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description to learn more. Hi,

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I'm Alexa Ray Korea and this

0:52

is the Game Maker's notebook

0:54

podcast. Today's episode is with

0:56

Ashley Popprick and Chris Holsworth,

0:58

both writers on Call of

1:00

Duty Black Ops 6. For those of you

1:02

following my career, I also worked on college

1:05

duty once upon a time, so we had

1:07

a very frank and very honest conversation about

1:09

what working on the franchise is like, and

1:11

all of the work that went into making

1:13

the conspiracy theory laid in black optics. I'm

1:15

not going to spoil any part of it.

1:18

I felt like this conversation was just so

1:20

incredible and gets a little spicy, so please

1:22

enjoy. Welcome

1:29

to The Game Maker's Notebook,

1:31

a podcast featuring a series

1:33

of in-depth one-on-one conversations between

1:35

game makers providing a thoughtful,

1:37

intimate perspective on the business

1:40

and craft of interactive entertainment.

1:42

The Game Maker's Notebook is

1:44

presented by the Academy of

1:46

Interactive Arts and Sciences, a

1:48

member-driven organization dedicated to the

1:50

recognition and advancement of

1:52

interactive entertainment. All

1:59

right, so How did you get

2:01

here? What was the path for

2:03

you to arrive at this year

2:06

of our Lord 2024 writing Black

2:08

Ops 6, Ash, you go first?

2:10

What's your career been like?

2:13

It's been fast and furious

2:15

as uh, then diesel

2:17

would say. So I had kind

2:19

of figured out that

2:22

game writing one was

2:24

like a thing that

2:26

existed and then immediately

2:28

followed like. by it being

2:30

my dream career while I was

2:33

in my bachelor's program. And so

2:35

I was doing kind of like

2:37

game jams. I was in

2:39

extracurricular like game dev club

2:42

stuff while also getting my

2:44

degree in film. So I

2:46

kind of had like a

2:49

mix of like some game stuff

2:51

and then like some TV writing

2:53

stuff and so I was able

2:55

to kind of put that

2:57

together and first work as

2:59

an intern at Insomniac Games

3:02

writing on Spider-Man 2 so

3:04

that was like my first like

3:06

actual big boy studio job and

3:08

then immediately kind of out of

3:10

school I had one semester left

3:12

and I started working at a

3:15

indie studio called Bonus XP, Rest

3:17

and Peace. Yeah, I was there

3:19

for a year, but just kind

3:21

of like, I don't know, I

3:23

can't tell if it was a

3:26

gut feeling or if it was anxiety,

3:28

I think it might have just been

3:30

both, but I was like, some things

3:33

afoot and I have a feeling

3:35

this project might not see the light

3:37

of day. And so, you know, I went

3:39

just kind of on. on the job hunt

3:41

as you do sometimes and I just

3:43

happened to see an opening for High

3:46

Moon Studios. It was the first time

3:48

that I had heard of that studio

3:50

but when kind of researching I was

3:52

familiar with their Transformers games and

3:54

also the Deadpool game that had

3:56

come out I think in like 2013

3:58

and I was like Okay, sick. But

4:01

I was, I was pretty aware

4:03

that it was going to be,

4:05

you know, call of duty from

4:07

there out. So, you know, interviewed,

4:10

kind of, you know, got the

4:12

job and have just been working

4:14

on call of duty ever since.

4:16

So I ended up on black

4:19

op six just because that's kind

4:21

of the natural progression of things,

4:23

right? I basically am. attached on

4:25

to every game writing team if

4:28

there is one for each for

4:30

each game and so yeah for

4:32

this time it was black up

4:34

six which Chris and I we

4:37

actually were like shifts passing in

4:39

the night I feel like when

4:41

I was starting to fully work

4:43

on black off six that's when

4:46

the layoffs happened. in which I

4:48

will take that to crisp. Yeah,

4:50

I mean, if Ash's career has

4:52

been fast and furious, mine has

4:55

been long and laborious. I'm showing

4:57

my age a little bit here.

4:59

I didn't think I could be

5:01

a writer for video games, so

5:04

I pursued writing about video games

5:06

and journalism and sort of wound

5:08

my way up to the third.

5:11

phase of EGM at that point,

5:13

did a couple of years there,

5:15

but at that point had realized

5:17

there are Western storytellers in video

5:20

games, so I made the shift

5:22

over to localization thinking that that

5:24

would be a good way to

5:26

pay it back to I got

5:29

into games through Shining Force 2

5:31

Final Fantasy 6. So I joined

5:33

up with Atlas and Sega and

5:35

did localization for a few years

5:38

thinking that be a good way

5:40

to get my feet wet, to

5:42

get some games underneath my belt,

5:44

and sort of pay back to

5:47

a genre of games that maybe

5:49

fall in love with story trying

5:51

to begin with. Eventually I did

5:53

some contract work for a French

5:56

indie studio called game atelier on

5:58

a project called Other Skin. Saw

6:00

an opening at Raven. Applied. My

6:02

lead liked what I was about,

6:05

which was, you know, fairly grim

6:07

dark, noir. The kind of edge

6:09

he was looking for for call

6:11

of duty and rolled onto the

6:14

scene towards the end of call

6:16

duty vanguard's development and as what

6:18

would come to be known as

6:20

Black Up Six started spinning up.

6:23

Fast forward to the start of

6:25

this year, Microsoft lays off 1900

6:27

people. Now I'm at shape shifter

6:29

games. Oh, what did you do?

6:32

Okay, so for those of you

6:34

at home who aren't familiar, I

6:36

worked on the 2021 call of

6:38

duty vanguard. So this is going

6:41

to be a fun conversation. What

6:43

did you do on vanguard? So

6:45

by the time I joined up.

6:47

We were a few months out

6:50

from ship. So a lot of

6:52

stuff. It was it was just

6:54

sort of a... fixing

6:56

and tweaking what was largely baked

6:58

in. So Raven did the final

7:01

mission, the Fourth Reich, and they

7:03

did the Numanuma trail mission. So

7:05

at that point, most of the

7:08

critical writing had been baked in.

7:10

They just needed some, I think

7:12

on Numanuma trail, I wrote some

7:15

untranslated Japanese conversations. So somewhere out

7:17

there's two Japanese characters having a

7:19

very. Kevin Smith conversation about like

7:22

wanting a cigarette and not smoking

7:24

in a far in a jungle

7:26

is a bad idea and like

7:29

blah blah blah blah blah. I

7:31

remember putting your dialogue in the

7:33

tool. That was me. Yeah. Oh

7:35

my gosh. Really dumb vignettes for

7:38

that work. I knew that no

7:40

one like unless you spoke or

7:42

understood Japanese like no one would

7:45

pick up on that conversation and

7:47

then very similarly halfway through the

7:49

fourth Reich you're kind of working

7:52

your way through a subway and

7:54

there's all these. you know, survivors

7:56

hiding out from the bombardment of

7:59

above. So all those conversations that

8:01

people are having about like, are

8:03

you okay? Oh my leg, you

8:05

know, that stuff is, that was

8:08

my. by very short and sweet

8:10

contribution to Vanguard. Yeah, those were

8:12

my levels. Oh my God, I

8:15

remember putting your words into the

8:17

weird dialogue tool. Bougainville, New Manua

8:19

Trail was largely written by Toki

8:22

Oniobuchi, who was an incredible novelist

8:24

and writer. Shout out Toki, I

8:26

love you, I miss you. And

8:29

the finale was punched up by

8:31

myself and Shelby Carleton, who was

8:33

still at. Sledgehammer Games right now.

8:35

Shout out shall be the Gen

8:38

Z heart. That's so cool. Yeah,

8:40

so we worked on some some

8:42

pieces together. So now you've got

8:45

a lot more cod under your

8:47

belt. Ash you've been in cod

8:49

for a very very long time.

8:52

Cod, just call of duty, which

8:54

is a cod. Is it weird

8:56

if we just call it cod

8:59

for this conversation? Hopefully people get

9:01

it, you know. Yeah. Caught is

9:03

call of duty. Caught is call

9:06

of duty. For in your opinions,

9:08

and we can have like discussions

9:10

about this, for a franchise like

9:12

call of duty that is quite

9:15

old, quite storied, quite large, quite

9:17

a money maker, quite military, what

9:19

does story mean for a franchise

9:22

like this? I

9:26

mean, I did the thing where

9:28

you roll in with all the

9:30

swagger of a new employee and

9:32

you're like, I'm gonna fix call

9:35

duty, I'm going to elevate it

9:37

to new heights. And then very

9:39

quickly, the machine grinds you down

9:41

and spits you back out and

9:44

you realize that for all your

9:46

good intentions, there's a very hard

9:48

deadline to meet and a lot

9:50

of game to make in those

9:52

three short ears, if you're lucky.

