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TA: So what exactly is a studio design director?
JS: It varies from studio to studio. Some studios don’t have a studio design director. At Obsidian, it’s kind of like the most, not necessarily the most senior, but it’s kind of like the advisor to all the other designers at the studio, and the person who gives advice and feedback on all things related to design. So it’s not like I’m actually in charge of the design at the studio, but I’m in charge of giving feedback and general direction.
The individual directors and developers are free to ignore that if they want to, but my job is to sort of try to set the standards for the studio in design.
TA: This isn’t the same as when a publisher gives feedback to the developers? I think you mentioned in another interview I was watching recently where publishers usually don’t have the feedback which matches what the players would want from a game. So this is different to that right?
JS: I think it’s usually informed specifically by my experience at Obsidian. I’ve only really worked on role playing games or things adjacent to role playing games for my entire career, so I don’t always have the right answer, but I think I have a lot of experience working on these games.
I have a lot of experience seeing how players react to feedback, so I try to just approach from the perspective of what does our audience kind of expect? Not that we always have to do what they expect, but what is it going to produce a good experience for them based on their expectations? Sometimes that means defying their expectations. But we have to make sure that we’re making that choice consciously and not kind of like accidentally or that we’re, you know, basically just being aware of what we’re doing.
TA: I discovered your work through Pillars of Eternity because it was during this big CRPG revival and it even saw a physical release and hit consoles. A lot of people kept praising Fallout: New Vegas, but I haven’t played much of it. When I played Pillars of Eternity, I had that Danny Devito “I get it now" moment. In the same PC Gamer interview, you said that because of how those games were funded on Kickstarter versus self funded, they were designed with some compromises. I wanted to know if Pentiment finally allowed you to make everything you wanted without any compromise exactly how you wanted it. Is that accurate?
JS: You know, time is always a factor and, I am making a game for another company. If you gave me more time, I’d certainly do more stuff with Pentiment. But, I feel like I got a fair amount of time on Pentiment and extensions. Other than that, though, everything creatively was fully under my control. I don’t believe I compromised on any of that stuff.
It was the game that I wanted to make, made the way that I wanted to, and I was conscious of specific choices like no VO which some people are not going to like. That’s ok. There were things that I thought were a good concession. Enabling easy read fonts. Some people just have difficulty with the super old fashioned things. So yeah, turn it on. Let him do that, but everything else was mostly just, this is what I wanted to do and, I don’t really consider anything that I did to be a concession or something I regret.
It’s all pretty much done the way I wanted to do. If people said or if Microsoft said here’s another year, sure, there’s other stuff I do. That’d be cool. But other than that, I feel very happy with it.
TA: So Pentiment is nearing its 1 year anniversary. Microsoft’s smaller games, which I’ve been a huge fan of, like Hi-Fi Rush, got major updates. Pentiment hasn’t gotten any major recent update, but I was wondering if there was anything planned which you can reveal. Maybe a physical release or an art book alongside any anniversary update?
JS: Anything that hasn’t been announced, I can’t announce, but I will say that you know, so the vinyl came out and immediately sold out. There’s another pressing of that happening.
(I mentioned how it sold out while I was asleep.)
I kind of predicted that it would sell a lot more than was initially predicted. So we are doing another run of that. I don’t know what the quantity is or when it’s coming in, but that is happening.
We know that a lot of people want a physical release. We know that a lot of people want an art book. A lot of people have requested that. We’ve talked about it, but there’s nothing to announce yet.
TA: When I played Pentiment on Steam deck, I thought, regardless of it being Steam Deck Verified, that it was the perfect game for the system. I told people to just buy it on Steam and forget about Xbox Game Pass, and just play it on Steam Deck. I also thought about how nice it would be to play on an iPad. I know Microsoft would want people to play it through xCloud streaming on mobile, but do you think a native release for Nintendo Switch or iPad would be possible?
JS: I think it’s possible. I think because of the Steam Deck, a lot of people immediately ask, could this be on Switch? I think that there’s nothing that would prevent it technologically from being on Switch.I would love the game to be on as many platforms as possible, but time will tell.
TA: If you had a chance to work on any single project right now without any budget or time limitations, and you could get whatever team you wanted, would you make Pentiment 2, Pillars of Eternity 3, or Fallout New Vegas 2?
JS: I don’t think I would make Pentiment 2. I really do feel very satisfied with that game. It’s not like I don’t wanna return to it ever, but I just did it, so I’d probably wait a little bit. I think if it truly was an unlimited budget, I think I would try Pillars 3 because I know what the budget was for Deadfire, which was not a whole lot and I have heard from multiple people what the budget was for Baldur’s Gate 3, and I’m not gonna talk about numbers, but if I got that budget, sure, I’ll make Pillars 3.
I think that would be a lot of fun to do, to do like a high production value party based fantasy RPG. I’m pretty happy with Pillars and Deadfire, but I do think that if it were not crowdfunded, I would probably make it turn based. I’m not saying to not have a real time with pause system, but I do think that the Deadfire turn based system which I can’t take credit for, that Nick Carver and Brian MacIntosh, was really cool. But, the game wasn’t designed for it, so actually designing the game for turn based, fewer encounters, smaller encounters, but much more tactical, I think that would be a lot of fun, and having awesome cinematics and all that stuff. That would be great.
