For more information about Sawyer's career outside of the Fallout series, see Josh Sawyer on Wikipedia. |
Joshua Eric "Josh" Sawyer is a developer who served as the project director and lead designer of Fallout: New Vegas. A design director at Obsidian Entertainment, Sawyer previously worked at Black Isle Studios as a designer on the canceled Van Buren project.
Career[]
Work on the Fallout series[]
Van Buren (2003)[]
Sawyer first worked on the Fallout series as an employee at Black Isle Studios in the early 2000s. He was the lead technical designer on its canceled Fallout 3 project, codenamed Van Buren. After Chris Avellone left Interplay Entertainment, Sawyer became the lead designer of Van Buren. He contributed to the design documents for New Canaan and Burham Springs.[1][2] Many of the concepts and characters he developed for Van Buren, including Joshua Graham, Arcade Gannon and the Van Graffs, were later used in Fallout: New Vegas. In November 2003, he left Black Isle and thus his role as lead designer of Van Buren to pursue other projects.
Interim[]
Before arriving at Obsidian Entertainment, Sawyer developed an unofficial Fallout role-playing game in 2004. Some ideas from this RPG were also implemented in Fallout: New Vegas, such as concepts relating to the commonwealth system and the 80s raider tribe. Sawyer began working at Obsidian Entertainment in 2005.
Fallout: New Vegas (2010)[]
Sawyer was the project director and lead designer of Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian and published by Bethesda Softworks. Sawyer was responsible for some of the high-level writing and concepts for the game, alongside lead creative designer John Gonzalez and senior designer Chris Avellone.[3] More specifically, Sawyer wrote many region design constraint documents, outlining several basic story and location concepts, as well as the conflicts within.[4] In addition to his role as director, overseeing the game's development, he also worked on all of the systems design,[5] including weapon implementation, item tuning, perk design and combat changes.[6]
Specific contributions[]
Some of the story content for Fallout: New Vegas that Sawyer worked on include the game's ending at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam,[3] as well as the initial concepts for all of the Mojave Vaults[7] and the companions and their character arcs (all of which were later fleshed out by other designers).[8] He was, however, directly responsible for Arcade Gannon's writing, as well as that of Chief Hanlon and Aaron Kimball's speech at Hoover Dam.[4] Sawyer wrote basic high-level documents concepting major locations in the game, before being fleshed out by others.[9] Some examples of this include Quarry Junction,[10] Camp Searchlight[9] and Camp Forlorn Hope.[11] He also came up with the wrecked Highwayman, reusing a similar location idea from Van Buren.[12]
Quests that Sawyer concepted include Volare![13] and The Legend of the Star;[14] he also co-wrote The White Wash with Jeff Husges and wrote the characters of Tom Anderson, Mean Sonofabitch[15][16] and Ranger Milo.[17] Sawyer also came up with the concepts for the new creatures in the base game, including cazadores[18] and night stalkers.[19]
Regarding Sawyer's systems design on Fallout: New Vegas, he was responsible for much of the design surrounding the game's weapons and ammunition.[6] He also developed many of the perks,[6] with some specific examples including Cherchez La Femme, Confirmed Bachelor,[20] Terrifying Presence,[21] Jury Rigging,[22] Dine and Dash, and Ghastly Scavenger.[23] He also made the decision to implement Wild Wasteland as a trait,[24] and worked on the development and balance of skills.[25][26]
Additionally, Sawyer wrote and sang the songs "Streets of New Reno," "New Vegas Valley," "Cobwebs and Rainbows" and "Home on the Wastes" as featured in-game.
For New Vegas' add-ons, Sawyer was the project director of Honest Hearts and Gun Runners' Arsenal; his contributions to the other add-ons mainly consisted of weapon design.[27][28][5] On Honest Hearts, Sawyer wrote the main story, concepted all of the main characters and performed more systems design.[5] He was responsible for writing Joshua Graham and Daniel,[5] and implemented the Zion tribal languages.[29] For Gun Runners' Arsenal, Sawyer was responsible for all of the design on the add-on, except for some scripting.[5]
Post-release[]
Since the release of Fallout: New Vegas and its add-ons, Sawyer has remained active in the Fallout community. He answered fan-submitted questions for several years on the now-defunct website Formspring, and an archive of his posts exists on this wiki. In 2011, he created the JSawyer mod, an unofficial ESP for New Vegas that implemented many balance changes and gameplay tweaks that he wished to have in the official version of the game.[30] Sawyer no longer maintains or updates the mod himself; a re-mastered version created by other fans is available on Nexus Mods.[31] In 2020, Sawyer hosted a weekend charity stream to honor New Vegas' 10th anniversary.