9:55

That feels like a gift. Anyway,

9:57

three years week, wiki-faced. For all

9:59

the saminess about Call of Duty,

10:01

though, there is different sub-brands do

10:04

have different flavors, right? So it

10:06

was, it was, for me, a

10:08

boon to be working on Black

10:10

Ops, because Black Ops, in my

10:13

mind, has always been the more

10:15

personality driven of the equation. Like,

10:17

if Modern Warfare is a military

10:19

shooter, where the cool thing is

10:22

to say, you know, tango, x-ray,

10:24

delta, as many times as possible

10:26

in the span of six hours,

10:28

Black Ops allows you to have

10:30

characters who had a human scale.

10:33

existence to them. You know, Woods

10:35

might not be the most robust

10:37

and interesting character out there, but

10:39

in the world of call of

10:42

duty, he has dimensionality in ways

10:44

that like, yeah, Task Force 141

10:46

didn't. So for me, it was

10:48

the opportunity to explore and examine

10:51

old characters and introduce new characters

10:53

and just really try to make.

10:56

players fall in love with the

10:59

people that they're hanging out with.

11:01

Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree. I

11:03

was really, so I had gotten

11:06

off of Modern Warfare 3 to

11:08

work on Black Up 6 and

11:10

it felt like a breath of

11:12

fresh air almost because I felt

11:15

like I could speak like a

11:17

human being again when writing, you

11:19

know, there's just so much. kind

11:22

of like military jargon and for

11:24

modern warfare you are really having

11:26

to focus on just like the

11:29

mission because that's just like the

11:31

you know the set kind of

11:33

tone of the game and I

11:36

think because black ops for a

11:38

lot of the characters they aren't

11:40

just like soldier one through soldier

11:43

four. And so they have like

11:45

actual back stories and they're affected

11:47

by that. you know, just like

11:50

how we are, like our backgrounds

11:52

make us who we are. And

11:54

I think because we're able to

11:57

show that, it just feels, it

11:59

feels a lot smoother and it's

12:01

cool because you get to actually

12:04

like explore those characters. So I

12:06

was very similar to Chris. I

12:08

actually remember in my interview, I

12:10

was like, it's so sad to

12:13

think about. But I was like,

12:15

oh, I think that call of

12:17

duty has the potential to be

12:20

better. And like, I want to

12:22

be the one to like, help

12:24

get that there. Because I was

12:27

the same where I was just

12:29

like, oh, I don't, I don't

12:31

know how call of duty works,

12:34

but you know, it's kind of,

12:36

you, you make one a year,

12:38

and I don't know what the

12:41

past like five years has been,

12:43

so sure. But yeah. work that's

12:45

going in and even when you

12:48

have a three year death cycle

12:50

which in call of duty is

12:52

very rare nowadays but there's still

12:55

so much changing and of course

12:57

like campaign is only one portion

12:59

of it right there's also like

13:01

multiplayer and there's zombies and there's

13:04

seasonal content and there's just so

13:06

many moving pieces that there's just

13:08

it feels like there's just never

13:11

any time to do much of

13:13

anything ever. And the thing that

13:15

I definitely learned, and Chris, I'd

13:18

be interested if you kind of

13:20

had the same thing. Just finding

13:22

ways that you can put those

13:25

like human experience and like interactions,

13:27

ways to just quickly inject that

13:29

into the story, because there's just

13:32

not time to like really be.

13:34

sitting and like having writers rooms

13:36

where we're discussing kind of like

13:39

the emotional character arcs of everybody

13:41

and You know, it's just kind

13:43

of like Find ways to put

13:46

that in as you're, you know,

13:48

writing the actual mission. Yeah, because

13:50

you're always moving fast. I mean,

13:52

we tried for sure, right? There

13:55

was that, there's that brief window

13:57

of pre-production where we mapped things

13:59

out, we had outlines, and we

14:02

had character trajectories, and then the

14:04

nice thing about Black Ops since

14:06

Cold War, and really this kind

14:09

of the franchise since Infinite Warfare

14:11

is that they have a safe

14:13

house hub. which slows things down

14:16

and allows you optionally to interact

14:18

with your teammates and you can

14:20

do a lot more of the

14:23

character-driven storytelling that is, you know,

14:25

more the bread and butter of

14:27

any given writer than you can

14:30

in missions. So that opportunity afforded

14:32

us the window to kind of

14:34

learn more about characters and have

14:37

conversations that explore them in dimensionalities

14:39

outside of objective base dialogue and

14:41

stuff like that. But I did

14:44

try as best I could to

14:46

push for Black Ops is very

14:48

much a big budget blockbuster in

14:50

the in the leaning more towards

14:53

Marvel than like, you know, Sicario

14:55

kind of realm, right? So there's

14:57

room for banter, there's room for

15:00

characters to have this awareness of

15:02

missions or to be so cool

15:04

that they don't have to be.

15:07

under duress the same way that

15:09

like task force one for one

15:11

would be. So we tried to

15:14

inject those into the missions whenever

15:16

we had and I did most

15:18

of the work that I did

15:21

was on the third mission most

15:23

wanted where you infiltrate capital stations

15:25

Blacksite and I that that mission

15:28

was very early on in development

15:30

and as a result there's a

15:32

lot of beats where it's like

15:35

slow down enough that we can

15:37

have the character sort of converse

15:39

and not have to reiterate the

15:41

objective because it's already been stated.

15:44

So you can have them kind

15:46

of quit back and forth or

15:48

you can have them reveal aspects

15:51

of their personality while still tapping

15:53

into the mission in terms of

15:55

like, you know, using the excuse

15:58

of getting on those ridiculous American

16:00

dirt bikes to reveal that Marshall

16:02

is like a media junkie and

16:05

is very much into movies and

16:07

you can kind of learn more

16:09

about that when he has a

16:12

conversation with Woods later on and

16:14

talks about Captain America and Professor

16:16

X and stuff like that. Like

16:19

he's obviously a nerd and sort

16:21

of like an authorial insert in

16:23

that respect. But at the end

16:26

of the day deadlines loom your

16:28

best intentions and your your greatest

16:30

wishes kind of get cut down

16:32

Things compromises are made and so

16:35

Well-planned character arcs suddenly end earlier

16:37

than you thought they would and

16:39

game development happens at the end

16:42

of the day both of you

16:44

have mentioned joining the cod family

16:46

and ash you use the term

16:49

better. I'm gonna come in and

16:51

make it make it make the

16:53

story better. Can you elaborate on

16:56

what that meant for you? And

16:58

I will put I will insert

17:00

myself a little bit into this

17:03

conversation as well because I really

17:05

think that this was a big

17:07

big idea for Vanguard as well.

17:10

We kind of wanted to tell

17:12

a cinematic story that kind of

17:14

went beyond the idea of you

17:17

are playing a first-person shooter. And

17:19

I think we succeeded in some

17:21

regards and maybe were failed in

17:23

others. not because we were all

17:26

terrible writers, but because at the

17:28

end of the day, the franchise

17:30

is gameplay first. And also, I

17:33

feel like the audience, the previous

17:35

audience of this franchise comes with

17:37

quite a bit of baggage. And

17:40

I'm wondering if that factors into

17:42

your answer when you say, oh,

17:44

I want to come in and

17:47

make it better. And I'm wondering

17:49

if that audience baggage factored into

17:51

the way that you approached writing

17:54

the characters for Black Up Six.

17:56

So, and this is just kind

17:58

of from my perspective, right? But

18:01

when I was growing up, I

18:03

remember, so, you know, I was

18:05

kind of in the age group

18:08

where 2012 Black Ops 2 was

18:10

like, that was like peak call

18:12

of duty for everybody that I

18:15

knew. I think I was just

18:17

like, I was like a little,

18:19

a little too young for the

18:21

modern warfare wave, but like the

18:24

Black Ops that just like hit

18:26

at the perfect time and it

18:28

felt like everybody including me had

18:31

Black Ops 2 and was playing

18:33

it and that was like. that

18:35

was like the call of duty,

18:38

I think like peak. And then

18:40

I would hear about it more

18:42

and more just kind of like

18:45

as some other titles came, I

18:47

remember when Black Ops 3 came

18:49

out, I was like, oh cool.

