Harvey Smith (game designer)
Harvey Smith (born 1966) is an American video game designer and writer, working at Arkane Studios.
Harvey Smith | |
|---|---|
Smith in Seoul, 2006 | |
| Born | 1966 (age 57–58) |
| Other names | Witchboy |
| Occupation(s) | Video game designer, writer |
| Years active | 1993-present |
| Employer | Arkane Studios |
| Known for | |
Smith has lectured in various places around the world on topics such as level design, emergent gameplay, leadership, game unit differentiation,[1] future trends and interactive narrative.[citation needed] At the Game Developers Conference in 2006, Smith won the Game Designer's Challenge: Nobel Peace Prize, for his design featuring a mobile video game that facilitates political social action.[2]
Early life edit
Smith was born and raised on the Texas Gulf Coast.[3] He grew up playing games like Pong[4] as well as Dungeons & Dragons.[5] He read books by Ursula K. Le Guin, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov and Roger Zelazny, among others.[6] He served six years in the U.S. Air Force, including tours in Germany and Saudi Arabia.[3] Smith moved to Austin at the behest of a friend to try his hand at video game design.[7]
Career edit
Early in his career, Smith worked in quality assurance (QA) at the Austin-based Origin Systems, where he became the QA lead for games including Super Wing Commander and System Shock.[8] In 1995, Smith became an associate producer for Ultima VIII, working with co-founder of Origin, Richard Garriott. Smith then pitched his own game, Technosaur, a real time strategy game inspired by Dune that would have featured "cybernetically augmented velociraptors". The project was canceled by publisher Electronic Arts after 18 months of work.[9]
After leaving Origin in 1996, Harvey Smith went to work at Multitude where they released FireTeam.[10]
After Multitude, Smith's game development career continued in Austin, Texas working with Warren Spector at Ion Storm as lead designer on Deus Ex as well as its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War.[11] After this he unsuccessfully pitched a further game in the Thief series, to be called Thief: Modern, in which central character Garrett lived in modern-day New York.[11]
Smith then left Ion Storm to work at Midway Games, originally to work on a title called Criminal with "immersive sim values" inspired by Michael Mann's 1995 crime film Heat, but shifting ultimately to work as lead designer on BlackSite: Area 51.[11][10][8] On November 29, 2007, Smith came out publicly to announce how unrealistic the BlackSite: Area 51's development schedule was and through mutual agreement left Midway a day later. He claimed the schedule caused the low reviews due to the fact they were not able to test the game properly.[12]
In 2008, Smith became partner and co-creative director of Arkane Studios in Austin alongside the company's president, Raphaël Colantonio.[10] They went on to release the stealth-action game Dishonored in 2012, which won many Game of the Year and Best Action/Adventure accolades including the 2013 BAFTA award for Best Game[13] and 2012 SPIKE VGA for Best Action/Adventure Game.[14] Smith also co-directed the sequel Dishonored 2 and its standalone expansion Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.[15] Smith is co-director on Arkane Austin's Redfall, an open-world first person shooter, due for release in May 2023.[11][16]
Smith's semi-autobiographical novel, Big Jack is Dead, was released on April 2, 2013, by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.[17] That same year it was on Kirkus Review's list of "Best Indie General Fiction".[18]
Works edit
Video games edit
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Super Wing Commander | Quality assurance |
| System Shock | ||
| 1995 | Ultima VIII: Pagan (CD-ROM version)[19] | |
| BioForge | ||
| CyberMage: Darklight Awakening | Producer, designer, writer, voice actor | |
| Technosaur (cancelled)[20] | — | |
| 1998 | FireTeam | Designer |
| 2000 | Deus Ex | Lead designer |
| 2003 | Deus Ex: Invisible War | Director |
| 2004 | Thief: Deadly Shadows | Designer |
| 2005 | Area 51 | Designer, writer |
| 2007 | BlackSite: Area 51 | Executive creative director |
| 2009 | Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor | Quality assurance |
| KarmaStar | — | |
| 2012 | Dishonored | Creative director, designer, writer |
| 2013 | The Novelist | Quality assurance |
| 2016 | Dishonored 2 | Creative director |
| 2017 | Prey | Quality assurance |
| Dishonored: Death of the Outsider | Creative director | |
| 2023 | Redfall | Studio director |
Book edit
| Year | Title | Category | Publisher | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | "Big Jack is Dead" | Fiction | CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform | ISBN 1482563657 |
References edit
- ^ "Harvey Smith's GDC presentation on Orthogonal Unit Differentiation".
- ^ "GDC: The Game Design Challenge: The Nobel Peace Prize". Gamasutra.
- ^ a b "Harvey Smith". www.amazon.com. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
- ^ "Gamasutra - The Subversion Game: An Interview With Harvey Smith". www.gamasutra.com. October 5, 2007. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
- ^ "Building a World with Dishonored 2's Harvey Smith". pastemagazine.com. December 21, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
- ^ "Dishonored 2". Game Informer. Minneapolis: GameStop. June 1, 2016.
- ^ Grayson, Nathan (October 17, 2012). "Interview: Unmasking Dishonored's Harvey Smith | Rock Paper Shotgun". Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
- ^ a b Lane, Rick (September 21, 2022). "Harvey Smith is in uncharted territory". NME. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
- ^ McKeand, Kirk (2022). The History of the Stealth Game. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: White Owl. p. 74. ISBN 9781399096911.
- ^ a b c "The mirror men of Arkane". Polygon. September 28, 2012.
- ^ a b c d Peel, Jeremy (March 2023). "Collected Works: Harvey Smith". Edge. No. 38. Future Publishing. pp. 70–79.
- ^ . 1up.com. November 30, 2007. Archived from the original on May 22, 2011.
- ^ "BAFTA Awards Gaming 2013". BAFTA.
- ^ "Around the Web: Award Season". The Bethesda Blog.
- ^ McKeand, Kirk (September 5, 2017). "Why Dishonored: Death of the Outsider needed new writers, according to Harvey Smith". PCGamesN. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
- ^ Makuch, Eddie (January 25, 2023). "Redfall Release Date Confirmed For May 2, As Lots Of New Gameplay Footage Debuts". GameSpot. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
- ^ Futter, Mike (May 29, 2013). "Get Big Jack Is Dead By Dishonored's Harvey Smith For Free". Game Informer. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
- ^ "Best in Indie Books 2013". Kirkus Review.
- ^ Gillen, Kieron (November 23, 2007). "The Making Of: Harvey Smith". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Gamer Network. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
- ^ "Technosaur [PC – Cancelled]". Unseen64. April 7, 2008. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
External links edit
- witchboy.net, Smith's personal website
- Harvey Smith at Twitter
- Harvey Smith's profile at MobyGames
- at DPerry.com