News

    Neil Druckmann

    December 5, 1978 • 45 y.o.

    Place of Birth Declaration of Independence of Israel, Palestine
    Citizenship United States Israel
    Career 2009 — ...
    Genres Adventure, Action, Drama

    Facts

    Neil Druckmann was born into a Jewish family in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 5, 1978, the son of Yehudit (Judith) and Jerry Ilan Druckmann. His father is a former flight test engineer at Israel Aerospace Industries. Druckmann's family lived in Ramat Aviv until 1981, when they moved to Beit Aryeh, a settlement in the West Bank, where Druckmann recalled violence was a frequent topic on the news and in conversations at home. As an escape, his older brother Emanuel introduced him to comic books, video games, and movies at a young age. These forms of entertainment, particularly video games by Sierra Entertainment and LucasArts, helped him learn English. He became interested in storytelling and wrote his own comic books.

    Druckmann moved to the United States with his family in 1989, attending middle school and high school in Miami, Florida. He began to study a criminology major at Florida State University (FSU), aiming to get experience as an FBI agent to use when writing thriller novels. His brother snuck him into E3 in the late 1990s, and he attended the conference again in 1998, 2000, and 2002, as well as SIGGRAPH in 2002 and 2003. As an FSU student in 2001, he won a Conker's Bad Fur Day multiplayer competition organized by Nintendo and Playboy. While studying, he worked as a clerk at My Favorite Muffin and a salesman at PacSun. From July 2002, while living in Tallahassee, Druckmann spent a year as a graphics research assistant at FSU's Visualization Lab. During this time, he and some friends began developing the game Pink-Bullet for Linux and Windows. At one point, he wanted to be an animator, which required enlisting in art classes, but his parents forbade him from doing so.

    After taking a programming class, Druckmann realized that it was his preference, and he began a Bachelor of Computer Science with a minor in math in December 2002, graduating cum laude the following year with a grade point average of 3.61. Due to his academic results, he was a member of the Golden Key Honor Society. He moved to Pittsburgh, where he attended Carnegie Mellon University, and began his master's degree in entertainment technology in August 2003 at the Entertainment Technology Center. As part of the degree, he took a game design class by Jesse Schell, which taught him philosophies about positive impacts of games he would later use, and a virtual worlds course by Randy Pausch, which taught him to become more collaborative. Druckmann worked as a visual effects artist for a friend's team around this time. In April 2004, he developed the game Dikki Painguin in: TKO for the Third Reich for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a student at Carnegie Mellon, in collaboration with fellow student Allan Blomquist.

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                                Director — 4

                                2023
                                1
                                2023 — ...

                                Documentary
                                Neil Druckmann

                                  2
                                  2023

                                  Short, Documentary
                                  United States • Neil Druckmann

                                    3
                                    2023 — ...

                                    Sci-Fi, Horror, Action, 50 min
                                    United States, Canada • Neil Druckmann...

                                      2009
                                      4
                                      2009

                                      Animation, Adventure, 27 min
                                      United States • Neil Druckmann

                                        Writer — 3

                                        2023
                                        1
                                        2023 — ... — (based on the PlayStation Studios videogame written by) (created for television by) (written for television by)

                                        Sci-Fi, Horror, Action, 50 min
                                        United States, Canada • Neil Druckmann...

                                          2020
                                          2
                                          2020 — (story)

                                          Short, Drama, 4 min
                                          Canada • Phil Piasecki

                                            2009
                                            3
                                            2009

                                            Animation, Adventure, 27 min
                                            United States • Neil Druckmann

                                              Producer — 2

                                              2023
                                              1
                                              2023 — ... — executive producer

                                              Sci-Fi, Horror, Action, 50 min
                                              United States, Canada • Neil Druckmann...

                                                2022
                                                2
                                                2022 — executive producer

                                                Action, Adventure, 1 hr 56 min
                                                United States, Spain • Ruben Fleischer

                                                  Other — 14

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