18:52

But I also like I never,

18:54

I never bought it. I only

18:56

knew a couple people who actually

18:59

played all the way through. And

19:01

then once, you know, once it

19:03

kind of hit like ghosts and

19:06

beyond like. it was just radio

19:08

silence. And I was just kind

19:10

of thinking about, and I feel

19:12

like, you know, a lot of

19:15

people that you see online, especially,

19:17

you know, you know, gamers, Capital

19:19

G, they talk a lot about

19:22

just like, oh, it's not what

19:24

the old games were, and I

19:26

don't think that that was, I

19:29

don't think that there... necessarily right

19:31

or wrong, but I do see

19:33

kind of like where where they're

19:36

coming from because you know at

19:38

that time I remember I mean

19:40

because Black Ops 2 was also

19:43

my first rated M game and

19:45

it was like, oh, like, I'm,

19:47

this is, like, me and I'm

19:50

an adult now, being 12 years

19:52

old. But, um, you know, I,

19:54

I think that was, like, kind

19:57

of the energy that everybody wanted

19:59

to, like, emulate at that time,

20:01

you know, and it's just not

20:03

the same anymore. We've, you know,

20:06

it's, it's not enough just to

20:08

be like, oh, this person is,

20:10

you know, you know, you know,

20:13

What does that exactly mean to

20:15

write? I think what kind of

20:17

happened is as we kind of

20:20

work in a larger and larger

20:22

space as a kind of giant

20:24

media conglomerate almost corporate entertainment. You

20:27

start kind of standing away like

20:29

the edges of what made that

20:31

product like good and I think

20:34

kind of at the edges of

20:36

everything was the kind of like

20:38

the the humanity of it and

20:41

so it just kind of got

20:43

like so so wash trying to

20:45

be like okay well we just

20:48

need to make the next thing

20:50

and it's supposed to make you

20:52

feel cool that it just kind

20:55

of stopped hitting and appealing with

20:57

the players as much as it

20:59

used to because it's not just

21:01

enough to be able to you

21:04

know Do do cool headshots and

21:06

like flip off the back of

21:08

a truck or something right? People

21:11

are expecting more now and I

21:13

think some of that also kind

21:15

of came with Just kind of

21:18

being in the the 2010s like

21:20

more of those Very story heavy

21:22

games just kind of gaining more

21:25

popularity and so I think I

21:27

was interviewing and talking about it

21:29

you know, me wanting to make

21:32

it better. I think I was

21:34

talking about, you know, I want

21:36

to be able to see the

21:39

thing that's all all around. and

21:41

shiny and polished and basically sanitized,

21:43

right? And be able to put

21:46

kind of those, those, you know,

21:48

little rough edges back, right? Because

21:50

that's kind of what, that's what

21:52

people actually like because that's also.

21:55

how we are as people. We

21:57

want to have characters who are

21:59

flawed because we're flawed, you know,

22:02

and if they're completely perfect and

22:04

they never emotionally react to anything

22:06

and we don't see them develop,

22:09

then it's hard for us to

22:11

relate to them, right? Because, I

22:13

mean, shit, I'm not perfect and

22:16

professional all the time. Like, you

22:18

know, you want to see characters

22:20

mourning the deaths of their... other

22:23

soldiers, you know, and kind of

22:25

the people who are in those

22:27

like death-defying missions with them every

22:30

day. And I think that they

22:32

lean so much into like, you

22:34

know, because players liked the military

22:37

realism, I think they leaned so

22:39

much into that that they forgot

22:41

that like part of realism is

22:43

also the part where we're like...

22:46

having emotions and stuff and so

22:48

you don't really get to have

22:50

those like big you kind of

22:53

like those more those more like

22:55

dramatic moments you know if there

22:57

are any jokes in between characters

23:00

like those are some of the

23:02

first to get cut right because

23:04

it's like well this doesn't have

23:07

anything to do with the mission

23:09

or you know what the player

23:11

needs to do and so you're

23:14

just left with basically nothing, right?

23:16

They're not, they're barely characters anymore.

23:18

And yeah, so I, I was

23:21

hoping that I could kind of

23:23

change that. And I think with

23:25

just the production of Blackop Six,

23:28

I think partially because it was

23:30

all coming in so hot too,

23:32

there was a lot more opportunity

23:35

to kind of. let personality shine.

23:37

And I think that I think

23:39

that players noticed. They definitely did.

23:41

I've seen a lot of really

23:44

great articles and reviews for Black

23:46

Ops Six specifically mention that the

23:48

story feels like it is a

23:51

return to form for the franchise,

23:53

which is great because this franchise

23:55

is so long and has been

23:58

going on for forever. And I

24:00

can understand, like with the way

24:02

that you defined better, I definitely

24:05

understand that on our project, it

24:07

was very much the same. We

24:09

wanted to have a, if we

24:12

were going to tell the story

24:14

of, you know, the first team

24:16

ever in call of duty history,

24:19

how they all got together, how

24:21

special op started, it had to

24:23

be heartfelt, like there had to

24:26

be a human reason for these

24:28

people wanting to work together. And

24:30

like, of course, like the best.

24:32

villain in all of history for

24:35

now, well at that time, was

24:37

the Nazis. So that was an

24:39

easy choice and it was really,

24:42

really just a matter of gathering

24:44

all the people victimized by that

24:46

group and having them tell their

24:49

story and come together. That being

24:51

said, for a franchise that again

24:53

is so long, you've talked a

24:56

little bit about, you know, modern

24:58

warfare, the way they speak is

25:00

different than how they speak in

25:03

Black Ops and Vanguard was a

25:05

World War II game, so that

25:07

was also very, very different. When

25:10

you are preparing to write for

25:12

a call of duty story, where

25:14

do you start? We talk a

25:17

lot about ripped from the headlines

25:19

and digging into history, but when

25:21

you get your assignment, it's a

25:23

modern warfare, it's a vanguard, it's

25:26

whatever it's, Where do you start?

25:28

Where do you look first before

25:30

you start writing? Chris, you want

25:33

to go first? So for for

25:35

black-up six, there was... We inherited,

25:37

of course, the time. timeline, right?

25:40

By studying the game in 1991,

25:42

you sort of know what topics

25:44

you want to talk about on

25:47

a geopolitical scale. And also on

25:49

a personal scale, you have Woods

25:51

just coming out of having his

25:54

knees blown off and sort of

25:56

being able to examine what that

25:58

does to a character and what

26:01

his, you know, here's a man

26:03

who defined himself as this forever

26:05

soldier, and now he's been reduced

26:08

to a desk jockey effectively, like

26:10

he's not going to go. full,

26:12

you know, B.J. Blaskowitz and Wolfenstein

26:15

too and roll out there in

26:17

a wheelchair cap and people. That

26:19

didn't stop us from getting a

26:21

little short scene where he does

26:24

do that in the game. But

26:26

the other thing was we had

26:28

the mandate, and I don't know

26:31

if that came all the way

26:33

from the top or if that

26:35

was just internal to Raven to

26:38

have a rogue team. So when

26:40

you know that that's a component,

26:42

you, and you know, I suppose

26:45

it's a point of flatter to

26:47

see a lot of people bring

26:49

up this franchise. you dig deep

26:52

into Mission Impossible movies and other

26:54

political thrillers. And I know for

26:56

me, like if I had to

26:59

point to things that were constantly

27:01

a point of reference or research,

27:03

it's Captain America Winter Soldier, it's

27:06

Mission Impossible Three, where my two,

27:08

like, North Stars, while making that

27:10

game, and sort of examining the

27:12

tropes of those sort of political

27:15

thrillers. that are operating more as

27:17

big budget action blockbusters than they

27:19

are cerebral pieces and seeing what

27:22

can work within the confines of

27:24

the story that we're telling. So

27:26

to some degree, it's interesting to

27:29

go back to what you mentioned

27:31

in terms of the franchise sort

27:33

of being left behind by a

27:36

lot of other narrative-driven games that

27:38

started kicking off around 2013, right?

27:40

That's like... bioshock infinite. That's the

27:43

last of us. I would say

27:45

that call did he kind of

27:47

tilted in that direction with infinite

27:50

warfare for all. false and flaws,

27:52

it was a very character-driven game

27:54

with memorable characters. I would maintain

27:57

is one of the better, if

27:59

not best, call-of-duty narratives out there

28:01

between the robot Ethan and the

28:03

co-pilot Salt and stuff like that.

28:06

And it feels like the franchise

28:08

and then the subsequent writers were

28:10

punished for the weird internet reaction

28:13

to that game. And there was

28:15

sort of a course correction away

28:17

from that. And then enough time

28:20

has passed now that... we were

28:22

able to kind of get halfway

28:24

back up the ladder to where

28:27

we we ought to have been

28:29

in the beginning to begin with,

28:31

especially coming hot off of, you

28:34

know, God of War's reboot and

28:36

then the last of us too.

