Deus Ex designer and Blizzard executive spearheading intensive 12-month course that will only accept 20 students.

Deus Ex designer Warren Spector and Blizzard president Paul Sams will head up a new postgraduate game development course at the University of Texas in Austin, the school announced today (via Polygon).

The new Denius-Sams Gaming Academy post-baccalaureate certification program will begin during the fall 2014 semester and is designed for "top candidates looking for leadership training the field of video game production."

The University of Texas college of communication, college of fine arts, and department of computer science are working together to launch the program. According to Spector, the course will be "a little different" than the typical game-focused program.

He described the course, which will only accept 20 students, as a "much shorter, 12-month very intense program. It's kind of like the Navy S.E.A.L.s. It's going to be very competitive."

What will differentiate the program from other, similar courses is that it will "focus explicitly on that bigger, creative leadership. Both the management; the production side. And the game direction/creative leadership side. That's a space that isn't being served by a lot of the other development programs."

For more on the course, check out the video below.

Spector found himself out of a job when Disney closed Epic Mickey outfit Junction Point Studios in January.

He made headlines recently by lashing out at the new Wolfenstein game from Bethesda, though he later apologized for saying the world did not need a new "generically dark, monochromatic, FPS, kill-the-Nazi-giant-robot game."

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