Christian Cantamessa (born October 4, 1976) is an Italian-American writer, director, and video game creator best known as lead designer and co-writer of Red Dead Redemption and the Manhunt series, designer on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and writer of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

He is also the founder and CEO of Sleep Deprivation Lab, which is a production company and video game consulting firm known for work on Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Crew, Forza Horizon, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Middle-earth: Shadow of War.

He also was the director and writer of Air, a feature film released in 2015 starring Norman Reedus, Djimon Hounsou, and Sandrine Holt.

In December 2020, it was revealed that Cantamessa was working on story, world-building and cinematic direction for the reboot of Perfect Dark with Xbox's The Initiative studio. He has since left the project.

In October 2024, Cantamessa announced that he had founded a new game development company called Day 4 Night Studios, in collaboration with longtime friend Davide Soliani (creator of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle and its sequel). Cantamessa is currently the co-Game Director on a new original game IP.

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