28:38

Like there's been sort of a

28:41

resurgence of narrative maturity. So being

28:43

able to point to those and

28:45

say like this or what everyone

28:48

else is doing, these are new

28:50

industry standards. We should be chasing

28:52

that narratively. those

28:55

endeavors a little easier and then

28:57

being a two-person team initially it

28:59

was just me and my lead

29:01

we had we had I had

29:03

way too much influence over a

29:05

game despite being a relatively new

29:07

employee at the time but you

29:09

do get a lot of pushback

29:12

as well in terms of people

29:14

who when you look at a

29:16

company like Raven and you think

29:18

about their history and how they

29:20

went from being an independent developer

29:22

making singularity in X-Men games and

29:24

all other stuff to sort of

29:26

being a cod support, getting a

29:28

seat at the adults table for

29:31

lack of a better term, doing

29:33

the campaign on Black Lives Cold

29:35

War, and again on Black Up

29:37

Six, there's a certain amount of

29:39

like reluctance to rock the boat

29:41

too much. So, yeah. Playing within

29:43

those confines confines also sort of

29:45

like makes life both easier and

29:48

harder to reboot the narrative. parameter,

29:50

so to speak. As you have

29:52

anything to add to that? That's

29:54

why I end up being a

29:56

but I feel like I felt

29:58

that the most, just in terms

30:00

of Black Op 6 with Hero's

30:02

mission, the kind of second to

30:04

last mission, yeah, I feel like

30:07

making that one, it felt just

30:09

so, so different from any other

30:11

call of duty mission that I

30:13

had ever gotten to work on.

30:15

I remember. when I got to

30:17

do like kind of the first

30:19

draft of that, I was just

30:21

thinking a lot about how similar

30:24

it felt to what I used

30:26

to do, play writing. So I

30:28

used to, you know, kind of

30:30

write for the stage, right? And

30:32

it felt very, very similar in

30:34

terms of just kind of like

30:36

the, the visorality of being in

30:38

that. headspace, you know, you were

30:40

an adult and you're kind of

30:43

like age regressing almost back into

30:45

the place of your your biggest

30:47

trauma when you were a child.

30:49

And, you know, kind of similar

30:51

to Chris, I was like, whoa,

30:53

I get to, I get to

30:55

put the big boy pants on

30:57

now. And, um, it, it definitely,

31:00

uh, I feel like it definitely

31:02

paid off and it was one

31:04

of my favorite things to work

31:06

on. But then of course there

31:08

was like a lot of meetings

31:10

as well as well just trying

31:12

to like make sure that it

31:14

was rained in and that it

31:17

was still kind of within call

31:19

of duty. And I think at

31:21

the end of the day I'm

31:23

pretty happy with what came out

31:25

of it. It's and this is

31:27

true for many franchisees but it

31:29

is definitely true for call of

31:31

duty. when you are writing your

31:33

story you are always it's gameplay

31:36

first so you're always restrained by

31:38

the mechanics For Black Ops, there

31:40

were a couple of new mechanics

31:42

that they introduced. Did those factor

31:44

into at all the way that

31:46

you were telling your story or

31:48

certain set pieces that you chose

31:50

or the way that you utilized

31:53

certain characters? You used the phrase

31:55

in an interview with Allison Lores

31:57

from Bungee, I think. You used

31:59

the phrase Legos to describe. the

32:01

narrative process on a call duty

32:03

and that's how I've always also

32:05

described it. It's this very much

32:07

like, the missions are already selected

32:09

in some way, they're driven by

32:12

the mission designers, they dump those

32:14

12 bricks in front of you

32:16

and they're like, build a car

32:18

and you have like pieces from

32:20

wildly different sets, like there's a

32:22

little bit of a space shuttle

32:24

in this one, and I think

32:26

that's a deep blow piece like.

32:29

So it's very much you become

32:31

a quiltist, right, where you're building

32:33

a whole out of a patchwork

32:35

series of pieces. So a lot

32:37

of the narrative decisions in a

32:39

call duty black-up six in particular

32:41

are informed by, well, if we're

32:43

going into the villain's mind, we

32:45

need a good reason to go

32:48

into this villain's mind. If we're

32:50

going into a abandoned black site

32:52

facility where you huff some hallucinogenic

32:54

gas, that gas has to play

32:56

a vital role. And so that

32:58

sort of like, like, like, On

33:00

the one hand, it backs you

33:02

into a corner, right? Like you're

33:05

stuck working with that Lego brick.

33:07

Sure. Yeah. But on the other

33:09

hand, it helps build the armature

33:11

so that you know now, like,

33:13

okay, well, I have to earn

33:15

this plot point and build up

33:17

to it, and then this plot

33:19

point has to inform the third

33:21

act in a meaningful way. So

33:24

we must have gone around the

33:26

table discussing what our obligatory WMD

33:28

would be for months on ends

33:30

before eventually the argument was presented

33:32

like, well. It'd be weird to

33:34

just have this hallucinate gas that

33:36

means nothing. It has to, it's

33:38

such a weird and wild thing

33:41

to introduce in the game and

33:43

then dismiss like it's normal. So

33:45

that should be it in some

33:47

capacity and you sort of reverse

33:49

engineer things in the same way

33:51

to to cite Winter Soldier again.

33:53

My understanding of Marcus and McFeely's

33:55

writing process on that was Kevin

33:57

Fy, he wants to see some

34:00

hella characters falling out of the

34:02

sky. Build a story that gets

34:04

to this point and that sort

34:06

of like you just sort of

34:08

work your way back from there

34:10

until you have something. So it's

34:12

like a blessing and a curse,

34:14

right? Yeah, I feel like it's

34:17

a, I mean. I feel like

34:19

Legos is honestly a really good

34:21

analogy. I always think of it

34:23

as like a sandbox. They throw

34:25

us into a sandbox and they

34:27

gave us like, you know, the

34:29

bucket and pale and they're like,

34:31

okay, make something now. And that

34:33

can be, that could definitely be

34:36

really restraining for some people, but

34:38

I do enjoy kind of like

34:40

knowing, like, where the edges of

34:42

the sandbox are and like, what

34:44

tools I need to be using

34:46

for it because if I'm just

34:48

kind of like. thrown on a

34:50

beach and told to do something

34:53

like it's just like it's almost

34:55

like it's too much. Yeah it's

34:57

it's kind of like you are

34:59

flexing a different writing muscle that

35:01

you don't always get which is

35:03

the massive constraints you're essentially writing

35:05

to constraints and I've talk to

35:07

a couple of indie developers on

35:09

this podcast that talk about writing

35:12

have talked about writing to constraints

35:14

and how that that forces you

35:16

to think about things very differently

35:18

and sort of cram what you

35:20

can using the Legos that you

35:22

have before. So it's definitely a

35:24

challenge. It's very much a challenge.

35:26

I want to talk about this

35:29

is a two-part question. I want

35:31

to talk about black up six

35:33

stories specifically. It's very ripped from

35:35

the headlines. It really plays with

35:37

the idea of conspiracy theories. And

35:39

I can imagine that writing something

35:41

ripped from the headlines right. now

35:43

is very, very stressful because all

35:45

the headlines are bad and the

35:48

real world is kind of in

35:50

a very, for lack of a

35:52

better term. We are still in

35:54

unprecedented times with strange things happen

35:56

every day. They've told us that

35:58

aliens exist and nobody bad at

36:00

an eyelash. Like everything is really

36:02

just kind of fraught. So when

36:05

you are looking at those headlines

36:07

and thinking, okay, what reality? do

36:09

we base our story on? What

36:11

headlines do we pull from that

36:13

inspire us? How do you choose?

36:15

How do you sift through that?

36:17

And what are the pitfalls of

36:19

that? And on the same side

36:22

of the coin, how difficult is

36:24

it writing about conspiracy theories when

36:26

we live in a society now

36:28

that a lot of conspiracy theories

36:30

have really kind of changed people's

36:32

beliefs and literally altered the course

36:34

of our actual human history. That's

36:36

a big question, but... I mean,

36:38

we live in a time now,

36:41

right, where conspiracy theories in general

36:43

are someone's ideology. It's not necessarily

36:45

that they're describing to one. It's

36:47

the idea that the... There being

36:49

some sort of design behind the

36:51

actions of people is more comforting

36:53

than the idea that a bunch

36:55

of idiots are running the show.

36:58

And granted, our current political landscape

37:00

is full of... legitimate idiots. But

37:02

when I say idiots, I mean

37:04

like, I'm 40 and I sometimes,

37:06

like, it takes a minute for

37:08

my brain to catch up to

37:10

that idea of that. I'm like,

37:12

I'm this old man now, right?

37:14

But I still, I still feel

37:17

like I'm faking my way through

37:19

life in the same way that

37:21

we're all just sort of like

37:23

figuring it out as we go

37:25

along. And it's frightening to think

37:27

that the people in power are

37:29

the same, right? They're fallible, flawed

37:31

human beings. They don't have some

37:34

sort of like... four D chest

37:36

mentality where there are three steps

37:38

ahead. There's no Illuminati lurking behind.

