Rebecca Heineman has been given a prognosis of one to four days to live after her adenocarcinoma diagnosis rapidly worsened over the past month.
The veteran game developer was taken to the emergency room with breathing difficulties. Her doctors have advised that further treatment would not be beneficial. According to her most recent updates, she is now focused on end-of-life arrangements.
Heineman’s fundraising page has been updated to reflect that donations will now go toward funeral expenses rather than medical treatment costs.
She is best known for her work as lead programmer and designer on The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate in 1988 and Dragon Wars in 1989. Both titles were influential CRPGs that shaped the genre during its formative years.
Her technical achievements extended far beyond those early successes. She executed one of gaming’s most infamous porting challenges when she brought Doom to the 3DO console under severe time constraints. The port had to be completed in just weeks for a holiday release window, working with limited hardware capabilities.
She also handled the SNES port of Out of This World without special chips or additional RAM. The technical problem-solving required for these projects earned her widespread respect among developers.
Heineman co-founded Interplay Productions in the early 1980s. She later founded studios including Logicware and Olde Sküül, contributing to dozens of titles across four decades.
A career of firsts
Before her development career took off, Heineman won the 1980 National Space Invaders Championship. The event is often cited as the first national video game tournament in the United States.
She also played a crucial role in preserving gaming history. Colleagues and developers have credited her with safeguarding legacy code and materials from the Interplay era, including reportedly preserving the source code for Fallout 1 and Fallout 2.
Heineman is a prominent transgender figure in the game development community and was married to the late game designer and artist Jennell Jaquays.
