Joe Waters worked on a host of games during his career as a software engineer. He worked on Counter-Strike for the original Xbox to his last credited games Halo 5: Guardians and Rise of the Tomb Raider. He was last credited as senior software engineer for Rise of the Tomb Raider. Over his career he worked for various companies including Monolith, FASA Studios, Rogue Entertainment and Hidden Path Entertainment. He would go on to find a permanent home at Microsoft. Microsoft hired him to work on the future of the Halo franchise and also to help Bungie finish Halo: Reach. He was eventually transferred to the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, an internal Microsoft team. The teams were dispatched to developers working on Xbox One games, helping the developers get everything out of the hardware of the Xbox One console.
Back from Clever Dunnes. Instantly you could see how Joe Waters impacted so many people & how much he will be missed. Firm handshake & RIP
— Collin Moore (@shinyidol) December 24, 2015
RIP Joe Waters, veteran game industry programmer. Sad to hear of his passing Tues night via freak accident. https://t.co/MhA1iDNdYr
— George Broussard (@georgeb3dr) December 24, 2015
Joe Waters died unexpectedly late in the night Wednesday, the cause is unknown. He was highly regarded as a brilliant software engineer by his peers and a great person to work with. Friends described him as being passionate towards work, having fun, being a great friend and a talented dev. Thoughts go out to family and friends.
