Ru Weerasuriya

With over 18 years of experience in the entertainment industry, Ru started his career with industry-renowned developer Blizzard Entertainment®. Initially working on Starcraft™, he then led the Cinematic art direction for Warcraft™ III, Starcraft: Ghost™ and World of Warcraft™, and helped the Blizzard™ Film Department win numerous awards and accolades over the years.

In 2003, Ru co-founded Ready At Dawn Studios®. 2006 saw the release of Daxter® to commercial and critical acclaim, winning multiple Game of the Year awards. In 2008, the studio released its second game, God of War®: Chains of Olympus under Ru’s direction. Hailed by the public and critics as the best PSP game ever made, it has won both a 2008 Academy Achievement Award and a 2008 Game Developer’s Choice Award. The studio’s following title, God of War: Ghost of Sparta achieved a similar feat in 2010 winning another Academy Achievement Award as well as a VGA award. In 2015, the studio released The Order: 1886, an original intellectual property developed exclusively for the PlayStation 4. The game is still hailed as a technological marvel, showcasing the power of the current console generation.

As President and Chief Creative Officer of Ready At Dawn®, Ru leads the company’s overall game and creative development. He serves as the creative director and lead writer across all the studio’s titles, including Deformers®, a multi-platform fast and frantic third person smash’em arena game, a VR project developed exclusively for the Oculus Rift, and lastly, a brand new Triple-A franchise, all of which are original intellectual properties.

Ru has been named one of the top 100 developers in the world in both 2008 and 2009, and for the last few years, has served as a judge for the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Achievement Awards and as a member of the Advisory Board for the Game Developers Conference. An alumnus of Art Center College of Design, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial & Transportation Design. His work has appeared in several publications.

A native of Sri Lanka, having grown up in Switzerland, Ru has lived and worked in Southern California since 1996.