Josh Sawyer

Sawyer grew up in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, and is the son of Linda Sawyer and sculptor Gerald P. Sawyer.[2] He is of German ancestry.[3]

Sawyer majored in history at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, after initially starting out as a voice student. Sawyer continued his involvement in theater and music, including directing a production of Assassins his junior year,[4] and minored in theatre.[5] He also began learning web design and Adobe Flash, which sparked his interest in joining the game industry out of college.[6]

Starting as a web designer at Black Isle Studios in 1999, Sawyer quickly worked his way up the ladder to an associate designer position and then lead designer on Icewind Dale II.[7][8] 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 to pursue other projects. He had been working as lead designer of the eventually-canceled Fallout 3 (codenamed Van Buren) alongside Chris Avellone.[9] Interplay went on to close Black Isle two weeks after Sawyer's departure.[10]

On July 19, 2005, GameSpot reported that he had left Midway's Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, and was accepting a position at Obsidian Entertainment, a studio founded and staffed by many veterans of Black Isle. His first role was as the lead designer for Neverwinter Nights 2.[11]

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.[12] As of November 2012, this mod has been updated to version 5.1.[13]

He also served as the project director and lead designer on the Aliens RPG.[14] Sega, the game's publisher, subsequently canceled the project, resulting in layoffs at Obsidian.[15] According to Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart, the game - titled Aliens: Crucible[16] - "looked and felt like it was ready to ship".[17][18]

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 to secure funding for development without a publisher. He succeeded in persuading company leadership, and the resulting game, Pillars of Eternity, 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.[19][20][21] Sawyer later served as director and narrative designer on its sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, which was also crowdfunded and released in 2018.[22]

Sawyer's next project was a departure of fantasy CRPG games. He pitched a smaller project that is more focused on history, inspired by tales about 16th century German artists like Albrecht Dürer.[23][24] The game is called Pentiment, and focuses on a murder mystery in 16th century Bavaria. The player takes control of the main character Andreas, a young artist working in a monastery.[25] The game was released on November 15, 2022, for Xbox, Xbox Game Pass and Windows platforms.[26]

• Josh Sawyer at MobyGames

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