Leonard Boyarsky

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Leonard Boyarsky (right)

Leonard Boyarsky is an American game developer and visual artist . Among other things, he was instrumental in the development of the computer role-playing games Fallout and Diablo 3 .

Career

education

After earning a bachelor's degree in illustration from California State University, Fullerton and a bachelor's degree in fine art from the Art Center College of Design , Boyarsky worked as a freelance graphic designer for the US game developer Interplay Entertainment ( Wall Street Manager and Castles 2 ) and Maxis ( Unnatural Selection ).

Interplay Entertainment (1992–1998)

After working as a freelancer for Interplay, he was finally hired as Art Director, Lead Artist and Designer / Writer. His first work as a lead artist was the role-playing game Stonekeep , published in 1995 . Two years later he finished his work as art director for the post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout , whose style he decisively shaped with the recognizable futuristic 1950s graphic style, the humorous Vault Boy images and the unusual ending. He was also involved in finalizing the game dialogues. For the successor Fallout 2 he designed the overall gameplay refinements as well as the main storyline including quests, areas and characters. However, he left Interplay together with his Fallout colleagues Tim Cain and Jason D. Anderson shortly after the game began to develop to found the Troika Games development studio. When asked why he left Interplay , Boyarsky later replied:

“Interplay had been a great place to work, and we felt that it was losing a lot of what we felt was great about it, and that they were making a lot of bad decisions that would destroy the company. We were about five or six years early on that, but we saw the writing on the wall. If Baldur's Gate hadn't hit big, Interplay might well have imploded much earlier, but we left about a year before BG was even released. ”

“Interplay was once a great place to work and we felt that it lost a lot of what we thought was great and that they were making a lot of decisions at the time that would destroy the company. We were five or six years early, but we already saw the signs on the wall. If Baldur's Gate had n't had such a huge success, Interplay might have imploded much sooner, but we left a year before BG was released . "

- Leonard Boyarsky : The Escapist: The Rise and Fall of Troika

Troika Games (1998-2005)

Boyarsky held various roles within Troika Games, including project manager, art director, designer / writer and CEO . For Troika's first project, the steampunk role-playing game Arcanum: From Steam Engines and Magic , he took on similar tasks as he did for Fallout : he was responsible for the stylistic direction, the dialogue design and the quest design. For Troika's third and final title, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines , released in 2004, Boyarsky was project leader and art director. He was also working on a demo of a nameless post-apocalyptic RPG, but no publisher could be found. In July 2004, the rights to develop a new Fallout title had already gone to Bethesda Softworks . In an interview, Boyarsky expressed his disappointment with this:

“To be perfectly honest, I was extremely disappointed that we did not get the chance to make the next Fallout game. This has nothing to do with Bethesda, it's just that we've always felt that Fallout was ours and it was just a technicality that Interplay happened to own it. It sort of felt as if our child had been sold to the highest bidder, and we had to just sit by and watch. Since I have absolutely no idea what their plans are, I can't comment on whether I think they're going in the right direction with it or not. "

“To be completely honest, I was very disappointed that we didn't get the chance to do the next Fallout. This has nothing to do with Bethesda, it's just that we always felt Fallout was ours and it was a purely coincidental technical formality that it was owned by Interplay. It felt like our child had been sold to the highest bidder and we could just sit and watch. And since I have absolutely no idea what they are up to, I cannot comment on whether they are going in the right direction or not. "

- Leonard Boyarsky : Interview with Duck & Cover

After Troika was unable to secure a follow-up project and thus not the necessary financing to maintain business operations, all employees were dismissed after the completion of Bloodlines and business operations were discontinued. On February 25, 2005, Leonard Boyarsky announced the closure of Troika Games.

Blizzard Entertainment (since 2006)

After Troika closed, Boyarsky took a year off due to burnout syndrome . In 2006 he received an offer from the Californian developer Blizzard Entertainment to work on the plot and role-playing elements of the action role-playing game Diablo 3 . Boyarski agreed and got a job as lead world designer. Diablo 3 was released in 2012 after a long development period. With 3.5 million buyers on the day of publication, Blizzard achieved the most successful sales launch of a PC game to date.

In 2016 Boyarski joined Obsidian Entertainment .

Ludography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joe Blancato: The Rise and Fall of Troika ( English ) In: The Escapist . December 26, 2006. Retrieved March 27, 2007.
  2. ↑ PA Engine Demo on YouTube
  3. ↑ Interview with Duck & Cover
  4. ↑ Troika closes - News at GameSpot ( Memento from June 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Troika Games Interview ( Memento from February 27, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) - Leonard Boyarsky Interview on the closing of Troika (English, February 26, 2005)
  6. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from September 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Jeff Cork: Diablo III Breaks PC Sales Records ( English ) Game Informer . May 23, 2012. Retrieved July 21, 2012: “ According to Activision Blizzard, the action-RPG has broken day-one PC sales records, selling more than 3.5 million copies of the game in 24 hours. And that's just the beginning. When you include players who got the game as part of the World of Warcraft annual pass, that number jumps to 4.7 million players worldwide on the game's first day. Diablo III has sold more than 6.3 million copies in its first week. "
  8. ↑ Diablo 3: Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky now at Obsidian. In: Eurogamer.de. Retrieved May 21, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Boyarsky, Leonard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer game developer
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century