm Austin

Game design veteran Harvey Smith has confirmed reports that he has left the ION Storm Austin studio, where he most recently worked as project lead on Deus Ex: Invisible War on Xbox and PC.

Smith was previously working alongside another well-respected name in the game design world, Deus Ex creator Warren Spector, who is now thought to be providing input to a game title for another of Eidos' US studios, Crystal Dynamics.

Little information is available about the reasons behind Smith's departure from ION Storm, or what is future plans are. It's also unclear what the future holds for ION Storm Austin itself - while the studio is generally considered very successful, it's not known what projects it has in the pipeline following the soon to be released Thief 3, and the new Deus Ex title is thought to be underway at Crystal Dynamics, not at ION Storm.