Chris Avellone: Dark Knight

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Edge Magazine has a two-part interview with Chris Avellone which covers most of his history in the game industry and the early cRPG's which he had a hand in developing.

Descent Of Man
After landing in the games industry – “mostly by default – everything else I wanted to do wasn’t as interesting to me, it gave me the best of all design worlds” – Avellone found himself at Interplay, where he was given the chance to join the Starfleet Academy development team. Following his brief stint on the space-combat-simulator simulator, he was given his first chance to lead a project, on the less-thanauspiciously- titled Descent To Undermountain. Essentially a hack ‘n’ slash RPG in the vein of Ultima Underworld, DTU was coolly received for its bugs, poor AI and rushed nature, and Avellone regrets his involvement in the project to this day.

“I inherited that project halfway through its development, and it was the first game I worked on. I will say that it had a host of problems, including its tech premise – taking the Descent combat engine and turning it into a dungeon crawl; adding gravity to an engine that wasn’t designed for it, well, that in itself was a challenge. I still regret that DTU took so much of my time that I had to turn down Tim Cain’s offer to work on Fallout.”

He soon got his chance, albeit on the sequel. After the critical drubbing Undermountain received, Avellone’s contributions to Fallout 2 – most notably the entire, Mafia-controlled city of New Reno, with its bountiful side-quests and other distractions – were warmly welcomed, even if some Fallout zealots considered them tonally out-of-step. “I’m very proud of New Reno,” Avellone says, “as I think there’s a lot of fun sandbox things to do there. I’m proud of Vault City’s design, too – I added a lot more quests there, along with little touches here and there. Overall, I think Fallout 2 is better scope-wise but poorer aesthetically. I don’t think there was a strong genre policeman overseeing Fallout 2, and it suffered for it.”

Avellone developed a special relationship with Fallout over the years, culminating in his 2002 ‘Fallout Bible’ project. He effectively took it upon himself to become custodian of the franchise, engaging in question-and-answer sessions with fans in an attempt to build the most definitive guide to everything Interplay ever created for the hallowed post-nuclear IP. When reflecting on why the first two games were such compelling experiences, he decides, “It’s because it’s a great game with some innovative mechanics that made it more of an RPG than many other RPGs at the time – and it hit in the middle of a drought, which elevated it to ‘amazing’ status. It’s much the same reason Baldur’s Gate attracted a similar fanbase.”

Little did Avellone know he was about to create a cult classic of his very own.

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A Falling Out
By Torment’s release, BioWare had taken the reins as the world’s leading epic, story-focused RPG developer. Perhaps as a reaction to this, the final RPGs developed at Black Isle would take the genre in a more action-based direction. The first sign of this was 2000’s Icewind Dale. Eschewing Torment’s heavy emphasis on NPC interaction and non-linear stories, Icewind Dale was closer in structure to Diablo. For Avellone, fresh from Torment’s reams of dialogue and philosophising, the Icewind Dale games – he also worked on the expansions and the sequel – were immensely refreshing. “Icewind Dale 1, Heart Of Winter, Trials Of The Luremaster and Icewind Dale 2 were strangely liberating in that we had a good deal of freedom with areas and their content – you really felt like you owned each area you worked on.” The Icewind Dale games proved successful, but as Avellone notes, they haven’t developed the longevity seen with Fallout, Baldur’s Gate and Torment. “I’m going to be blunt,” he announces. “Icewind Dale was a fun series, but it didn’t try to set the bar for anything other than a fun romp. People may remember enjoying it, but it wasn’t trying to break any new ground or do anything revolutionary. In some respects, it was almost a step back from other games we’d done and focused more on exploration and dungeon crawls. I do think it had some of the most beautiful locations in any of our games, though.”

Part One w/ Chris Avellone.
Part Two w/ Chris Avellone.

 

Very nice article. I didn't know that Chris Avellone worked on that awful Descent to Undermountain game and that he missed working on Fallout because of it. His comments on his past work are interesting - I don't remember reading much about his opinion on the Icewind Dale series and I have to say I agree with his assessment of them.

 

Yeah, he definitely has some interesting games under his belt.

 

Plus he's very critical about those games, I think the comment about Fallout 2 really sums up its strengths and its shortcomings. Thanks for the link.