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As reported by Variety, David Lynch, the auteur director of Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and more, has died at the age of 78. Lynch is survived by his four children, and leaves behind a body of work that had a transformative effect not only on film and television, but also videogames.
Lynch revealed at the end of 2024 that he had been suffering from emphysema due to many years of being an active smoker: “I have to say that I enjoyed smoking very much, and I do love tobacco—the smell of it, lighting cigarettes on fire, smoking them—but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment, and that price is emphysema.”
Lynch was reportedly unable to leave his home to direct new projects, but he wrote that he was optimistic about his health and said, “I am filled with happiness, and I will never retire.” Last week, Lynch’s producer Sabrina Sutherland wrote on Reddit that he was “good and safe” after evacuating due to the LA wildfires.
Lynch was born in Missoula Montana in 1946, and made his first feature film, Eraserhead, while studying at the AFI Conservatory from 1972-1976. The surreal, unsettling exploration of isolation and fatherhood became a cult classic. Lynch’s defining success was the TV show Twin Peaks, a detective story, melodrama, and surreal work of psychological horror set in the Pacific Northwest that paved the way for the entire prestige TV genre.
Lynch’s distinctive style influenced artists globally, and has had a substantial effect on the past 30-plus years of videogames. The developers of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening cited Twin Peaks as a primary inspiration, for instance, with its quirky cast, dreamlike atmosphere, and undercurrent of something more insidious and melancholy all showing the show’s influence.
The works of Remedy all lovingly crib off Lynch as well, going all the way back to Max Payne’s dream sequences, offbeat sense of humor, and Twin Peaks-spoofing show-within-a-show, Address Unknown. Further on, Alan Wake is practically a Twin Peaks videogame in all but name, while its sequel has clear parallels with the show’s 2017 continuation, The Return. Swery65’s Deadly Premonition series is similarly a very loving tribute—perhaps the most direct videogame homage to the show, coming across almost like an unlicensed spin-off.
“I’m shocked and very sad,” Remedy creative director Sam Lake said on X. “David Lynch has been a huge inspiration to me and a huge influence on my work. Rest in peace.” In another post, Lake revealed that the internal code name for Alan Wake 2 during development was “Big Fish,” a reference to Lynch’s memoir about meditation and creativity, Catching the Big Fish. “I think David Lynch is swimming with the big fish now,” Lake wrote. “Rest in peace. His influence goes far and wide and will live on.”
Further afield, Lynch’s trademark surreal, postmodern sensibility, menacing audio, and capacity for building dread out of mundane situations can be found in many games. The Silent Hill series is a great example that also explicitly references Lynch throughout—Silent Hill 2’s use of doppelgangers strongly recalls Lynch’s own in Twin Peaks. Metal Gear and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima is also a notable fan of Lynch’s work: “You gave me courage,” Kojima said of Lynch in 2018. The entire vaporwave aesthetic, particularly its emphasis on classical statuary in strange locations or configurations, clearly owes a debt to Twin Peaks’ trademark Red Room as much as it does the videogame Myst.
Other figures in the games industry who have expressed grief and admiration for Lynch on his passing include Immortality developer Sam Barlow, Ultrakill creator Arsi “Hakita” Patala, and Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer. “What I admired about David Lynch’s work was the deep empathy he had for his characters,” wrote Witcher 4 narrative director Philipp Weber. “It is something that I feel is rare nowadays with a lot of contemporary storytelling.
“We lost a truly great auteur, and I am sad to exist in a world without him. He will be greatly missed.”
Lynch had spent the past few years focused on short form projects and musical collaborations like a recent one with Twin Peaks actor Chrystabell. Despite rumored larger projects, including a proposed Netflix series called “Wisteria” that was ultimately not picked up, Lynch’s final major work will remain the 2017 third season of Twin Peaks, The Return. Lynch’s longtime friend and collaborator, actor Kyle McLachlan, shared a moving tribute to the director on Instagram: “I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is that much fuller because I knew him and that much emptier now that he’s gone.”
Kurt Indovina
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