At journey’s end, a hero rests: Celebrated game developer Rebecca Heineman dies at age 62

The gaming community mourns a beloved mentor and LGBTQ+ advocate with a storied career.

A recent self-portrait of Rebecca Heineman from her GoFundMe page. Credit: Rebecca Heineman

by Benj Edwards, Ars Technica

On Monday, veteran game developer Rebecca Ann Heineman died in Rockwall, Texas, at age 62 after a battle with adenocarcinoma. Apogee founder Scott Miller first shared the news publicly on social media, and her son William confirmed her death with Ars Technica. Heineman’s GoFundMe page, which displayed a final message she had posted about entering palliative care, will now help her family with funeral costs.

Rebecca “Burger Becky” Heineman was born in October 1963 and grew up in Whittier, California. She first gained national recognition in 1980 when she won the national Atari 2600 Space Invaders championship in New York at age 16, becoming the first formally recognized US video game champion. That victory launched a career spanning more than four decades and 67 credited games, according to MobyGames.

Among many achievements in her life, Heineman was perhaps best known for co-founding Interplay Productions with Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, and Troy Worrell in 1983. The company created franchises like Wasteland, Fallout, and Baldur’s Gate. At Interplay, Heineman designed The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate and Dragon Wars while also programming ports of classics like Wolfenstein 3D and Battle Chess.

A screenshot of the MS-DOS version of The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate. Credit: MobyGames

After leaving Interplay in 1995, Heineman founded Logicware and later Contraband Entertainment in 1999. At Contraband, she led development on Myth III: The Wolf Age and oversaw ports for major titles, including Baldur’s Gate II and Heroes of Might and Magic IV.

During the 1990s, her work on the 3DO port of Doom became infamous in gaming history. Heineman programmed the port in a matter of weeks under extreme circumstances, a story she later detailed on GitHub and in interviews.

In 2013, she founded Olde Sküül with her wife Jennell Jaquays and other industry veterans, serving as CEO until her death. Ars Technica previously spoke with Heineman in 2022 about her studio’s work on a Stadia port of Luxor Evolved that was canceled when Google shut down the streaming service.

From champion to advocate

During her later career, Heineman served as a mentor and advisor to many, never shy about celebrating her past as a game developer during the golden age of the home computer.

Her mentoring skills became doubly important when she publicly came out as transgender in 2003. She became a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ representation in gaming and served on the board of directors for GLAAD. Earlier this year, she received the Gayming Icon Award from Gayming Magazine.

Andrew Borman, who serves as director of digital preservation at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, told Ars Technica that her influence made a personal impact wider than electronic entertainment. “Her legacy goes beyond her groundbreaking work in video games,” he told Ars. “She was a fierce advocate for LGBTQ rights and an inspiration to people around the world, including myself.”

The front cover of Dragon Wars on the Commodore 64, released in 1989. Credit: MobyGames

In the Netflix documentary series High Score, Heineman explained her early connection to video games. “It allowed me to be myself,” she said. “It allowed me to play as female.”

“I think her legend grew as she got older, in part because of her openness and approachability,” journalist Ernie Smith told Ars. “As the culture of gaming grew into an online culture of people ready to dig into the past, she remained a part of it in a big way, where her war stories helped fill in the lore about gaming’s formative eras.”

Celebrated to the end

Heineman was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma in October 2025 after experiencing shortness of breath at the PAX game convention. After diagnostic testing, doctors found cancer in her lungs and liver. That same month, she launched a GoFundMe campaign to help with medical costs. The campaign quickly surpassed its $75,000 goal, raising more than $157,000 from fans, friends, and industry colleagues.

In her final update to the fundraiser on November 16, Heineman wrote, “It’s time. According to my doctors. All further treatments are pointless. So, please donate so my kids can create a funeral worthy of my keyboard, Pixelbreaker! So I can make a worthy entrance for reuniting with my one true love, Jennell Jaquays.”

Jaquays, also a celebrated game designer and artist, died in January 2024 from complications of Guillain-Barré syndrome. The couple had worked together throughout their careers.

“Rebecca Heineman loved living in a world that had video games to make and code to port, but she hated a world with all that but no Jennell,” tech archivist Jason Scott told Ars. “In the process of having that one last bug fixed, she made sure literally to the end people would remember Jennell Jaquays’ name. We should remember them both and all they did in amazing lives.”

Rebecca Heineman’s son William told Ars that his mother held on to see her grandson one last time and passed shortly after they said goodbye. She died surrounded by friends, her niece, her son, and her grandson, William “Andy” Heineman.

Heineman is survived by five children and a deep legacy of kindness that made a huge impression on everyone around her. “I think the stories that will continue to come out over the coming weeks, months, and years will show just how much of an impact she had, and how much her friendship meant to so many of us,” Borman told us.