Divinity: Original Sin II Update #13: Chris Avellone is On Board

The latest Kickstarter update for Divinity: Original Sin II announces that Chris Avellone, a veteran RPG designer and writer who most of our readers already know for his work on titles such as Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords, Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas, will be lending his experience and expertise to the project.

Avellone will work on “at least one” of the playable origin stories in the game, in no small part thanks to the enthusiasm of the fans, who advocated for a stretch goal that included his contributions. It looks like this time we’re skipping the stretch goal part, however:

He’s a legend among RPG fans, with some of the most impressive credentials in the world of games writing. and now he’s agreed to help us bring the characters of D:OS2 to life!

Chris Avellone (Planescape: Torment; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas) has agreed develop and write at least one of the playable origin stories in the game, meaning fans of his work will get to play through Divinity: Original Sin 2, Avellone-style.

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Chris: “This is the first time I think the community is responsible for bringing two developers together who might not have crossed paths… and especially for such a great project. I have a lot of respect for Larian Studios, Swen, and Divinity: Original Sin; it’s one of the best game Kickstarters ever. I met Swen at PAX Prime, talked about RPGs for hours, and at the end of it, it was clear we were on the same page. Now? We’re primed to do something great, and I’m proud to be part of it.”

Swen: “It’s a huge honor to have one of our favorite developers on board for the game. Chris’ credentials are sterling, so of course I was very nervous about showing him what we’d been working on. When it turned out that he was enthusiastic about it, I was absolutely giddy! It’s a real honor to have one of the masters on board to help us improve our narrative and characters I honestly can’t wait to get started.”

Larian’s Swen Vincke also talked with Chris about the collaboration in the latest update video for the campaign, though he also had time to go through what were the most popular fan suggestions before the start of the campaign, and how Larian has managed to implement most of them in some measure. Well, except for “Adult Mode”, anyway:

The update also gives us a quick overview of Larian’s presence at TwitchCon and their ongoing PayPal fundraiser.