The Grand List of Video Game Writers

This is a mild curiosity of mine. I was reading a topic on David Cage and a guy was on a whole rant about how he's one of the worst video game writers ever. The challenge was sort of thrown down to name other VG writers as they aren't typically well-known or discussed.

And here we are - I just want to try and compile a list of video game writers, good or bad, East or West. Any help at all be greatly appreciated. This way I hope video game writers can get more recognition just as they deserve.

The ones I've been able to gather so far:

1. Amy Hennig - Legacy of Kain, Uncharted

2. Hideo Kojima - Metal Gear

3. Tetsuya Takahashi - Xenogears, Xenosaga

4. Yasumi Matsuno - Final Fantasy Tactics and otehr games

5. Masato Kato - Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Baten Kaitos 1

6. David Cage - Heavy Rain

7. Kazushige Nojima - Final Fantasy VII, VIII & X

8. Shigesato Itoi - Mother Trilogy/Earthbound

9. Erik Wolpaw - Psychonauts, Portal 2

10. Chris Avellone - Knights of the Old Republic II, Planescape: Torment

11. Susan O'Connor - Bioshock 1 & 2, Tomb Raider (reboot)

12. Rhianna Pratchett - Mirror's Edge, Heavenly Sword, Tomb Raider (reboot)

13. Neil Druckmann - The Last Of Us

14. David Gaider - Dragon Age Trilogy

15. Jane Jensen - Gabriel Knight, Gray Matter, Moebius

16. Roberta Williams - Phantasmagoria

17. Drew Karpyshyn - Mass Effect 1 and 2

18. R.A. Salvatore - Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

19. Sam Lake - Alan Wake, Max Payne

20. Makoto Ikehara - Breath of Fire III & IV, Dragon's Dogma

21. Brian Mitsoda - Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines

22. Tim Schafer - Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle

23. Shu Takumi - Ace Attorney Trilogy, Ghost Trick

24. Enric Álvarez - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

25. Hiroyuki Ōwaku - Silent Hill 2 & 3

26. Lucien Soulban - Far Cry 3

27. Dan Houser - Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3

28. Jeffrey Yohalem -Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Child of Light

29. Corey May - Assassin's Creed series, Prince of Persia series

30. Greg Kasavin - Bastion

31. Hidetaka Suehiro - Deadly Premonition

32. Sean Vanaman - The Walking Dead, Tales of Monkey Island

33. Nick Breckon -The Walking Dead: Season Two

34. Pierre Shorette - The Wolf Among Us

35. Reiko Kodama - Phantasy Star

36. Jonathan Blow - Braid

37. Sohei Niikawa - Disgaea 1, 2 and 3

38. James Ohlen - Baldur's Gate 1 & 2

39. Ken Levine - Bioshock 1 & Infinite

40. Jordan Thomas - Bioshock 2 & Infinite

41. Walt Williams - Spec Ops: The Line

42. Goichi Suda - No More Heroes, Killer7

43. Marc Laidlaw - Half-Life 1 & 2

44. Greg Kirkpatrick - Marathon Trilogy

45. Takumi Miyajima - Tales of Symphonia 1 & 2, Tales of the Abyss

46. Soraya Saga - Xenogears, Xenosaga, Soma Bringer

47. Yoshitaka Murayama - Suikoden 1, 2 & 3

48. Tadashi Satomi - SMT Persona 1 & 2, Digital Devil Saga

49. Kazuma Kaneko - SMT Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha 1 & 2

50. Yuichiro Tanaka - SMT Persona 3 & 4

51. Jason Jones - Myth 1 & 2

52. Robt Mclees - Myth 1 & 2

53. Doug Zartman - Myth: The Fallen Lords

54. Tuncer Deniz - Myth 2

55. Bob Settles - Myth 2

56. Jennifer Hepler - Dragon Age 2

57. Josh Sawyer - Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol

58. Jun Maeda - Clannad, Little Busters!

59. Daisuke Watanabe - Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy

60. Hiroki Chiba - Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

61. TJ Fixman - Ratchet & Clink

62. Masaki Norimoto - Valkyrie Profile 1 & 2, Star Ocean 1, 2 and 3

63. Matsuzo Itakura - Shadow Hearts

64. Yuji Horii - Dragon Quest series

65. Akihiro Hino - Dark Cloud, Rogue Galaxy, Ni No Kuni

66. Kinoko Nasu - Fate/stay night

67. Katsura Hashino - SMT Persona 3 and 4

68. Noboru Sugimura - Resident Evil 2, 0, Onimusha 1, 2 and 3

69. Jason Scott - Free Space 2

70. Mike Breault - Free Space 2

71. David J. Williams - Homeworld

Also should you spot any oversights or errors, please let me know. I haven't played most of these games and am dependent on input from others so if I have something wrong, I wouldn't know.

edited 1st Jun '14 10:29:45 AM by Nikkolas

Shigesato Itoi is the one who wrote the Mother games.

As for other suggestions...uh, Erik Wolpaw. Who I didn't know existed until today, but he wrote dialogue for Psychonauts and Portal 2, so he seems pretty good.