37:40

But it's comforting to think that

37:42

there is this grand plan, this

37:44

grand design. Yeah. And so when

37:46

you start writing in that space,

37:48

it gets a little uncomfortable. It

37:50

gets uncomfortable. I was watching not

37:53

the most recent Godzilla and Kong

37:55

movie, but the first one where

37:57

they introduced Hollow Earth theory. And

37:59

I'm like, this should be so

38:01

fun and dumb. But I'm uncomfortable

38:03

watching this because I feel like

38:05

it's validating people who legitimately think

38:07

that there's a hollow earth full

38:10

of like dinosaurs or something down

38:12

there. Like we sort of the

38:14

yeah, the saturation rate has reached

38:16

a point where it's not fun.

38:18

And on at some point, you

38:20

kind of have to just pull

38:22

the pen and be like, it's

38:24

fiction. It's not real. We're telling

38:26

stories here. If you, you know,

38:29

I think about to. being a

38:31

teenager and how many times you

38:33

had to explain to your parents

38:35

that like the music you listen

38:37

to doesn't actually make you want

38:39

to worship the devil or whatever

38:41

like playing D and D doesn't

38:43

make you become a Satanist in

38:46

the same way I think most

38:48

people engage with fiction and realize

38:50

that like they don't nobody goes

38:52

and watches John Wick and thinks

38:54

oh I can solve all my

38:56

problems if I have a gun

38:58

like maybe one dude does and

39:00

that sucks especially nope I know,

39:02

we all know what you were

39:05

going to mention and yes, we

39:07

can move forward. Goulish, but most

39:09

people, it's the fantasy, they understand

39:11

implicitly that like, hey, I'm watching

39:13

this because the what if is,

39:15

what if I could solve my

39:17

problems with a gun? And when

39:19

you realize like, well, I'm making

39:22

a call of duty and it's

39:24

going to involve a lot of

39:26

bombast and explosions and it's going

39:28

to till inevitably more Michael Bay

39:30

than I'll ever want it to,

39:32

but that's baked deep into the

39:34

DNA. You just sort of kind

39:36

of have to throw your hands

39:38

up and ride that roller coaster,

39:41

but it was contentious. I, you

39:43

know, we were looking for conspiracy

39:45

theories to kind of like flirt

39:47

with or wink and not at

39:49

in the same way the original

39:51

blackout sort of like, who really

39:53

killed JFK? It was you! Like...

39:55

No, yeah That's probably just a

39:58

dude but like a really disenfranchised

40:00

dude not secretly a CIA operation

40:02

or whatever but You want to

40:04

kind of infuse a game like

40:06

that with that kind of element

40:08

because that's fun and interesting and

40:10

It's historical in its own way,

40:12

but it got to the point

40:14

where I was having active conversations

40:17

with my lead about like I

40:19

don't know man. What if people

40:21

play this and think that we're

40:23

like? turning to the camera and

40:25

breaking the fourth wall and telling

40:27

them that they were right. You're

40:29

right. It's all a lie. It's

40:31

all conspiracy. So you mostly what

40:34

we tried to do is fabricate

40:36

one, which is the plot of

40:38

the game, right? It's like there

40:40

was no arrow. I would be

40:42

surprised if there was a woman

40:44

in the CIA in 1991, unfortunately,

40:46

we're already bending the reality in

40:48

some respect that she was out

40:50

in the field and had so

40:53

much agency. No actual hallucogenic W&Bs

40:55

that I'm aware of. So by

40:57

fabricating a conspiracy theory, we feel

40:59

a little safer. But we, you

41:01

kind of measure that with real

41:03

stuff, which is like, there were

41:05

shady KGB bio experiments and bio

41:07

facilities that we were able to

41:10

sort of like point to and

41:12

say we did our homework and

41:14

we kind of like are reaching

41:16

into the conspiracy theory pop, but

41:18

we're not grabbing. What we find

41:20

in there and hauling it out

41:22

wholesale. Yeah, you skirt the line.

41:24

Can't avoid it, but it is

41:26

picky in the same way that

41:29

every once a year there's a

41:31

shooting and it makes you feel

41:33

weird to be working on a

41:35

game where you're doing so much

41:37

shooting and there's about two weeks

41:39

where I go like, I don't

41:41

want to do this anymore. Man,

41:43

like this isn't then you get

41:46

over because you realize it's fantasy.

41:48

It's a video game. It's I

41:50

never took it seriously as a

41:52

teen and I don't think that

41:54

most people. outside of a vocal

41:56

minority on the internet are doing

41:58

that. Yeah. I

42:02

hope. It's all just fake,

42:05

kids. We're all just making

42:07

stuff up and having a

42:09

good time. None of it

42:11

is serious. There are no

42:13

agendas. There are no ideologies

42:15

that were infusing in there

42:17

outside of... What? Like, it

42:19

was a concerted effort for

42:21

me to make sure we

42:23

had a more robust cast

42:25

of characters that weren't just

42:27

a bunch of, like, rough

42:29

and tough white dudes. Oh

42:32

my God. Yeah, there is like

42:34

a, there's a sort of cognitive

42:36

dissidents that you need to place

42:38

on yourself when you're writing about

42:41

these historical pieces. I know for

42:43

us with Vanguard, like it was

42:45

kind of easy to slot in

42:47

like, oh, the secret plan for

42:49

if Hitler was killed, there was

42:52

someone who would take his place.

42:54

Like that kind of stuff is

42:56

very, is very believable. But when

42:58

you think about the like black

43:00

ops timeline, the modern warfare timeline,

43:02

even if we want to bring

43:05

Vanguard into this too, this is

43:07

like our recent, you mentioned JFK,

43:09

this is our recent history, like

43:11

both my grandparents fought in World

43:13

War II, like it's not so

43:15

far away, like the Romans or

43:18

whatever, that we can make something

43:20

up and be like, yeah, okay,

43:22

whatever it's fantasy, it almost feels

43:24

strange to be bending or playing

43:26

or moving around with history when

43:28

it is so recent. And I

43:31

think something that players and maybe

43:33

a lot of people don't understand.

43:35

when you're writing for games like

43:37

this is you do have to

43:39

sit with that discomfort when you're

43:42

writing. I know the writers of

43:44

Baldur's Gate 3 have talked a

43:46

lot about when they're writing the

43:48

Darkerge storyline, they talk about how

43:50

uncomfortable it was to write these

43:52

darkest human impulses and write these

43:55

terrible things and how like you

43:57

really had to go to a

43:59

place. A, capital A, capital P

44:01

place. So for a franchise like

44:03

this, how do you... prepare yourself

44:05

to you know, prepare your mental

44:08

health to write something like this.

44:10

Like, how do you as a

44:12

writer fortify yourself to tackle something

44:14

with the gravitas as a rip

44:16

from the headlines conspiracy theory laden

44:18

story? I make sure that my

44:21

therapy sessions are in the same

44:23

time. Only half a joke. Yeah,

44:25

I feel like you don't necessarily

44:27

get to. pick necessarily like when

44:29

you could go into those head

44:32

spaces because at the end of

44:34

the day like once something has

44:36

to be done it has to

44:38

be done and you know there's

44:40

other disciplines who are not having

44:42

to like get into that headspace

44:45

to work on that work and

44:47

they need to do their stuff

44:49

too but it can definitely put

48:46

You're pretty smart. When people talk

48:48

about you, too smart comes up

48:50

a lot. So why are you

48:52

trying to prove them wrong? Why

48:54

aren't you pushing the limits of

48:56

science and powering the nuclear engines

48:59

of the world's most powerful Navy?

49:01

If you were born for it,

49:03

isn't it time to make a

49:05

smart choice? You can be smart

49:07

or you can be nuke smart.

49:09

Become a nuclear engineer at navy.com

49:11

slash nuke smart. America's Navy.

49:13

Forged by the sea. the

52:03

Gulf War, you guys do your thing.

52:05

And then in one of my earliest

52:07

pitches, I wanted this game to be

52:09

Mass Effect 2. I wanted like 10

52:12

recruitable characters, and all the missions were

52:14

going to be their recruitment missions, and

52:16

there was only going to be three

52:18

main story missions or something like that.

52:20

I pitched the same thing separately. That's crazy.

52:23

That would be so fun. I would play

52:25

the shit out of a mass effect style

52:27

call of duty. I just thought it would

52:29

be easier because instead of having 12 red

52:31

crumbs that you have to keep track of,

52:33

which across a six-hour narrative, which is,

52:36

you know, three times as long as any

52:38

given movie, which it can be difficult enough

52:40

to track the narrative logic of, I'm

52:42

like, it's just a one done. Every mission

52:44

can be in its own vacuum. We don't

52:46

have to worry about it being connected and

52:49

how it ties into the next mission. We

52:51

just need three main beats, the beginning, middle

52:53

and end of like the suicide run, so

52:55

to, for like the suicide run, for reasons

52:58

I can't being. That just didn't, we got

53:00

the one, you got six, the second mission.

