Support NeoGAF

[Nirolak]

So the recent Spec Ops: The Line thread got me wondering what Walt Williams (the writer for Spec Ops: The Line) was doing these days, and it seems we have an answer.

To note, he's a 2K/Take-Two employee, not a Yager employee.

Senior Writer/Designer
2K Games
Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; TTWO; Computer Games industry
May 2013 – Present (1 year 3 months)

Work as member of writing team in areas of script creation, editing, VO direction, narrative design, etc... The position covers a lot of ground.

Current Titles:
Evolve (unreleased)
Civilization: Beyond Earth (unreleased)

Lead Writer/Narrative Designer
2K Games
Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; TTWO; Computer Games industry
March 2010 – Present (4 years 5 months)

Work on/off-site with developer as narrative lead. Duties included: script creation, narrative design, level direction, VO direction, cinematic design.

Shipped:
Spec Ops: The Line - Xbox 360, PS3, PC (2012)

Source: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/walt-williams/64/896/866

 

[thequickandthedead]

Evolve has a story?

 

[Nirolak]

Evolve has a story?

Probably not. He's presumably working on random dialog the characters yell to each other a la Left 4 Dead.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Probably not. He's presumably working on random dialog the characters yell to each other a la Left 4 Dead.

If the dialogue is as involved as L4D's, it could be noteworthy. What tone does the game have?

 

[duckroll]

Those aren't really titles which I would imagine needs a lot of narrative writing at least in terms of his contributions to Spec Ops The Line. Maybe he's just doing fills and overall narrative supervision for the publisher on the titles?

 

[SolsticeZero]

Maybe he's working on the tech discovery dialogue for Civ: BE. Those are always pretty important (doubly so when narrated by Leonard Nimoy)

 

[Nirolak]

Those aren't really titles which I would imagine needs a lot of narrative writing at least in terms of his contributions to Spec Ops The Line. Maybe he's just doing fills and overall narrative supervision for the publisher on the titles?

SMAC had a plot, but yeah, I imagine so.

2K Novato (seemingly taking over Mafia and BioShock) is probably the only studio 2K has left that does narrative and they're pretty early.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Firaxis has been talking-up the "dynamic story" that will happen each game in CivBE, so I guess Walt Williams being present in the project is a good thing.

Do you feel like a leader?

 

[DryvBy]

Probably not. He's presumably working on random dialog the characters yell to each other a la Left 4 Dead.

"War sucks!"

 

[LurkerPrime]

This new hands-on preview for Civilization: Beyond Earth by Rock Paper Shotgun suggests Walt Williams is, indeed, playing a big role on the project.

Excerpt:

Tech, units and aliens aside, storytelling may be the strongest focus for the team working on this new iteration of Civ. It’s not the sort of thing that makes for easy marketing material, a push toward a new type of strategic storytelling, but the evidence of a concentrated effort to engineer new narrative ideas is clear throughout the game. Discovering new tech doesn’t just trigger flavour text, it requires decision-making. How will the advances be applied in the new society you are building?