Listen to Episode Two of the Waypoint UK Podcast, with Games Industry Legend Ian Livingstone

It's not often you get to sit down for a full hour with someone who's not only seen the games industry grow and blossom over the past four decades, but who's actively influenced and directed its course. But here we are: the new Waypoint UK Podcast is 60 minutes in the company of Ian Livingstone.

Ian's career began in the mid-1970s, when he founded Games Workshop. Working initially from a London flat, he helped popularize Dungeons & Dragons in the UK and Europe, with Games Workshop the sole licensed importer of the game at the time. To me, personally, he's most loved as the co-creator of Fighting Fantasy, a series of game books that spearheaded the choose-your-own-adventure genre in the 1980s and '90s. (How I devoured those books as a kid.)

Ian's worked extensively in video games, too—it was under his guidance at Eidos Interactive that the Tomb Raider and Hitman franchises took their first steps. With 2016 representing the 20th anniversary of Tomb Raider, we discuss the first game's launch and how it represented such an incredible blueprint for third-person action gaming to come.

We also find time to answer a handful of questions from Waypoint friends and readers (thanks for sending them over), consider how going ahead with Brexit will impact the British video games industry, and look ahead to the possibility of a return to Fighting Fantasy, as it celebrates its 35th anniversary in 2017.

Stream to the podcast below, or download it to listen at another time. Alternatively, find it (and previous episodes) on SoundCloud. Subscribe to the Waypoint UK Podcast on iTunes here.

Find more Waypoint podcasts from the US here. On the next Waypoint UK Podcast, Mike (hi) will be joined by guests from Eurogamer, IGN UK and Videogamer, to talk about some of 2016's very best games, since it's that time of year.

Follow Ian and Mike on Twitter at @ian_livingstone and @mikediver respectively.