Other work[]
As design director at Obsidian, Sawyer took on leadership and design roles in the development of Pillars of Eternity and its sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. He also led the development and writing of Pentiment.
Employment history[]
From | To | Company | Role |
---|---|---|---|
March 1999 | November 2003 | Black Isle Studios | Lead Designer |
November 2003 | July 2005 | Midway Home Entertainment | Lead Designer |
July 2005 | Present | Obsidian Entertainment | Design Director |
Credits[]
Fallout series[]
Year | Title | Credited as/for |
---|---|---|
2003 | Van Buren | Lead Designer |
2010 | Fallout: New Vegas | Lead Designer Project Director Additional songs |
2010 | Dead Money | Weapon Design |
2011 | Honest Hearts | Project Director |
2011 | Old World Blues | Weapon Design |
2011 | Lonesome Road | Weapon Design |
2011 | Gun Runners' Arsenal | Project Director |
Other work[]
Year | Title | Credited as/for |
---|---|---|
1999 | Planescape: Torment | Web Master |
2000 | Icewind Dale | Designer |
2002 | Icewind Dale II | Lead Designer |
2004 | JES Fallout RPG | Creator |
2006 | Neverwinter Nights 2 | Design Lead |
2007 | Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer | Additional Design |
2010 | Alpha Protocol | Additional Design |
2015 | Pillars of Eternity | Lead Designer Project Director |
2015 | Pillars of Eternity: The White March | Lead Designer Project Director |
2018 | Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire | Project Director |
2019 | The Outer Worlds | Design Director |
2022 | Grounded | Studio Design Director |
2022 | Pentiment | Game Director |
Behind the scenes[]
- While at Black Isle Studios, Sawyer mentioned that he would like to make a Fallout: Resource Wars spin-off.[32]
- Sawyer often listened to Moya while writing for New Vegas.[33]
- Sawyer met some of the celebrity voice actors in Fallout: New Vegas, including Zachary Levi, Matthew Perry, and Kris Kristofferson, as well as Felicia Day (though only briefly).[34]
- Sawyer has retrospectively said he wished that he could have resolved some of the issues with cultural depictions in Honest Hearts that appeared when the add-on was shipped, as many of parts of the add-on were different from how they were concepted.[35]
- Sawyer's online usernames include J.E. Sawyer or JESawyer, as well as rope kid, Orpheus, or baby goat.[36]
Gallery[]
Videos[]
External links[]
Interviews
- Josh Sawyer on Fallout: New Vegas (Giant Bomb - May 4, 2010)
- Bethesda Blog: Inside the Vault - Josh Sawyer (Bethesda Softworks - May 5, 2010)
- Fallout: New Vegas interview (Gamereactor - September 28, 2010)
- Why Fallout: New Vegas is famous for its freedom (Story Mode - October 8, 2021)
Livestreams
- 2nd Annual Extra Life Marathon Stream - 48-Hours For the Kids! (Obsidian Entertainment - November 2016)[Note 1]
- Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Twitch streams: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (Twitch livestream - October 2020)
Other
- I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me. (RPG Codex article by Sawyer - December 16, 2002)
- Do (Say) The Right Thing: Choice Architecture, Player Expression, and Narrative Design in Fallout: New Vegas (GDC presentation - March 2012)
- Reputation Overload - The Evolution of RPG Reputation Mechanics (YouTube presentation - April 5, 2020)
- Fallout: New Vegas Developers React to 10 Minute Speedrun (IGN, with Jorge Salgado - March 13, 2021)
- Twitter thread explaining the team's responsibilities on New Vegas (December 17, 2022)
References[]
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Notes
- ↑ Note: The Fallout: New Vegas segment of this stream runs from about the 7 hour to the 11 hour mark in the Twitch video, and features Sawyer and Mikey Dowling.