Chris Avellone

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Chris Avellone in Manila , 2009

Christopher Frederic Avellone (born September 27, 1971 ), called Chris or MCA, is an American computer game designer who became known for his work on many successful role-playing game series. His specialty is character design. Avellone was a long-time employee of Black Isle Studios and the development studio Obsidian Entertainment, which he co-founded .

Life

Avellone is a descendant of Sicilian immigrants. He attended William and Mary College in Virginia , from which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in English. In the period thereafter, he began writing short stories and role-playing material , some of which were featured in various specialist publications such as Dragon Magazine for Dungeons & Dragons .

Bruce Harlick, editor at the RPG publisher Hero Games , gave him the chance to write a book for the Dark Champions RPG series . There he later moved to the video game department of the publishing house. After several releases at Hero Games, Avellone began looking for better income opportunities. Steve Peterson, one of the bosses at Hero Games, finally got him an interview with Interplay , a major game publisher at the time . His role-playing knowledge and ideas convinced Interplay and he got a position as a game designer in Interplay's new role-playing division, Dragonplay .

Game developer career

Avellone moved to Orange County (the seat of Interplay). His first projects included Descent to Undermountain and Fallout 2 in 1997 and 1998, but Avellone also took on work on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy .

In the following years he worked on almost all of the company's very successful computer role-playing games, for which the publisher founded the in-house development studio Black Isle Studios . It was directed by Feargus Urquhart , who continued to support Avellone's career. Avellone became the lead designer of the RPG Planescape: Torment , released in 1999 , which was largely based on his ideas. Planescape used the same technical basis as Baldur's Gate , which was published shortly before, but mainly focused on a narrative style with extensive text. Although the game made little profit compared to Baldur's Gate , it received a lot of critical acclaim.

After doing exhaustive work on Planescape: Torment , Urquhart assigned Avellone to work on the Icewind-Dale series . He also helped out as a designer for the action RPG Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance developed by Snowblind Studios . Over time, the situation at Interplay changed as the company's financial position deteriorated. Company founder Brian Fargo left the company in 2001 and the new management under Hervé Caen increasingly turned away from the development of PC games. The development cycles for games became shorter and shorter and employees had to be laid off. Avellone stayed with Black Isle anyway, working on the concepts for Project Jefferson ( Baldur's Gate 3 ) and Project Van Buren ( Fallout 3 ). He also supported other development studios in the development of role-playing games. At Reflexive Entertainment , he helped with dialogues and character development in the early development phases of their game Lionheart . For Snowblind Studios he worked on the development of the story and dialogue for their EverQuest project Champions of Norrath , which appeared in 2004.

However, when Interplay stopped developing Baldur's Gate 3 and the almost completed third Fallout title in a short time , it was a hard blow for Avellone, who had put a lot of time and energy into completing these titles. Avellone had lost confidence in the company's management. When Feargus Urquhart resigned in response to the changes at Black Isle, Avellone decided to leave the development studio after nearly eight years. Together with his Interplay colleagues Feargus Urquhart, Darren Monahan, Chris Parker and Chris Jones, he founded the development studio Obsidian Entertainment in June 2003 .

His first project at Obsidian was the Star Wars role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords , released in 2005 , for which he was the lead developer during the thirteen-month development. Also in 2005 the comic book publisher Dark Horse Comics published the comic story Unseen, Unheard he wrote in the comic Star Wars Tales # 24 , which is based on this game. This was followed by other short comic stories published as part of the Clone Wars Adventures comic series .

Neverwinter Nights 2 was released in 2006 , followed by its add-on Mask of the Betrayer in 2007. In both projects, he was involved as senior designer in the respective project. 2010 appeared with his participation Alpha Protocol (as lead designer) and Fallout: New Vegas (as senior designer). For the latter, he wrote the comic short story All Roads , which was included with the collector's edition of the game and published as a free download by publisher Bethesda Softworks shortly before the game was released. Avellone was involved as a narrative designer in the in-house production Pillars of Eternity , published in 2015 .

On June 9, 2015, Avellone announced its departure from Obsidian Entertainment. In September 2015, his collaboration on the role-playing game Divinity: Original Sin 2 by the Belgian developer Larian Studios became known.

In June 2018, it was announced that Avellone would be responsible for the 2019 survival horror action role-playing video game Dying Light 2 as the story designer.