53:02

It belongs to me at that

53:04

Felix didn't get his own. And

53:06

for various degrees of like

53:09

game development logistics and

53:11

budgetary reasons and who knows

53:13

what else, we couldn't have a huge

53:15

cast of characters. So we knew it

53:17

was going to be like this small

53:20

tight team and then from there was,

53:22

well, what are your, what are your... Go

53:24

to troops for a rogue team, right? Like,

53:27

well, we need we need a master of

53:29

the sky slash of face. We need

53:31

a tech wizard. Okay, we're

53:33

interesting in different ways for

53:35

those characters to be explored

53:37

instead of the usual go-to ways.

53:39

I don't know why my go-to face

53:41

is face from the A team. But I'm

53:43

like, well, okay, I don't need the

53:46

perfectly handsome white guy that we've

53:48

already seen. So what if it

53:50

was someone of like Turkish origin

53:52

origin. I don't know why I settled

53:54

on Turkey, of all things, which

53:57

really makes casting an interesting

53:59

challenge. get that specific.

54:01

And then for the Tech

54:04

Wizard, I wanted to, for

54:06

that character for sure,

54:08

to bend as many

54:10

call-duty rules as possible.

54:13

And I won't go into too

54:15

much detail, but I'll say

54:17

that Felix is functionally

54:20

the opposite of what I

54:22

originally pitched in every way,

54:25

like in terms of being a

54:27

German dude. I had a very

54:29

different person in mind for that

54:31

role, but I wanted that character

54:33

to be more pacifistic. I wanted

54:36

someone who was not the usual,

54:38

like, strong, muscle, murderous type.

54:40

And even negotiating that, you get

54:42

a lot of cold feet in a

54:45

room full of people who don't want

54:47

to rock the call duty boat too

54:49

much and alienate players. So then it

54:51

became like, okay, well, he used to

54:53

be violent, but now he is not.

54:55

But you still have fun with the

54:57

character as he exists now, trying to,

54:59

in a way, that actually creates

55:01

more interesting dynamics in

55:04

terms of someone wrestling with this,

55:06

this ghost of their past, this

55:08

former something they don't want to

55:10

have. So it was very much

55:12

tapping into the tropes of a

55:15

rogue team, of a mission and possible

55:17

team, subvering them where you

55:19

can, and then just like, questioning.

55:23

The, you know, I think it's, I

55:25

don't think I'll get in trouble

55:27

for revealing this. Felix

55:29

is what Marshall was

55:31

originally. Marshall was supposed to

55:34

be a, like a German Stasi

55:36

dude who had joined the US

55:38

and was with Parro. They were

55:40

always an item. Yeah. But it was

55:42

the idea of like, oh, our

55:45

enemies and our allies are

55:47

co-mingling a very Romeo and

55:49

Juliet sort of flavor there.

55:51

And then... I don't know how the

55:53

shift to Marshall being black came

55:55

about, but I got really into

55:58

him being from Philian. being

56:00

sort of a different side of

56:02

Woods' coin. Like, because Woods is

56:04

also from Philly, I'm also from Philly,

56:06

so I'm at this point just like,

56:09

right what you know, I'm like, I

56:11

know what it's like to be a poor

56:13

loser from Philly, let's write a, how

56:15

many more of those can we put

56:17

in the game? So, yeah, it was

56:19

just like, just trying to kind of

56:21

write what you wanted to see within

56:24

the confines of a call duty.

56:26

This sounds like really. self-congradatory

56:30

and no not at all. Agregious

56:32

to say but I'm like I've

56:34

seen myself in stories my entire

56:36

life so it is a priority

56:38

to me to write and again to

56:40

you know being from Philly I'm used

56:42

to a diverse range of friends who

56:45

don't look like me and so

56:47

I try to write towards that

56:49

because I don't have any hang-ups

56:51

about not seeing myself in the lead

56:53

role. If I throw a dark I'll

56:55

hit one there's always you

56:58

know a white guy waiting in the winds. So, yeah, it

57:00

was just like, it just became, it became that,

57:02

it became like, well, you know, what are interesting

57:04

areas that we haven't seen called duty always taps

57:06

into a certain, you know, the Middle Eastern rebel

57:08

has become somewhat of a trope in a stereotype

57:10

within called duty. So I'm like, well, where are

57:13

some other areas, where are some other aspects

57:15

of the Cold War,

57:17

because, you know,

57:19

people default to

57:21

the cold war

57:23

and think it's

57:25

a very Eurocentriccentric-centric-centric-centric-centric-centric-centric-centric-centric-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a

57:27

Cuba and you have

57:29

that the trickle-down influence

57:31

of the Cold War

57:33

on countries that don't

57:35

get the spotlight very much.

57:38

So that's how someone like,

57:40

you know, SEV comes along.

57:42

Yeah. Ask you have anything to

57:44

add to that? SEV was

57:46

my favorite. I remember you

57:48

and I, Chris, chatting about SEV

57:51

because I think that was like

57:53

the only thing we really got

57:55

to... talk about before before

57:58

we couldn't work. together

58:00

anymore and I remember

58:03

seeing like a character

58:05

document and this like

58:07

was so exciting to me

58:10

but you described as this

58:12

as well being like socially

58:15

autistic essentially and kind

58:17

of having a little

58:20

bit more like neuro

58:22

divergence than other characters that

58:24

we see especially in Call

58:27

of Duty. And that was

58:29

something that was like so

58:31

interesting and exciting for me

58:33

to play with since the

58:36

second mission with the

58:38

contracts with SEV was a high

58:40

moon mission. Getting to pitch all

58:42

sorts of ways that we could

58:44

kind of see that. Of course,

58:47

kind of as we were talking

58:49

about, you know, a lot of the

58:51

things end up not necessarily getting

58:53

picked or you know they don't

58:55

they don't fall into what the

58:58

idea of call of duty is

59:00

but I think there's still kind

59:02

of bits and pieces of it

59:05

that that does shine through and

59:07

I think yeah I just hope

59:09

to see more characters like her

59:11

and that will get to push

59:13

that envelope even further

59:15

in future projects. You

59:17

touched on this briefly

59:19

earlier about the different flavors

59:22

of writing for different

59:24

pieces of the game.

59:26

So for call of duty

59:29

for anyone who is

59:31

not familiar, you have

59:33

your single player campaign,

59:35

you have your multiplayer

59:37

campaign, and then you

59:39

have zombies. And then you

59:42

have Warzone, which just started a

59:44

couple years ago, Warzone being kind

59:46

of the newest product. And Warzone

59:49

is the online pubgee chaser. Everyone

59:51

has one now. So it is kind

59:53

of their version of the online. And

59:55

Chris, you mentioned having to be

59:57

consistent with how you use these care.

59:59

and single player because if for

1:00:02

example you kill someone in single

1:00:04

player it's like it doesn't make

1:00:06

any sense for them to be

1:00:08

a multiplayer character if they're dead

1:00:10

right there's kind of like the

1:00:12

Ludo narrative dissidents of like wait

1:00:14

a minute I shouldn't be able

1:00:16

to kind of play as this

1:00:18

character oh but they do it

1:00:21

I know I know they do

1:00:23

it um shout out to Vanguard

1:00:25

that made made butcher a playable

1:00:27

character in multiplayer after he was

1:00:29

already the announcer that was really

1:00:31

fun Writing for that was a

1:00:33

very interesting puzzle to solve. Yeah.

1:00:35

So how would you describe or

1:00:38

how do you have to switch

1:00:40

your brain to write for all

1:00:42

of these different products while keeping

1:00:44

your characterization consistent while playing into

1:00:46

the gameplay needs of each individual

1:00:48

one specifically? What you have to

1:00:50

do is sort of like suspend

1:00:52

your own personal disbelief on someone

1:00:55

like for me multiplayer is not

1:00:57

narrative Centric it's not not to

1:00:59

say that it can't be but

1:01:01

I'm like it's if I play

1:01:03

a call-duty multiplayer. I'm not thinking

1:01:05

about its narrative logic. I'm not

1:01:07

thinking about its connections as single

1:01:09

player. It's a sport I'm out

1:01:12

there on a team. You're trying

1:01:14

to you know score goals, but

1:01:16

with bullets and bodies so it's

1:01:18

foolish in a respect So it

1:01:20

took a long time for me

1:01:22

to kind of like realize that

1:01:24

it's my job to care about

1:01:26

the carryover from single player and

1:01:28

the multiplayer because my default assumption

1:01:31

is like it's just a character,

1:01:33

they're just playing as them. These

1:01:35

aren't, those stories aren't real, if

1:01:37

so, then you know, if those

1:01:39

are canon, Woods got killed by

1:01:41

the scream mask dude, I think,

1:01:43

at some point. in a war

1:01:45

zone event and all kinds of

1:01:48

weird stuff happens. All your characters

1:01:50

got killed 900 times over and

1:01:52

some sort of horrible live die

1:01:54

repeat as you have tomorrow groundhouse

1:01:56

day situation in that if you.

