The Grand List Of Video Game Writers

[Forsaken Lover]

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.

Oh and one more important thing - this is not a ranking of quality. People seem to keep making this error... Yes, the writer of LOK being at the top and the writer of FFXIII being near the bottom is very fitting but it's honestly just a coincidence and caused by the fact I'm an LOK fan so she was the first name I contributed to the list.

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

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, System Shock 2

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 - FreeSpace 2

70. Mike Breault - FreeSpace 2

71. David J. Williams - Homeworld

72. Ron Gilbert - Tales of Monkey Island

73. Michael Kirkbride - The Elder Scrolls

74. Mary DeMarle - Deus Ex Human Revolution

75. James Swallow: Deus Ex Human Revolution

76. Stan Liu - Fear Effect 1 & 2



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.

[Psychotic]

I am a huge god damn fanboy of Josh Sawyer, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Sawyer) as is Laddy!

[Karifean]

My favorite video game writer is easily Jun Maeda. He's worked on Kanon, Air, Clannad and Little Busters!, the latter two being my favorite video game storylines and casts of characters to date.

[Pike]

Michael Kirkbride :love: for writing all the best Elder Scrolls in-game lore books.

[Depression Moon]

I'm not really attached to any video game writers other than Sakaguchi who wrote FFIX. Kojima's work on MGS3 was great, but unfortunately I don't care for the story of any other games in the series.

I really want to be a writer in the industry as well and have for a long time, but not exactly sure how to get there.

[Wolf Kanno]

Kaori Tanaka a.k.a. Soraya Saga is another great author who penned the scripts for Final Fantasy VI, Xenogears, Xenosaga and Soma Bringer.

Yoshitaka Murayama worked on the scripts for the first three Suikoden games and the two Gaiden side stories starring Nash.

Tadashi Satomi wrote Persona 1 and 2, as well as being the co-author for Avatar Tunrer (Digital Devil Saga)

Kazuma Kaneko helped co-write the Raidou era Devil Summoner games as well.

Yuichiro Tanaka is the scenario writer for Persona 3 and 4.

[Forsaken Lover]

List updated - please feel free to look it over and let me know if you spot any oversight.s For example, I had been attributing the Tomb Raider reboot to Ms. O'Connor when it was really Ms. Pratchett who wrote it.

Thank you all for your help!

[Mirage]

i'm not sure how the writer of p3 and p4 ended up below the writer of tales of symphonia.

also, funny to see terry pratchett's daughter there

[Forsaken Lover]

It's just a list, not a ranking of quality. The fact Ms. Hennig is at the top and Watanabe is at the bottom is just a happy coincidence of me being a huge LOK fan so she was the first name I put down.

Believe me though, if I could rank this list, and just going off the games I actually know about, Roberta Williams would be at the very bottom.
Also if this was actually a ranking, I think a lot of people online would skin me alive for having Chris Avellone lower than Cage or Nojima.

And I heard Tales of Symphonia was really good....

[Slothy]

Believe me though, if I could rank this list, and just going off the games I actually know about, Roberta Williams would be at the very bottom.

Though shalt not speak ill of the designer of King's Quest titles.

[Ayen]

Only video game writer I know from this list is Hideo Kojima.

[Forsaken Lover]

Only video game writer I know from this list is Hideo Kojima.

Well that is kinda the point. Video game writers should be more well known and I'm making this thread on every forum i frequent in hopes of helping that awareness.

[Madame Adequate]

30. Greg Kasavin - Bastion

Huh, I had no idea!

I don't know too many writers beyond those you've listed but;

FreeSpace 2 - Jason Scott & Mike Breault
Homeworld - David J. Williams (Also a contributing writer on Homeworld 2)

[Wolf Kanno]

One thing I will point out about Japanese writers, is that often the story and characters are a collaborative process among the whole team. What this means is that just because the plot may seem terrible to you, it may not be the writer's fault as the part you may not like has to do with some input from the director and other team members. For example:

Daisuke Watanabe is one of the main writers of the Kingdom Heart's franchise, the only game he wasn't one of the main writers for was KH2. He also wrote the plot of FFXII and helped with the plot of FFXIII. In the case of XII, he was helping Matsuno write the plot but after Matsuno left, Watanabe was forced to try to tie up a story that mostly was in the head of Matsuno and also had to deal with a team that had conflicting views about where to take the story and characters. In XIII's case, he was asked to take Toriyama's rough script and make it workable. He allegedly only worked on the first eight chapters of the game and had to do several re-writes due to Toriyama's wishes.