Design principles

Chris Avellone often uses things in his games that bother him about the game world, the rules or the role-playing game genre. For example, the main character's immortality in Planescape: Torment is based on Avellone's criticism of the dying system of role-playing games, and since rats are often chosen as easy entry-level opponents in role-playing games, he turned them into powerful opponents. In Knights of the Old Republic II , he processed his dissatisfaction with the simple good-bad morality of the Star Wars universe and the strong predestination that comes with power. The character Kraia is an intense examination of the question of what remains of a Jedi who has lost access to power. Alpha Protocol is billing with irrelevant interaction in role-playing games. The player should make binding decisions and not be able to shuffle back and forth through dialogue trees or change his mind several times.

He described the games Fallout , Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss , Chrono Trigger and System Shock as particularly influential for his work as a designer . In 2009 he was named one of the 100 best game developers of all time by the game magazine IGN . In the same year, the industry magazine Gamasutra also counted him among the top 20 computer game authors.

Ludography (excerpt)

comics

Starwars:

  • Unseen, Unheard , in: Star Wars Tales 24 , Dark Horse Comics, 2005.
  • Heroes on Both Sides , in: Clone Wars Adventures: Volume 5 , Dark Horse Comics, April 12, 2006.
  • Impregnable , in: Clone Wars Adventures: Volume 7 , Dark Horse Comics, 2007.
  • Old Scores , in: Clone Wars Adventures: Volume 8 , Dark Horse Comics, 2007.
  • Graduation Day , in: Clone Wars Adventures: Volume 10 , Dark Horse Comics, 2007.

Fallout:

  • All roads . Dark Horse Comics, 2010. Supplement to the Collector's Edition of Fallout: New Vegas

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Shea: Planescape Torment Interview - Chris Avellone ( English ) Bella Online. Retrieved March 9, 2011.
  2. ↑ a b c Chris Avellone's CV on LinkedIn
  3. ↑ João "Briosafreak101" Vieira: Planet Fallout Interview - Chris Avellone ( English ) Planet Fallout. September 20, 2010. Archived from the original on January 5, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 9, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / planetfallout.gamespy.com
  4. ↑ a b c d Chris Avellone: ​​A Man Of Many Words ( English ) gamesTM. June 28, 2010. Retrieved March 9, 2011.
  5. ↑ a b Chris Dahlen: AVC at GDC '10: An interview with Alpha Protocol creator Chris Avellone ( English ) AV Club. S. 1. March 11, 2010. Accessed March 9, 2011.
  6. ↑ EDGE editorial team: Chris Avellone: ​​Dark Knight (Part 1) ( English ) In: EDGE . Future Publishing. April 20, 2009. Archived from the original on June 25, 2010. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
  7. ↑ Chris Avellone interview (part 1) ( English ) In: StarWarsKnights.com . February 23, 2009. Archived from the original on April 30, 2009. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 2, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.starwarsknights.com
  8. ↑ EDGE editorial team: Chris Avellone: ​​Dark Knight (Part 2) ( English ) In: EDGE . Future Publishing. April 21, 2009. Archived from the original on May 31, 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
  9. ↑ Interview with Chris Avellone on EUCantina.net
  10. ↑ Product page Clone Wars Adventures # 10
  11. ↑ Denise Bergert: All Roads Comic for download . In: Gameswelt . Web Media Publishing AG. September 3, 2010. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
  12. ↑ GameStar.ru Alma Mater - Kickstarter. Chris Avellone: ​​"Project: Eternity is our chance to return to doing the types of titles we did at Black Isle" ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gamestar.ru
  13. ↑ Robert Purchese: Chris Avellone leaves Obsidian Entertainment . In: Eurogamer . June 9, 2015. Accessed June 9, 2015.
  14. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin-2/posts/1363117
  15. ↑ https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/dying-light-2-postapokalyptisches-actionspiel-angekuendigt-rpg-legende-chris-avellone-schreiben-story,3330837.html
  16. ↑ David Wildgoose: RPG Designer Hates RPGs ( English ) In: Kotaku . May 1, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2011.
  17. ↑ Chris Remo: An Interview with Chris Avellone - game designer, writer, and former 'unlucky schlep' ( English ) In: Gamasutra . UBM TechWeb. June 23, 2011. Retrieved September 26, 2011.
  18. ↑ IGN - 80. Chris Avellone ( English ) In: IGN . News Corp . February 2009. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
  19. ^ Bonnie Ruberg: The Gamasutra 20: Top Game Writers ( English ) In: Gamasutra . UBM, plc . February 20, 2009. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Avellone, Chris
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Avellone, Christopher Frederic (full name); MCA (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer game designer
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1971