Zoid Kirsch is an American video game programmer and level designer. His career began when he created Threewave Capture, a highly successful Capture The Flag mod for Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena and Quake 4 from Id Software. He was then hired by id to design this mode for subsequent Quake games. In 2000, Kirsch departed id and was senior engineer of Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. alongside the late Mark Haigh-Hutchinson at Retro Studios. He used to work in Valve.
Kirsch was working on Retro's Car Combat before it was canceled to free up development for Prime. Kirsch is said to be responsible for the data streaming when traveling from area to area in Prime, and for the Parasite Queen's shield.
Kirsch had built Super Metroid into Prime as an unlockable extra through Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance with cable connection with Metroid Fusion, but he had used a third-party emulator to do it. Nintendo ordered the game's removal because of it, leading to the original Metroid being used instead, with a Nintendo emulator.[1]
The beta name of PFC P. Wills, D. Zoid, is likely named after Kirsch.