Josh Sawyer

Early life and education

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

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, and minored in theatre. He also began learning web design and Adobe Flash, which sparked his interest in joining the game industry out of college.

Career

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. 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. Interplay went on to close Black Isle two weeks after Sawyer's departure.

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.

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. As of November 2012, this mod has been updated to version 5.1.

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

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. Sawyer later served as director and narrative designer on its sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, which was also crowdfunded and released in 2018.

Sawyer's next project was a departure from 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. 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. The game was released on November 15, 2022, for Xbox, Xbox Game Pass and Windows platforms.

Games

References

References

1. "J.E. Sawyer".
2. ''Daily Jefferson County Union''. January 14th, 2011. Liedtke, Carolyn. "Sawyer sculpts success throughout Wisconsin". p. 3.
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5. "@jesawyer tweet, 2023-07-11".
6. Berthiaume, Ed. (January 18, 2023). "Lawrence expertise fuels historical role-playing game that's drawing rave reviews". Lawrence University News Service.
7. Ooi, Will. (September 25, 2011). "An Interview with JE Sawyer - game developer, biker, and cat lover". [[UBM plc.
8. (July 2005). "The Arcade Classic Is Back, and It'd Better Be Good", ''[[Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine]]'' (94): 38.
9. Thorsen, Tor. "J.E. Sawyer bolts Black Isle". [[GameSpot]].
10. Thorsen, Tor. "Interplay shuts down Black Isle Studios". GameSpot.
11. Thorsen, Tor. "J.E. Sawyer off Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows". GameSpot.
12. Kayatta, Mike. (December 30, 2011). "Fallout: New Vegas Project Director Releases Personal Mod". [[Defy Media]].
13. "JSawyer.esp - v5.1".
14. "SEGA Signs Obsidian Entertainment To Develop Alien Title For Next-generation Systems".
15. Faylor, Chris. (25 February 2009). "Aliens RPG Cancelled, Says Ex-Obsidian Staffer". [[Shacknews]].
16. "Here's What Obsidian's Cancelled RPG Aliens: Crucible Looked Like". [[GameSpy]].
17. Purchese, Robert. (20 February 2013). "Obsidian's canned Aliens RPG looks finished in new gameplay video". Eurogamer.
18. Purchese, Robert. (29 April 2010). "Obsidian: Aliens RPG was "ready to ship"". Eurogamer.
19. Schreier, Jason. (8 July 2015). "How Kickstarter Saved Obsidian". [[Kotaku]].
20. Purchese, Robert. (December 4, 2012). "Project Eternity crowd-funding ends, grand total now $4.3 million". Gamer Network.
21. Purchese, Robert. (December 10, 2012). "Obsidian renames Project Eternity, releases a proper video". Gamer Network.
22. (January 26, 2017). "Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire". [[Obsidian Entertainment]].
23. Nelson, Mike. (10 November 2022). "A Recommended Reading List of Late Medieval History From Pentiment Game Director Josh Sawyer".
24. (14 November 2022). "How Obsidian's Latest Game is Inspired By a Medieval Theory About God and Worms".
25. "Pentiment May Be the Best New Game You've Never Heard Of".
26. (24 August 2022). "Obsidian's old-timey Pentiment gets a November release date".