Joshua Eric Sawyer (born October 18, 1975), known commonly as Josh Sawyer, J.E. Sawyer, or JSawyer, is an American

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

, known for his work on

role-playing video games A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

Early life and education

Sawyer grew up in

Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin Fort Atkinson is a city in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, Jefferson County, Wisconsin, United States. It is on the Rock River (Illinois), Rock River, a few miles upstream from Lake Koshkonong. The population was 12,579 at the 2020 census. Fort Atkins ...

, and is the son of Linda Sawyer and sculptor Gerald P. Sawyer. He is of German ancestry. He earned a

BA degree Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

from

Lawrence University Lawrence University is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1847, its first classes were held on November 12, 1849. Lawrence was the second college in the U.S. to be founded as a coeducation ...

Appleton, Wisconsin Appleton ( mez, Ahkōnemeh) is a city in Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. One of the Fox Cities, it is situated on the Fox River, southwest of Green Bay and north of Milwaukee. Appleton is the c ...

. In addition to being a history major, Sawyer participated in the theater (including mounting a production of ''

Assassins An assassin is a person who commits targeted murder. Assassin may also refer to: Origin of term * Someone belonging to the medieval Persian Ismaili order of Assassins Animals and insects * Assassin bugs, a genus in the family ''Reduviida ...

''). After Lawrence, Sawyer moved to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Career

Starting as a web designer at

Black Isle Studios Black Isle Studios is a division of the developer and publisher Interplay Entertainment that develops role-playing video games. It has published several games from other developers. Black Isle is based in Irvine, California. The division was f ...

in 1999, Sawyer quickly worked his way up the ladder to an associate designer position and then lead designer on ''

Icewind Dale II ''Icewind Dale II'' is a role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment, released on August 27, 2002. Like its 2000 predecessor ''Icewind Dale'', the game is set in the ''Forgotten Realms'' fanta ...

''. While at Black Isle he was known for coming up with the "Ex-Presidents" project naming system. In November 2003 Sawyer announced his departure from Black Isle, where he had been serving as lead designer of ''

Fallout 3 ''Fallout 3'' is a 2008 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The third major installment in the ''Fallout'' series, it is the first game to be developed by Bethesda after acquiring ...

'', to pursue other projects. Interplay went on to close Black Isle two weeks after Sawyer's departure. On July 19, 2005,

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

reported that he had left Midway's '' Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows'', and was accepting a position at

Obsidian Entertainment Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Irvine, California. It was founded in June 2003, shortly before the closure of Black Isle Studios, by ex-Black Isle employees Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Chris Par ...

, a studio founded and staffed by many veterans of Black Isle. His first role was as the lead designer for ''

Neverwinter Nights 2 ''Neverwinter Nights 2'' is a role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Atari Interactive. It is the sequel to BioWare's ''Neverwinter Nights (2002 video game), Neverwinter Nights'', based on the ''Dungeons & ...

''. He later acted as the project director and lead designer of '' Fallout: New Vegas''. In December 2011 Sawyer publicly released a ''New Vegas'' mod designed for his own personal use adding a large variety of small tweaks to the game ranging from rebalancing the karma of certain characters to slowing down the level up speed. As of November 2012, this mod has been updated to version 5.1. He also served as the project director and lead designer on the ''Aliens RPG''.

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

, the game's publisher, subsequently canceled the project, resulting in layoffs at Obsidian. According to Obsidian CEO

Feargus Urquhart Feargus Urquhart is a Scottish-American video game designer and CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. Career Urquhart is best known for his work at Interplay Entertainment, particularly as leader of Black Isle Studios, Interplay's internal role-pl ...

, the game - titled ''Aliens: Crucible'' - "looked and felt like it was ready to ship". In 2012, with Obsidian on the brink of financial disaster after the cancellation of another project by a publisher, Sawyer proposed the company return to its design roots by making an isometric RPG in the style of those created at Black Isle. Arguing there was a market for this type of game among fans, Sawyer suggested turning to the platform

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

to secure funding for development without a publisher. He succeeded in persuading company leadership, and the resulting game, ''

Pillars of Eternity ''Pillars of Eternity'' is a role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux on March 26, 2015. The game is a spiritual successor to the ' ...

'', met its Kickstarter funding goal of 1.1 million dollars in 27 hours. It ultimately raised nearly four million dollars, setting a Kickstarter record at the time. Sawyer later served as director and narrative designer on its sequel, '' Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire'', which was also crowdfunded and released in 2018.

Games

References

External links

Josh Sawyer
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sawyer, Josh 1975 births American people of German descent American video game designers American video game directors Black Isle Studios Dungeons & Dragons video game designers Fallout (series) developers Interplay Entertainment people Lawrence University alumni Living people Obsidian Entertainment people People from Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin Web designers