Neverwinter Nights II Interview

NWN2 News has conducted an interview with Obsidian Entertainment’s Ferret Baudoin, in which the Neverwinter Nights II lead designer talks about his current responsibilities and how he ended up working for Obsidian Entertainment. A snip:

Q: How did you end up at Obsidian?

A: Brace yourself this isn’t a quick answer. I’ve worked for several game companies in the industry, but Black Isle was one of my absolute dream companies to work for. I had been working as a designer on the Mechwarrior 4 expansions at Cyberlore studios and for a couple of reasons I was looking for a new job (the weather and dim prospects for my wife’s career were the biggies). I saw Black Isle had a job opening and I sent my resume in as quick as I could type. Somehow I conned them into hiring me. The reality of Black Isle at that time was disheartening. Here were all these phenomenal people chained to a sinking ship – Interplay.

Shortly after I started working at BIS, Feargus Urquhart and a bunch of other people left to start a new company. The people that left were some of the people I hugely admired. From my perspective, a development studio is just a name what makes it great are its people. Obsidian had some amazingly great people. It was heartbreaking leaving Fallout 3 (talk about a dream gig) but I had little faith in Interplay at the time, and an enormous amount of faith in the people over at Obsidian. There was a brief stretch of time where people thought I was insane but history sadly has proved it was the correct decision.