In both cases, Watatnabe is listed as the main scenario writer but background information shows he wasn't necessarily the mastermind behind each script. Masato Kato was one of the writer's for Chrono Trigger but Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest creator and DQ's head writer) wrote out several sections of the game such as the opening with Marle disappearing in 600 A.D. because she accidentally changed history and erased her existence. Hence why time travel rules are a bit inconsistent because Kato wasn't consulted while he was writing out the later parts of the story. Sakaguchi has also had a strong hand in writing or at least putting his own stamp on the plot for the first nine games in the FF series even though he isn't always listed as being part of the writing team.

[Mirage]

It's just a list, not a ranking of quality. The fact Ms. Hennig is at the top and Watanabe is at the bottom is just a happy coincidence of me being a huge LOK fan so she was the first name I put down.

Believe me though, if I could rank this list, and just going off the games I actually know about, Roberta Williams would be at the very bottom.
Also if this was actually a ranking, I think a lot of people online would skin me alive for having Chris Avellone lower than Cage or Nojima.

And I heard Tales of Symphonia was really good....

Uh. it's a fun game, but I wouldn't say its story is its strong point. Although perhaps it's just the presentation of the story that isn't up to par.

[Wolf Kanno]

It''s plot gets a lot of praise on TV Tropes along with Earthbound and Persona. I'm only curious cause I plan on starting it up myself and try to get back into Tales of franchise.

[Depression Moon]

One thing I will point out about Japanese writers, is that often the story and characters are a collaborative process among the whole team. What this means is that just because the plot may seem terrible to you, it may not be the writer's fault as the part you may not like has to do with some input from the director and other team members. For example:

Daisuke Watanabe is one of the main writers of the Kingdom Heart's franchise, the only game he wasn't one of the main writers for was KH2. He also wrote the plot of FFXII and helped with the plot of FFXIII. In the case of XII, he was helping Matsuno write the plot but after Matsuno left, Watanabe was forced to try to tie up a story that mostly was in the head of Matsuno and also had to deal with a team that had conflicting views about where to take the story and characters. In XIII's case, he was asked to take Toriyama's rough script and make it workable. He allegedly only worked on the first eight chapters of the game and had to do several re-writes due to Toriyama's wishes.

In both cases, Watatnabe is listed as the main scenario writer but background information shows he wasn't necessarily the mastermind behind each script. Masato Kato was one of the writer's for Chrono Trigger but Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest creator and DQ's head writer) wrote out several sections of the game such as the opening with Marle disappearing in 600 A.D. because she accidentally changed history and erased her existence. Hence why time travel rules are a bit inconsistent because Kato wasn't consulted while he was writing out the later parts of the story. Sakaguchi has also had a strong hand in writing or at least putting his own stamp on the plot for the first nine games in the FF series even though he isn't always listed as being part of the writing team.

How do you get your information?

[Wolf Kanno]

Various wiki's, developer interviews, and reading Ultimania translations. Just paging through the developer pages on the various wiki's or checking Lifestream.net's work will usually fill in some gaps. Hell even Wikipedia gives some good info as well.

[NeoCracker]

One thing I will point out about Japanese writers, is that often the story and characters are a collaborative process among the whole team. What this means is that just because the plot may seem terrible to you, it may not be the writer's fault as the part you may not like has to do with some input from the director and other team members. For example:

Daisuke Watanabe is one of the main writers of the Kingdom Heart's franchise, the only game he wasn't one of the main writers for was KH2. He also wrote the plot of FFXII and helped with the plot of FFXIII. In the case of XII, he was helping Matsuno write the plot but after Matsuno left, Watanabe was forced to try to tie up a story that mostly was in the head of Matsuno and also had to deal with a team that had conflicting views about where to take the story and characters. In XIII's case, he was asked to take Toriyama's rough script and make it workable. He allegedly only worked on the first eight chapters of the game and had to do several re-writes due to Toriyama's wishes.

In both cases, Watatnabe is listed as the main scenario writer but background information shows he wasn't necessarily the mastermind behind each script. Masato Kato was one of the writer's for Chrono Trigger but Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest creator and DQ's head writer) wrote out several sections of the game such as the opening with Marle disappearing in 600 A.D. because she accidentally changed history and erased her existence. Hence why time travel rules are a bit inconsistent because Kato wasn't consulted while he was writing out the later parts of the story. Sakaguchi has also had a strong hand in writing or at least putting his own stamp on the plot for the first nine games in the FF series even though he isn't always listed as being part of the writing team.

How do you get your information?

