This February at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, videogame industry legend Mark Cerny will be formally inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, joining the likes of luminaries such as Shigeru Miyamoto, John Carmack, Will Wright and Sid Meier.

Mark Cerny has made major contributions to videogame technologies and numerous titles throughout the years, some of which you may not even realise he had a hand in, including Marble Madness way back in 1984, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1992, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Heart of Darkness, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Resistance, Uncharted, MotorStorm, Heavenly Sword, inFamous and Killzone 2, with many more to come in the future through his consultation company, Cerny Games.

After receiving word that he would be inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame, Cerny said:

“I’m thrilled to accept this award, which clearly has a lot to do with the drive and talent of the many teams that I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the years.”

How modest.

AIAS president Joseph Olin commented in a statement:

“Mark Cerny is the closest we have come to a modern-day Da Vinci. What he does isn’t restricted to a single aspect of game creation - he really is a Renaissance man.

“He is a diversely accomplished game designer, producer, programmer and technologist, fluent in Japanese and one of the foremost Western experts on the Japanese game market,” Olin continued. “He’s also one of the only top-level independents in a business dominated by institutions.”

Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells also let the world know how great Cerny is:

“Mark is one of the only individuals who have managed to stay on the cutting edge of game development from the heyday of arcade games all the way up to the current generation of gaming consoles. Each step of the way he’s redefined how the industry thinks about game design, technology, and production philosophies.”

Sincere congratulations to Mark Cerny on a truly momentous achievement.