It's Chris Avellone. He wrote Knights of the Old Republic II, Planescape Torment, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Alpha Protocol, among others. And he is a really good writer, with one caveat. He is really not that good at romance subplots.

edited 30th May '14 4:01:02 PM by Zendervai

Wow, he wrote Planescape? That is like THE game for people on boards I frequent in terms of great video game writing. I should probably play it someday.

Don't forget that Amy also worked at Naughty Dog for several years, mainly on the Uncharted series, with some work on Jak 3. Neil Druckmann was a co-writer with her on the 1st and 2nd Uncharted before going on to be the main writer on The Last of Us.

How about Susan O'Connor? She did Bioshock 1 and 2, along with the Tomb Raider reboot.

Rhianna Pratchett seems to get praise for being able to write strong, female leads (Mirror's Edge, Heavenly Sword).

Wow, the list is expanding nice and fast. Thanks everyone!

Added David Gaider of Dragon Age fame. Does anybody know who writs Mass Effect? Given how beloved its writing is by the internet, I figure it be kinda well-known.

I have one to add:

Jane Jensen - The Gabriel Knight series, Gray Matter, Mœbius, and I think one of the King's Quest games.

Hmm... Come to think of it, I'm not sure of who handled the writing for the Myst games—was it one person, a small collaboration, or a committee-based process?

edited 30th May '14 4:29:34 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

Drew Karpyshyn did too I think

I wonder what's her pap's opinion on her (Rhianna Pratchett) writing

edited 30th May '14 4:34:25 PM by VutherA

R.A. Salvatore. Did Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Pretty good go of a game script as far as I am concerned.

You got Susan O'Connor for Bio Shock 1 and 2, but missed Ken Levine for Infinite. :P

Added him, thanks.

Sorry, I have not played 99% of the games on the list and am just doing my best to copy and paste the input I'm getting fro several different forums. Be sure to tell me if I'm missing somethign or got something wrong, I don't mind. I want to make this as comprehensive and helpful as possible.

Oh?

*looks her up some more*

Well would you look at that? Seems it runs in the blood.

So, apparently Ken did the primary story for Bioshock 1, and the concept for 2. Jordan Thomas, who was the primary writer for 2 was later a senior writer for Infinite.

Yeah it does seem like a lot of games have multiple writers. Bio Ware is really gonna be a pain if I feel like doing everyone who worked on each game because they seem to often have individual writers for specific characters. I know one chick in particular wrote Anders in DA 2 for example.

Yeah, they definitely use teams of writers.

Regarding Jane Jensen: You've included one of the game series that I mentioned, but not the other two (excluding the one that I'm uncertain about)—are you only including their most famous works, or is that an oversight? (I notice that a few other authors had multiple works mentioned, so I'm presuming that we're not taking just one work from each author.)

edited 30th May '14 5:54:08 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

In her case I just chose GK because I've never heard of the other games at all. I guess that was a bit presumptuous of me though so I added in Gray Matter and Moebius.

edited 30th May '14 6:02:20 PM by Nikkolas

Fair enough, and thank you. ^_^

In all fairness, I don't know how well-known Gray Matter is; Moebius was released just recently, I believe, and seems to have had at least some press coverage.

There was Jennifer Hepler for DA 2, and Dan and Sam Houser for most of Rockstar's games (GTA, Max Payne 3, RDR).

List updated - let me know if you see any more errors or oversight. I was notified elsewhere that Ms. Pratchett wrote the new TR while I had it listed for Ms. O'Connor.

Also I was unsure about Jun Maeda... Little Busters and them are visaul novels according to Wikipedia so I wasn't sure if he counted. i put him on there anyway but if anyon objects, let me know your reasons.

edited 31st May '14 12:06:37 PM by Nikkolas

TJ Fixman was the writer for the Ratchet And Clank series until recently.

Takumi Miyajima did a few of the Tema Symphonia Tales (the story heavy ones). Naoki Yamamoto has written the best stories in the series, however.

Masaki Norimoto was the main writer for Valkyrie Profile 1-2, Star Ocean 1-3 and Resonance Of Fate.

Matsuzo Itakura was on board for Shadow Hearts, and apparently he was involved in Xenogears, but I haven't checked that.

Can't believe Yuji Horii isn't there, he's written all of Dragon Quest.

Akihiro Hino has a hand in writing everything by Level-5, including Dark Cloud, Rogue Galaxy and Ni No Kuni.

Katsura Hashino directs and writes most of the recent Atlus-Persona stuff, though I think Teppei Kobayashi has had a hand as well.

Aaaand, I guess Kinoko Nasu with all the Fate Stay Night-related video games and visual novels counts too.

edited 1st Jun '14 9:08:31 AM by lu127

List updated, thanks guys.

Questions though.

1. What games has Naoki Yamamoto actually written? (also I thought Symphonia had the best Tales story...that was generally the opinion in my JRPGs with the Best Plots thread.

2. So wait, who wrote Persona 3 and 4? Was it this Katsura Hashino fellow or Yuichiro Tanaka?

Both.

Hashino was the main writer, while Tanaka was the scenario writer.

Abyss and Symphonia, I think. The best plot in Tales is actually Tales of Hearts, but it's never been released outside of Japan, so most people don't know about it.

Both Pratchet and O'Connor penned the Tomb Raider script. I'm not sure which of them did more, but it was a combined effort.