1:01:58

if you look under the microscope

1:02:00

too much. So what it really

1:02:02

boils down to, and Warzone, because

1:02:05

it's seasonal, moves at such a

1:02:07

clip, they very much like to

1:02:09

tap into the greatest hits. So

1:02:11

it's like, oh, here comes Adler,

1:02:13

we're going to brainwash him, we'll

1:02:15

bring him next season too. And

1:02:17

here comes all your favorite villains,

1:02:19

even though they might have died,

1:02:21

or we found a loophole where

1:02:24

they could be. So, for me,

1:02:26

it's less about the plot. And

1:02:28

I know that there are people

1:02:30

who. exhaustively document these sort of

1:02:32

things on public wiki's every little

1:02:34

detail. It's more about characters as

1:02:36

long as the characters are behaving

1:02:38

and expressing themselves in authentic ways.

1:02:41

I am never going to have

1:02:43

my hand on the steering wheel

1:02:45

to prevent some of the absurdities

1:02:47

that will happen in a war

1:02:49

zone. I don't even know how

1:02:51

often the original writers are brought

1:02:53

into those discussions. I don't think

1:02:55

that I was for... any of

1:02:58

the plans involving Black Up Six.

1:03:00

So outside of the sort of

1:03:02

like vague concern of like people

1:03:04

like Adler, if you kill them

1:03:06

you can't play as them. Yeah

1:03:08

you can. No one truly dies

1:03:10

in video games and fiction these

1:03:12

days. No, you just make those

1:03:14

concessions and you just sort of

1:03:17

write the characters so that at

1:03:19

least they're expressing themselves and their

1:03:21

lines sound true and they don't

1:03:23

feel like someone else is speaking

1:03:25

through their mouth, but you throw

1:03:27

your hands up in terms of

1:03:29

like... the amount of content that

1:03:31

a live service game like a

1:03:34

battle reality or something like destiny

1:03:36

requires means that they're going to

1:03:38

go full marvel in terms of

1:03:40

escalation right it's going to go

1:03:42

from like a city is in

1:03:44

danger the earth is in danger

1:03:46

the universe is in danger existence

1:03:48

is in danger like you just

1:03:51

get from A to Z real

1:03:53

fast yeah This isn't

1:03:55

necessarily about like single player to

1:03:57

multiplayer, but just in general with

1:03:59

multiplayer it has almost like a

1:04:02

very different psychology between the players

1:04:04

and the characters than they do

1:04:06

in single player because in single

1:04:08

player those characters have no idea

1:04:11

that they're in that space like

1:04:13

we're we're embodying them but that

1:04:15

is like their world and what

1:04:17

they're experiencing is like what's happening

1:04:20

to them. Whereas I feel like

1:04:22

in multiplayer there almost seems to

1:04:24

be a shared understanding between the

1:04:26

the player and the character that

1:04:28

this is kind of like a

1:04:31

game and we're going to be

1:04:33

basically going together and like yeah

1:04:35

almost doing doing this sport and

1:04:37

you know even though they're not

1:04:40

like oh yes I am you

1:04:42

know I am in a video

1:04:44

game just the way that they

1:04:46

kind of carry the situations are

1:04:49

going to be very very different.

1:04:51

There's kind of more of like

1:04:53

a playful aspect even though those

1:04:55

characters are going to be dying

1:04:58

and they kind of know that

1:05:00

they're going to be dying because

1:05:02

it's in some of those lines

1:05:04

too. But it could be a

1:05:07

little bit disorienting when you're having

1:05:09

to think about single player where

1:05:11

like they're in their baby versus

1:05:13

you know now you're putting them

1:05:16

in multiplayer and they're they're aware

1:05:18

of a little bit that they're

1:05:20

in multiplayer. Yeah. It is in

1:05:22

some respects a multiverse. That's the

1:05:25

healthiest way I can think of

1:05:27

it. The single player is its

1:05:29

own universe. Maybe it's the prime,

1:05:31

maybe it's not, to me is

1:05:34

prime. And then multiplayer and battle

1:05:36

rolls out are just like different

1:05:38

echoes of that, but they're not.

1:05:40

It would be absurd, I think,

1:05:43

to try to integrate some of

1:05:45

those plot components into. the main

1:05:47

story because that's how you develop

1:05:49

a whole litany of inconsistencies and

1:05:52

just to incorporate that detail. Like

1:05:54

I worked at Call Duty. and

1:05:56

did not know where to even

1:05:58

find the story in the battle

1:06:01

was there. I was looking at

1:06:03

wiki's like everyone else being like,

1:06:05

I can't believe the stuff that's

1:06:07

happened in this game. Yeah, yeah,

1:06:09

yeah, yeah. When I got when

1:06:12

we were oh, go ahead. Oh,

1:06:14

I was gonna like total aside.

1:06:16

So do it aside. You know,

1:06:18

I was gonna say like my

1:06:21

still one of my favorite things

1:06:23

that I've done on call of

1:06:25

duty. It wasn't even in single

1:06:27

player, but it was actually writing

1:06:30

Raya Ripley's character. one of the

1:06:32

one of the multipliers and it

1:06:34

was just like such a it

1:06:36

was such a different way of

1:06:39

thinking about how you write different

1:06:41

characters right especially because you know

1:06:43

Raya Ripley is a character that

1:06:45

is in a completely separate IP,

1:06:48

completely different company. Like I'm not,

1:06:50

I'm not worrying about W.W. storylines

1:06:52

or anything, but you have to

1:06:54

be kind of familiar with just

1:06:57

like who they are as a

1:06:59

person and how they would react

1:07:01

specifically to events that are happening

1:07:03

in war zone and in multiplayer.

1:07:06

And, you know, that's, that's going

1:07:08

to be a very different way

1:07:10

than when you're thinking about doing

1:07:12

single player. Also, I just love

1:07:15

Raya Ripley, so it was cool

1:07:17

hearing her have to speak words

1:07:19

that I wrote down. I was

1:07:21

like, check me. I had a

1:07:24

similar experience. I wrote the lines

1:07:26

for Snoop Dogs announcer pack for

1:07:28

Vanguard. And so having to like,

1:07:30

watch like 10 hours of him

1:07:33

streaming games because he's done it

1:07:35

before. to get his reactions to

1:07:37

stuff and then just like hearing

1:07:39

him in the booth being like

1:07:41

wow I wrote that and that's

1:07:44

coming out of Snoop Dog's mouth

1:07:46

like it's so it's so weird

1:07:48

when you're writing those kind of

1:07:50

battle chatter lines for a person

1:07:53

that exists because it's like I

1:07:55

don't really have the access to

1:07:57

ask this person, like, would you

1:07:59

say that? Like, would you do

1:08:02

that? You kind of just have

1:08:04

to analyze them and then try

1:08:06

really hard and hope for the

1:08:08

best. But it's a really interesting

1:08:11

experience. Speaking of my, I feel

1:08:13

like we could we could trauma

1:08:15

dump all day, but we'll have

1:08:17

that discussion offline. I want to

1:08:20

ask you a final question. What

1:08:22

in your experience writing for this

1:08:24

franchise writing for Black Up Six?

