General News - Interview with Witcher 3 & Assassin's Writer

GameSavvy interviewed Stephen Rhodes who has worked on the Witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey as a writer.

Tyler: You’re clearly passionate about games, so what came first? Was it that you wanted to be a writer and got into video games or was it that you wanted to get into video games and eventually became a writer?

Stephen: It’s definitely the second one. I went to university to study military history. I was really into history. I could tell very early on that it wasn’t really doing it for me and I just didn’t see a future career in it. So, I transferred courses internally because they had a good games course and I did a game design degree which covered a broad range of things including design, a bit of audio, programming, a bit of art and did a bit of narrative as well. I was always quite good at design and interested in the design and the mechanics of things because I like systems. But looking back, (narrative) resonated with me because when I did the narrative module I got like a 98% in it or something ridiculous. I loved doing it but I sort of put it aside afterwards and carried on pursuing other disciplines.

I got into the actual industry by doing QA and testing. There was a studio, Travelers Tales, the guys who do the Lego games, and they were quite close to where I went to university and a lot of the graduates ended up there. There were a few (graduates) in high positions at that point and they were always looking for students who were about to graduate. So, I went and did QA but they put up some internal positions in design roles not long after I started. I applied and got a design role where I did level design, camera stuff, working on cut scenes and working on missions so it was quite a broad job role but it was a great entry into the industry. Doing that I realized I had a passion for narrative and storytelling. It was always something that came very naturally to me. Growing up, me and my friends used to play DnD and other Roleplay Games like Star Wars, and Warhammer Fantasy. I was always liked to DM (Dungeon Master) as I was always coming up with the stories and campaigns and characters. It was always something I harbored a passion for so I kind of bridged the gap and after three years at Travellers Tales I realized that the Lego games weren’t satisfying my creative needs. So I applied to a couple of places and ended up getting a job at CD Projekt Red in Poland as a quest designer, which for me it was a great merge of my experience and also my passion for narrative.

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