Upon Kawaii Ryukishi's death various parts of his systems were implanted into Wolf Kanno. This has granted him Kishi's ability to absorb information from various parts of the internet few know even exist, and do so with inhuman speed.

That or he just has no life, take your pick. :P

[Bolivar]

Warren Spector probably deserves to be on this list, the creator of System Shock, Deus Ex, and Epic Mickey most recently. I would also add Jean Francois-Dugas, the director of the team now in charge of Deus Ex. Human Revolution was pretty good but only time will tell if he can really stand with the greats.

Ron Gilbert should also be here for what he did with Monkey Island and other games in the early days of Lucas Arts, as what he did really paved the way for David Cage and experiences like Heavy Rain.

Speaking of whom, I think the dude's definitely a good writer. A lot of people freaked out over Heavy Rain for some reason, in a way I've never seen people rally against a video game before. But at the end of the day I think he succeeded in what he sought out to achieve, I thought there were a lot of story elements that he was on point with.

[Forsaken Lover]

I completely agree with you there man. There is a RIDICULOUS amount of hatred for David Cage, the likes of which I've never seen directed at a video game maker.

Look at these topics
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.842628-David-Cage-Awarded-the-Legion-of-Honor
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.830133-David-Cage-is-one-of-the-worst-writers-in-the-industry

It's gone far beyond the "I don't like his games" stage. In the last couple days I've read numerous comment that he's:
a racist
a sexist
a failed filmmaker
a narcissist

Oh and most importantly - he HATES video games. Apparently, according to the internet, he'd rather be doing anything but making video games.

I think this YouTube comment I found on him is more or less a perfect representation of all his haters:
"he's a dick but he gets to hang out with Ellen Page all day."

Fact of the matter is...it's jealousy, plain and simple. Internet nobodies can't stand the fact Cage is more successful than they will ever be. And the problem with Internet Nobodies is they have self-esteem issues which means they naturally hang on to any bandwagon that comes their way. This is more or less what happened with Twilight - a bunch of people started to hate on it so everyone else joined up so "be cool." Hating David Cage is "the In Thing" on the Internet.

Because God knows losers have to justify the fact they are losers and will never achieve anything. What's that quote? Something like "if we did not have any faults of our own we would not take such pleasure in pointing out the faults of others"?Something like that... Well people on the Internet have nothing BUT faults so naturally they have to bitch about somebody to try and ease their hollow existences.

[NeoCracker]

Here's the thing with David Cage, he does have some issues with his writing at times, but I think he is still a good writer on a whole. However, if you listen to his interviews, he comes across as a moron. For example, prior to showing off Beyond, he spoke about how all video games relied on gun fights, car chases, and explosions to sell, and how he would make a game that didn't do that.

The trailer he showed immediately after was full of gun fights, car chases and explosions.

I could go on, but David Cage himself is pretty much a complete douchebag in any of his interviews, though I do love both Beyond and Heavy Rain. It's really hard though to imagine the guy who says the things he does makes the things he does. :p

[Forsaken Lover]

I dunno...I have not seen every video with him or read every interview but I did see this
_-cE1MMPyzI

The Internet portrays him as a video game hating snob who spends all his free time from hating women saying "I AM PERFECT MAN ALL OTHER GAMES SUCK ONLY I DO IT RIGHT".

That does not seem to be the case from what I can tell. It's just the e-community wants to throw every possible insult at him.

[NeoCracker]

I never got the hating women thing, but he has claimed no one else makes games as emotional as he does, and that it's because he uses hollywood actors as apposed to other games use of professional voice actors.

[Wolf Kanno]

The only thing I have ever heard from people about David Cage is that his writing tends to be hit or miss. While most of his stories are intriguing he often get's sidetracked or tries to resolve them in not the most graceful ways. I think Heavy Rain is the only game where I have not heard any negative commentary on it.

[Madame Adequate]

Michael Kirkbride :love: for writing all the best Elder Scrolls in-game lore books.

Pls add to list Forsaken Lover.

[Forsaken Lover]

Kay, list updated. Almost up to 80 now! It be awesome if we got to a full 100 but I don't see that happening. Ah well, 80 is a good benchmark.

@Bolivar I looked up that guy you said directed/created the games but it seems like he didn't write them. Ken Lavine or whoever is credited as the writer of System Shock for example.

[Ayen]

I hear the sexist comments in regard to Dave because Beyond has a bunch of shower scenes, an achievement for getting laid, and attempted rape.

I tell myself I'm not going to read the YouTube comment section and what do I do?

[Karifean]

I'd add Ryukishi07, mainly for his work on Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Umineko no Naku Koro ni. He was also one of the writers for Rewrite.