1:08:26

did working on this franchise? What

1:08:29

experience? What learning experience? What thing

1:08:31

did you get from working on

1:08:33

any other franchise anywhere else? What

1:08:35

is very unique to this franchise

1:08:38

when you're crafting it? you get

1:08:40

to do so much more than

1:08:42

you would normally get to do

1:08:44

in cod in terms of again

1:08:47

going back to the safe house

1:08:49

I'm like oh this is going

1:08:51

to help me land a job

1:08:53

working on an RPG because I'm

1:08:56

sitting here having dialogue trees with

1:08:58

characters I didn't think that was

1:09:00

going to happen in a call

1:09:02

duty but I think I learned

1:09:05

aggressively how and I learned this

1:09:07

about myself as much as other

1:09:09

players like not how little of

1:09:11

an attention span people have, but

1:09:13

like how easy it is to

1:09:16

miss something, and particularly in a

1:09:18

first-person game where you're trying not

1:09:20

to rip control away, you can't

1:09:22

guarantee, you know, if you're still

1:09:25

chasing that half-life moment where like

1:09:27

you have total freedom and maybe

1:09:29

there's a helicopter crashing and it's

1:09:31

really cool, but you could just

1:09:34

be looking at, you know, the

1:09:36

wall over here, for all that

1:09:38

matters, learning to right around that

1:09:40

was a really interesting... experience in

1:09:43

terms of like, well I need

1:09:45

to have, there's a moment in,

1:09:47

I don't remember what the mission

1:09:49

got finally called, but the casino

1:09:52

mission where Felix loses his shit

1:09:54

and he's smashed and dude's face

1:09:56

in. and you can be looking

1:09:58

away, like right? You were playing

1:10:01

a seven, you're headed right to

1:10:03

that direction, it's like slightly up

1:10:05

to your right, but we had

1:10:07

to write the scene that follows

1:10:10

that a little safe house vignette

1:10:12

with the consideration that maybe people

1:10:14

didn't see that, so maybe people

1:10:16

didn't see that, don't see that,

1:10:19

don't feel like what happened, they

1:10:21

just assumed that like, oh, I

1:10:23

guess he... he got violent and

1:10:25

people who did see it, you

1:10:28

know, can fill in the blanks,

1:10:30

can fill in that specific context.

1:10:32

So that, I remember being very

1:10:34

stubborn about the lack of specificity,

1:10:37

hurting that character moment. I'm like,

1:10:39

no, no, she should be commenting

1:10:41

specifically about what happened and talking

1:10:43

specifically about it and I lost

1:10:46

that debate, but I learned that

1:10:48

I value that. freedom for players,

1:10:50

particularly I find myself more and

1:10:52

more despite being a narrative person

1:10:54

not wanting my handheld in games.

1:10:57

I don't like every now and

1:10:59

then I'll play a Dark Souls

1:11:01

and I'm as inscrutable as it

1:11:03

is as it is. I enjoy

1:11:06

just kind of like not having

1:11:08

the game guide me with a

1:11:10

17 minute long cut scene or

1:11:12

slow me down with a forced

1:11:15

walk and talk. And if you

1:11:17

want to embrace that sort of

1:11:19

design sensibility, then you have to

1:11:21

write. towards that sense of design

1:11:24

sensibility which is sort of a

1:11:26

really hard balancing act between specificity

1:11:28

and like vagary. That's a beautiful

1:11:30

answer. Also you said the word

1:11:33

forced walk and talk and it

1:11:35

immediately triggered me. It is it

1:11:37

is a understandable tool that I

1:11:39

again like as a narrative person

1:11:42

as an avid reader as an

1:11:44

avid film junkie when I play

1:11:46

games that's not what I'm there

1:11:48

for and I think it's great

1:11:51

when you're having you know those

1:11:53

mass effect style conversations when you're

1:11:55

running around the world stuff but

1:11:57

it should be at your own

1:12:00

pace like I think destiny a

1:12:02

really good job of baking long

1:12:04

stretches into its levels that you

1:12:06

can move full clip, but video

1:12:09

is happening the entire time and

1:12:11

you can be picking up on

1:12:13

story, but I'm moving down the

1:12:15

quarter left, I'm moving down the

1:12:18

quarter right, I'm mantling over something,

1:12:20

I'm jumping some platforms, I'm doing

1:12:22

verbs, I'm doing action, nothing is

1:12:24

slowing me down, but it's slow

1:12:26

enough of a pace in terms

1:12:29

of like non-combat, I hope that

1:12:31

the franchise will learn to build.

1:12:33

into its levels that runway so

1:12:35

that you don't have to be

1:12:38

walking at 60% speed and feeling

1:12:40

like the whole game is holding

1:12:42

you back because it wants to

1:12:44

shovel its story down your throat

1:12:47

versus let you enjoy it. Yeah,

1:12:49

about you Ash? I'm going to

1:12:51

have a much cheesier answer so

1:12:53

sorry, but I feel like it

1:12:56

just made it very clear that

1:12:58

if the developers have more of

1:13:00

like an emotional tie to... the

1:13:02

game and the story, then the

1:13:05

players are going to feel that

1:13:07

as well. Because I feel like

1:13:09

it was pretty night and day

1:13:11

between Modern Warfare 3 and Black

1:13:14

Op 6. And it's just, you

1:13:16

know, it's kind of just different

1:13:18

guidelines, right? And it can be

1:13:20

hard for people to feel, you

1:13:23

know, super emotionally connected sometimes with

1:13:25

just like a flat, military sim

1:13:27

because most of us were not

1:13:29

in the military. And you know

1:13:32

I was seeing in contrast just

1:13:34

in the brainstorming meetings that we

1:13:36

were having when people were actually

1:13:38

excited about the project we would

1:13:41

have just so many more interesting

1:13:43

ideas and it didn't really matter

1:13:45

that you know. It was just

1:13:47

at now at this point, it

1:13:50

was myself and Chris's lead. you

1:13:52

know, everybody was having a chance

1:13:54

at being a storyteller and they

1:13:56

were contributing as well. And you

1:13:58

just have to, you really have

1:14:01

to get developers excited about what

1:14:03

it is that you're making and

1:14:05

players are going to be able

1:14:07

to to feel it because they

1:14:10

sure as hell can feel when

1:14:12

developers aren't getting to actually, you

1:14:14

know, do what they want with

1:14:16

it or get to like put

1:14:19

any of themselves in it. The

1:14:21

argument I've always made is that

1:14:23

people don't cause play as geo,

1:14:25

they don't cause play as an

1:14:28

animation, they don't cause play as

1:14:30

a skybox, maybe someone out there

1:14:32

has, but they play, they cause

1:14:34

play as characters. And no matter

1:14:37

what game you're making, no matter

1:14:39

what genre you're in, characters are

1:14:41

king. And, you know, it's why

1:14:43

I try not trying to get,

1:14:46

I used to be a lot

1:14:48

more precious about plot when I

1:14:50

was younger, but now I realize

1:14:52

I would rather have a simplerler-

1:14:55

a convoluted plot and, you know,

1:14:57

paper-thin characters. The characters are who

1:14:59

are you're going to carry with

1:15:01

you after the experience, and the

1:15:04

characters are who fans are going

1:15:06

to discuss on Reddit for, if

1:15:08

it's all-duty weeks, if it's other

1:15:10

games, you know, months and years,

1:15:13

you know, I can, I love

1:15:15

to meet new people who have

1:15:17

just played God of War, Ragonerox,

1:15:19

we can talk about Odin. because

1:15:22

that's a really weirdly divisive character.

1:15:24

That's what you seem to hate.

1:15:26

And I was like, that's the

1:15:28

greatest character I've seen in a

1:15:30

long time. What an absolute perfect

1:15:33

shithead. That reaction is what I,

1:15:35

you know, what I said, if

1:15:37

you are passionate about the characters

1:15:39

and the characters can pop in

1:15:42

a way that registers on a

1:15:44

human scale, that will, what I

1:15:46

think, what I hope Black Ops

1:15:48

6 will show people is like,

1:15:51

that will leave a mark. And

1:15:53

like you said, Alexa, Alexa, there

1:15:55

are. articles out there floating around

1:15:57

like the best parts of Black

1:16:00

Up Six so just hanging out

1:16:02

in your house talking to people

1:16:04

talking to your friends and stuff

1:16:06

like that. I think that that

1:16:09

demonstrates what I was read in

1:16:11

the face arguing initially in my

1:16:13

tenure at Raven. But sometimes you

1:16:15

need to have something prove that

1:16:18

you can't. Yeah, you can't logic

1:16:20

your way to victory despite the

1:16:22

narrative inclination to like, well, everything

1:16:24

I said makes sense. Why don't

1:16:27

you buy my argument? People need

1:16:29

to touch the oven and find

1:16:31

out that it's high. The oven's

1:16:33

high. Why is it high? Because

1:16:36

it's on. Well, I think Blackop

1:16:38

Six has gotten. really great reception

1:16:40

for its narrative. So hopefully everything

1:16:42

we've talked about here, this will

1:16:45

cause everyone to look, assess, think,

1:16:47

and here's to the evolution of

1:16:49

that franchise. Thank you for being

1:16:51

so vulnerable, open, and honest with

1:16:54

me. This was an amazing conversation.

1:16:56

I feel like we could go

1:16:58

for hours, but we'll save the

1:17:00

spicy talk for offline. Again, thank

1:17:03

you just so much. Thank you

1:17:05

so much. Thank you so much

1:17:07

for having us. For sure, thank

1:17:09

you so much. Thank you for

1:17:11

joining us for the Game Maker's

1:17:14

Notebook. For more information on the

1:17:16

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1:17:18

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