Chris Avellone

Chris Avellone (born September 27, 1972) is an American video game designer and comic book writer who previously worked for Interplay and Obsidian Entertainment.

Avellone is an alumnus of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. He went on to study at The College of William & Mary, graduating with a major in English and a minor in fine arts, focused on architecture.

Working initially as a freelancer in the two years after college, Avellone wrote campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons-inspired fantasy role-playing games. After entering the video game industry through the company Interplay in 1995, he briefly worked on the development of the 1997 title Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. In 1997 he took over the development of Descent to Undermountain, which he later called a disappointment. Avellone contributed to the 1998 game Fallout 2 and continued to work on its franchise.

Interplay acquired the rights to produce a role-playing video game set in the Planescape campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons with the development led by Avellone. The 1999 game Planescape: Torment removed character death as a motive. It won acclaim for its narrative.

Avellone worked on all the titles of the Icewind Dale fantasy role-playing game series, which were released from 2000 to 2002. As a designer Avellone contributed to the fantasy titles Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001), Champions of Norrath (2004) and led the design of the cancelled Fallout title Van Buren, after which he resigned from Interplay and co-founded Obsidian Entertainment. For the company Avellone worked on the role-playing games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II (2004) and Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006) and on the action role-playing game Alpha Protocol. He also worked as a senior designer on Fallout: New Vegas.

He worked as the project director and lead creative designer on Dead Money, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road Fallout: New Vegas downloadable content. As of 2012, Avellone has been working as a narrative designer on role-playing video game Project Eternity, later known as Pillars of Eternity. On June 9, 2015, he revealed that he had departed from Obsidian Entertainment. On September 25, 2015, Larian Studios announced that Avellone will be working with them on Divinity: Original Sin 2 on games Kickstarter page.

Video games

• Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (1997)
• Fallout 2 (1998)
• Descent to Undermountain (1998)
• Planescape: Torment (1999)
• Icewind Dale (2000)
• Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter (2001)
• Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001)
• Icewind Dale II (2002)
• Van Buren (2003 - canceled)
• Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (2003)
• Champions of Norrath (2004)
• Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (2004)
• Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006)
• Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (2007)
• Alpha Protocol (2010)
• Fallout: New Vegas (2010)
• Wasteland 2 (2014)
• FTL: Advanced Edition (2014)
• Pillars of Eternity (2015)
• Divinity: Original Sin II (2017)
• Torment: Tides of Numenera (2017)
• Prey (2017)

Comic books

Star Wars comics:

• Unseen, Unheard (2005)
• Heroes on Both Sides (2006)
• Impregnable (2007)
• Old Scores (2007)
• Graduation Day (2007)

Fallout comics:

• All Roads (2010, part of the Fallout: New Vegas collector's edition)

• Tsao, Jennifer (March 2005). "Afterthoughts: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords; Behind the scenes with the real Jedi masters", Electronic Gaming Monthly (189): 52–54.
• Jenna Pitcher (August 19, 2014). "Wasteland 2 nails a release date". IGN. j2 Global. Retrieved September 2, 2014. 
• "FTL: Advanced Edition Review". 
• "Project Eternity Kickstarter". 
• Tom Sykes (September 25, 2015). "Chris Avellone to work his magic on Divinity: Original Sin 2". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on December 29, 2015. Retrieved December 29, 2015. 
• "Torment: Tides of numenera Kickstarter". 
• Chalk, Andy (June 13, 2016). "Prey is back, and there's a trailer [Updated]". PC Gamer. Retrieved June 13, 2016.