Chris Avellone

Chris Avellone is an American video game designer who worked for Interplay and Obsidian Entertainment.

[edit] Career

Avellone wrote campaigns for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game early in his career and after entering the video game industry through the company Interplay briefly worked on the development of the 1997 title Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The same year he took over the development of Descent to Undermountain, about which he later stated disappointment. Avellone contributed to the 1998 game Fallout 2 and continued to work on its franchise. Interplay acquired the rights to produce a role-playing video game set in the Planescape campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons with the development lead by Avellone. The 1999 game removed character death as a motive in video gaming and won acclaim for its narrative. Avellone worked on all the titles of the Icewind Dale fantasy role-playing game series, which were released from 2000 to 2002. As a designer Avellone contributed to the fantasy titles Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001), Champions of Norrath (2004) and lead the design of the cancelled Fallout title Van Buren, after which he resigned from Interplay and joined Obsidian Entertainment. For the company Avellone worked on the role-playing games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II (2004) and Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006) and on the upcoming action role-playing game Alpha Protocol.^[1]