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Chris Avellone
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Chris Avellone
Chris Avellone (/ˈævəloʊn/) is an American video game designer and comic book writer. He is known for his roles on a large number of video games, primarily role-playing video games, praised for their writing across his three-decade career.
Avellone joined Interplay in 1995 and was one of the designers of Fallout 2 (1998) and the lead designer of Planescape: Torment (1999), the latter of which has been regarded as "one of the best-written and most imaginative video games ever created". After departing Interplay in 2003, he became one of the co-founders and the chief creative officer of Obsidian Entertainment, where he was the lead designer of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (2004) and a senior designer on Fallout: New Vegas (2010). From 2012 on, he was involved with some of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter, becoming known as a "human stretch goal".
Avellone departed Obsidian in 2015 and has since worked as a freelancer for various companies on games such as Prey (2017), Divinity: Original Sin II (2017), Pathfinder: Kingmaker (2018), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019) and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (2021).
In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time and by Gamasutra as one of the top 20 game writers. In 2017, he was named by GamesTM as one of the then 50 most influential people in gaming.
Avellone grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. At the age of 9, he first learned about Dungeons & Dragons while playing catch with a friend from the neighborhood who started describing a "strange game of make-believe where you could pretend to be a dwarf, elf, fighter and you could explore dungeons, fight monsters, and take their treasure." After trying to put together a group to play with, he realized that no one wanted to be the group's gamemaster and he had to learn how to fill the role himself, experiencing the game vicariously through the players and looking for new ways to entertain them.
He attended the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in nearby Fairfax County. While in high school, he visited a friend's house and saw The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight by Interplay Productions running on the Commodore 64, which made him realize a computer game master could also run a game for him and resulted in him playing every computer RPG he could get his hands on, without considering at the time that he could seek a career in computer games.
Upon finishing high school, he moved south and pursued a degree in architecture at Virginia Tech because he had enjoyed drawing maps and structures for his pen-and-paper gaming sessions. After two years, however, he realized his "sketchbook was often filled with more sentences than sketches", which made him question himself and led to him transferring to the College of William & Mary and switching over to English as his major, graduating in 1994 with a minor in fine arts as well.
His first job was for a role-playing company called Day by Day Associates, and involved role-playing a criminal at the local police academy and at Hogan's Alley in Quantico, Virginia to help train police officers and FBI agents. He later worked in a toy store and as a campus center supervisor.
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Chris Avellone
Chris Avellone (/ˈævəloʊn/) is an American video game designer and comic book writer. He is known for his roles on a large number of video games, primarily role-playing video games, praised for their writing across his three-decade career.
Avellone joined Interplay in 1995 and was one of the designers of Fallout 2 (1998) and the lead designer of Planescape: Torment (1999), the latter of which has been regarded as "one of the best-written and most imaginative video games ever created". After departing Interplay in 2003, he became one of the co-founders and the chief creative officer of Obsidian Entertainment, where he was the lead designer of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (2004) and a senior designer on Fallout: New Vegas (2010). From 2012 on, he was involved with some of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter, becoming known as a "human stretch goal".
Avellone departed Obsidian in 2015 and has since worked as a freelancer for various companies on games such as Prey (2017), Divinity: Original Sin II (2017), Pathfinder: Kingmaker (2018), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019) and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (2021).
In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time and by Gamasutra as one of the top 20 game writers. In 2017, he was named by GamesTM as one of the then 50 most influential people in gaming.
Avellone grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. At the age of 9, he first learned about Dungeons & Dragons while playing catch with a friend from the neighborhood who started describing a "strange game of make-believe where you could pretend to be a dwarf, elf, fighter and you could explore dungeons, fight monsters, and take their treasure." After trying to put together a group to play with, he realized that no one wanted to be the group's gamemaster and he had to learn how to fill the role himself, experiencing the game vicariously through the players and looking for new ways to entertain them.
He attended the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in nearby Fairfax County. While in high school, he visited a friend's house and saw The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight by Interplay Productions running on the Commodore 64, which made him realize a computer game master could also run a game for him and resulted in him playing every computer RPG he could get his hands on, without considering at the time that he could seek a career in computer games.
Upon finishing high school, he moved south and pursued a degree in architecture at Virginia Tech because he had enjoyed drawing maps and structures for his pen-and-paper gaming sessions. After two years, however, he realized his "sketchbook was often filled with more sentences than sketches", which made him question himself and led to him transferring to the College of William & Mary and switching over to English as his major, graduating in 1994 with a minor in fine arts as well.
His first job was for a role-playing company called Day by Day Associates, and involved role-playing a criminal at the local police academy and at Hogan's Alley in Quantico, Virginia to help train police officers and FBI agents. He later worked in a toy store and as a campus center supervisor.
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