From pen and paper to Dying Light 2 – Chris Avellone wants to flip the RPG script
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Alpha Protocol, Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and Divinity: Original Sin 2. You might assume this is simply a list of some of the best, most reactive RPGs ever made, but it’s actually just some of the amazing video games Chris Avellone has written for.
Every game Avellone works on seems to benefit from his pen, every experience offering branching narratives and worlds that react to the player, even outside of scripted dialogue sequences.
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“Working in video games is a lot like being a virtual gamemaster,” he explains, “so many of those techniques for making sure the player is entertained are much the same as being a tabletop gamemaster.”
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As an action game, there’s not much it needed to do to improve, so Techland decided instead to focus on the writing, turning it into an action RPG that reacts to everything you do. With Avellone on the writing team, along with Karolina Stachyra, a writer who worked on The Witcher 3’s Bloody Baron questline, you should be very excited.
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The concept has been the same since the very beginning, and Avellone has been on the project since that planning phase. He created the lore for Dying Light 2, he co-created the storyline along with the other talented writers, and he developed many of the game’s critical characters. The reactivity, which Techland dubs the ‘World System’, was also co-created by Avellone, working closely with designers and programmers at Techland. His grubby, gamesmaster mitts are all over everything.
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Dying Light 2 might be a zombie game, but there are some brains pulsating beneath that squishy exterior. From what we’ve learned so far, it will be unlike any zombie game you’ve played before.
“I’m addicted to challenging a lot of tropes, and trying to flip them on their head and see what shakes out story-wise,” Avellone says. “I also tend to favor antagonists and rivals that have a higher agenda – not because it makes them superior, but because ideally players don’t just want to prove themselves physically superior, but they also want to challenge your enemy’s philosophy to the point where it breaks down… which I see as a far superior victory to simply punching an enemy’s lights out.”
https://www.vg247.com/2018/07/03/dying-light-2-chris-avellone-techland-interview/