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Kathryn Megan Starks is a Nebula award-winning writer, editor, and game designer in Orange County, California. Megan currently works as a narrative director at Activision. Previously, she was a game director and senior narrative designer at Obsidian Entertainment where she managed a team of 40+ developers to create fresh, fun, new video game content. Her game titles with the studio include the RPGs The Outer Worlds, The Outer Worlds DLCs: Murder on Eridanos & Peril on Gorgon, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and Tyranny. An experienced professional with more than a decade in the industry, she has also worked as a senior game designer and zone lead on the MMO Wildstar at Carbine Studios. Prior to that, she was a lead content designer and game writer on the MMO Fallen Earth's DLC The Grainway and Free-to-Play re-release, Reloaded. Her novel, House of Ash & Brimstone, debuted in the top 35 Urban Fantasy books on Amazon and in the top 2k overall. Megan has a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She lives with her husband, Scott, and their cat Sashimi and enjoys reading, writing, snowboarding, and playing video games. She is represented by Eva Scalzo @ Speilburg Literary. Honors & Awards: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula winner, BAFTA Games awards nominee, Writers Guild of America award nominee, Romance Writers of America Golden Heart finalist, Pitch Wars showcase, wins in RWA's the Charlotte, Orange Rose, Rudy, Fire & Ice, Sheila, and Great Beginnings contests. press
11 April 2024 Megan speaks with M3DS Academy about narrative design and prospective candidates in the industry 11 May 2021 Wired discusses "Why is it so hard to be evil in video games?" with Megan Starks 24 March 2021 How The Outer Worlds's characters come first, according to Megan Starks and Tim Cain 17 Marh 2021 The Washington Post: "'Murder on Eridanos' DLC is 'Outer Worlds' at its comedic best" review + interview with Game Director Megan Starks 11 March 2021 GameReactor sits down with Megan Starks and Tim Cain to chat about all things Murder on Eridanos 24 September 2019 You can sneak, talk, or shoot your way through The Outer Worlds—but for this interview with Senior Narrative Designer Megan Starks InsideXbox recommends you just watch and listen. 22 August 2019 Senior Narrative Designer Megan Starks talks The Outer Worlds and the differences between writing for novels and writing for games with RocketBeans at Gamescom in Germany 13 June 2019 Game Informer's Ben Hanson talks to Control's Sam Lake, The Outer Worlds' Megan Starks, Baldur's Gate 3's Swen Vincke, and Ready at Dawn's Ru Weerasuriya about independent studios and their reactions to E3 2019 09 June 2019 Geoff Keighley's interviews Outer Worlds developer Megan Starks for E3 Live 30 March 2019 Megan talks the Outer Worlds at PAX East with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky: The Outer Worlds, Obsidian Looks to the Future by Visiting the Past. 07 January 2019 Megan Starks is nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Videogame Writing of 2019 as a Narrative Designer on Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire 02 January 2019 Deadfire wins The Golden Cube and Best Desktop/Console Game of 2018 awards from Unity 18 December 2018 Pillars of Eternity II wins PC Gamer's Best RPG of 2108: "In terms of writing, quest design, and world-building, Obsidian is at the top of its game in Deadfire." 10 December 2018 Megan Starks speaks on Character Building, Companions, Branding, and more in The Outerworlds with ShackNews 07 December 2018 RPG Site chats with Senior Narrative Designer Megan Starks about writing for The Outer Worlds, what makes designing a single-player RPG so compelling, and more 06 December 2018 Deadfire is nominated for Best RPG at The Game Awards 2018 10 November 2018 Megan Starks joins Obsidian Entertainment to discuss partnering with Microsoft (mostly I just gush about how cool it is to work with the team and on such awesome games) 19 October 2018 House of Ash and Brimstone wins second place Best Overall in OCCRWA's The Charlotte contest 16 October 2018 Deadfire wins PC Game of the Year from Trusted Reviews 08 August 2018 Megan Starks wins first place in The Rudy contest's paranormal category with House of Ash and Brimstone 16 July 2018 House of Ash and Brimstone ranks first place finalist in the Orange Rose and The Rudy contests and is a finishing finalist in the Sheila and Great Beginnings contests 21 April 2018 House of Ash and Brimstone wins third place in Chicago-North RWA®'s Fire&Ice competition 21 March 2018 House of Ash and Brimstone is a Golden Heart® Finalist! 26 January 2018 The Manuscript Shredder talks "Opening Action: Getting It Right" with House of Ash and Brimstone 18 October 2017 PitchWars interviews Megan Starks and Emily Colin about House of Ash and Brimstone 16 October 2017 Harvest Hulls Halloween short story published at Atlas and Alice 24 August 2017 House of Ash and Brimstone by Megan Starks is selected as a 2017 PitchWars winner! 05 September 2016 Narrative Designer, Megan Starks, joins Obsidian panelists Brian Heins, Josh Sawyer, Matt MacLean, and Denise McMurry to discuss "Heroes, Villains, and You: Player Choice in Game Design" at PAX West 2016 12 August 2016 GameRevolution interviews the writers for Obsidian's Tyranny on Evil and Surviving in a Tyrannical World 21 August 2014 LazyGamer sits down with Senior Game Designer, Megan Starks, to discuss the recent launch of WildStar 17 August 2014 MMORPG Life talks content updates with Senior Game Designer, Megan Starks at Gamescom 2014 06 June 2014 Megan Starks joins the WildStar Weekly cast to showcase questing in 6-14 zone, Celestion 04 June 2014 Gamereactor TV catches up with Senior Game Designer, Megan Starks, to talk Raids in Wildstar |
Photography by lomonicophotography.com
n o w p l a y i n g : Baldur's Gate 3 Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Alan Wake 2 n o w r e a d i n g : The Shepherd King duology // Rachel Gillig The Scholomance series // Naomi Novik Blood Heir // Ilona Andrews f a v o r i t e s : Witcher 3, Fallout 3 & NV, BioShock, Final Fantasy 12, Borderlands 2, Portal 2, Saints Row 3, Tales from the Borderlands, Control, Hades, Resident Evil 7, Monster Hunter Tri, Catherine, Alice: Madness Returns, Valkyria Chronicles, The Wolf Among Us, Child of Light, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Halo: Reach, Minecraft, Castle Crashers, Splatoon The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel // Amy Hempel Warm Bodies // Isaac Marion Chronicle of a Death Foretold // Gabriel García Márquez recommendations
" Megan was an indispensable part of The Outer Worlds team. Her writing was insightful and humorous, and her work leading the companion strike team added immeasurably to the companion experience. Megan was always pushing for creative solutions to problems. She made our ideas better, added many of her own, and worked tirelessly to help us realize our vision for the game. " - Leonard Boyarsky / Co-creator & Game Director, The Outer Worlds " After several near misses in the game industry, as she arrived at a company or onto a project just as I was leaving, I finally had the opportunity to work with Megan on The Outer Worlds. I found her to be a very collaborative team member who works well under pressure, and who maintains her great sense of humor while continuously delivering high quality work. On more than one occasion I would ask "who wrote this awesome character?" only to be told "Megan did". Later she took a lead role on an expansion for The Outer Worlds, and I found she was as well organized and highly thoughtful in supervising her own team as she was in doing her own narrative work. Megan makes any team better, whether she is on the team or running it. " - Tim Cain / Co-creator & Game Director, The Outer Worlds |
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All content copyright © Kathryn Megan Starks, 2010-2019.