BRIAN BURKE

SENIOR ANIMATOR

Brian Burke was born in San Francisco, CA. At 14, while attending high school, Brian was completely obsessed with 3D Animation after watching the movie, Toy Story in 1994.  In the early summer days of 2000, while working in retail selling the first ever flat screen tv, he was given a job at Crystal Dynamics and offered a chance to be a full-time video game tester. An offer he willingly accepted. His experience testing Soul Reaver 2, Blood Omen 2, and one of the first 10 Exclusive Microsoft Xbox game titles, Mad Dash Racing, confirmed his interest in pursuing a career as an Animator for the video game industry.

At 22, Brian attended a brand-new private art school, Ex’pression Center for New Media in Emeryville, CA to pursue his career in 3D Animation. That year, his animation class held a video concept competition and the winner would go on to create a 3D character animation sponsor video for the Visual Effects Society festival. Brian’s animation concept was chosen by popular vote and the sponsorship became an incredible success for the school. After graduating in 2003, it wasn't long before he was hired by one of the biggest and leading video game studios in the country, Electronic Arts, where he began working as a full-time Animator for the hit open world game, The Godfather.

In the fall of 2006, Brian partnered up with some of the top local talent in Marin County at Visual Concepts. It was here he focused solely on motion capture animation for NBA 2K series and All-Pro Football 2K8. His work with motion capture became a fruitful venture and his passion and interest grew even more for realistic character and creature animation.

In 2008, a call to return to Electronic Arts to work on an up and coming original horror game, Dead Space, led Brian back to Silicon Valley in Redwood City, CA. It was here he was able to focus on creature animation. The project won numerous awards including being nominated for an Annie Award and for Best Animated Video Game. Brian’s passion for immersive experiences grew, and so did his interest for cinematography. He went on to animate on numerous large-scaled projects including Godfather 2, Dante’s Inferno, and Dead Space 2.

With plans to expand his craft, Brian moved to Los Angeles in 2011 to work with some of the industry’s best Visual Effects Artists and Animators on a prequel game called Lost Planet 3. However, the PS3 and Xbox360 console generation peaked which led Brian back to the Bay Area to explore other ventures, where he worked as a Contract Animator for Blind Squirrel Games and eventually landed a job as an Animator for the successful free-to-play online MMO Action RPG, Marvel Heroes 2015.

In 2015, life came back full circle for Brian when a call from Crystal Dynamics gave him the opportunity to work on Rise of the Tomb Raider, the sequel to 2013’s hit reboot, Tomb Raider. The project won many awards including a DICE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation and became a huge success for Crystal Dynamics. His work earned him a captain role and went on to animate on many in-game cinematics for the final installment of the trilogy, Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Crystal Dynamics, now a much larger company, allowed Brian to grow not only into a senior level role but his passion for cinematography led him to become the studio’s very first in-house Cinematic Animator for Marvel’s Avengers.

In 2019, Brian caught the attention of Ascendant Studios and moved back to Marin County to spearhead the Animation Department as a Senior Animator for an original unannounced AAA title. While early on in the project and being the sole Animator for the start-up studio, the infrastructure forced Brian to take on the traditional responsibilities of a Lead Animator role and was integral of igniting and owning the creation of the animation department all by himself.

2020 brought forth a very challenging transition year for Brian. Surviving under the conditions of the Coronavirus pandemic and a broken political and social climate, Brian engaged in a new direction by improving his skill sets and focused on his creative and technical goals while stretching his expertise across the globe for his next big opportunity. While being considered to for-fill Animation leadership roles from many well known game studios, Brian knew he needed to grow more as Senior Animator before taking the next big leap. A few months later, Brian forged a new path to success. A phone call from Austin, Texas led Brian to move from California to chase a new opportunity in the Lone Star State; one that allowed Brian to exploit his knowledge base and continue his up-rise as a Senior Animator with a new band of professional developers at Aspyr Media. 

Brian’s experience in Texas allowed him to become a very successful Senior Animator, but a call from Southern California immediately grabbed his interest about a new “golden state” opportunity. He was introduced to a stellar team of experienced Animators who welcomed him home with open arms. Brian knew this opportunity would not only be his ticket back to California, but this was his way to show a new team a reinvented version of Brian’s 16 year career. His technical experience and artistic ability was won over by the team and he was quickly hired on by a studio now formed as part of the Xbox Game Studio family, inXile entertainment. 

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Brian currently resides in Orange County, California with his wife, Maricel Burke.