Chief game designer Brian Reynolds has left Zynga. In an email to employees today, Zynga said Reynolds "has decided to move on and pursue other opportunities.”

Zynga president of games Steve Chiang confirmed the news this afternoon, issuing the following statement to Joystiq

"Brian has a long history in the game industry and has been a great partner to the creative leaders at Zynga. I want to thank him for his leadership of the Zynga Baltimore studio in the design and development of FrontierVille, which brought many innovations to social gaming. We appreciate Brian's contribution and we're proud of the deep bench of creative leaders who are leading the next wave of game innovation at Zynga. We wish Brian the best in his next chapter."

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Reynolds joined Zynga in 2009 and served as chief game designer on Frontierville. Prior to Zynga, Reynolds was lead designer on Civilization II and Rise of Nations.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.