Chris Avellona was accused of harassment. He's now suspended from working on several games
A number of studios at one point broke off relations with the cult game designer Chris Avellone. The latter is accused of sexual harassment.
What happened
Three days ago, messages appeared on Twitter from several women who denounced Avellona. Among those who spoke out against him was Monolith narrative designer Samantha Wallschlaeger. Now her tweet has been deleted.
Avellon himself soon apologized — but only to an employee of the developer Rooster Teeth, who retweeted the accusations. “I should have been better, but I didn’t care,” he told her. He did not assert or refute anything else.
There were also suggestions that the long-standing quarrel between Avellon and Obsidian happened because of the harassment that the game designer allegedly allowed himself. (You can read about other possible reasons for his dismissal from the studio here.)
What happened next
In game development, the topic of harassment often causes a violent reaction. You can recall, for example, the scandals around Riot Games or the composer Jeremy Soul. It wasn’t hard to guess how the studios working with Avellon would react to a similar situation.
- Paradox Interactive instantly disowned the game designer. His achievements will not be used in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. Studio management stated that he had “very short cooperation” with the authors of the project.
- Techland did the same: broke with the game designer who wrote part of the story for Dying Light 2. He is no longer working on the game.
- The authors of The Waylanders promised to carefully evaluate the work of Avellon, whose contract ended last week. It is still unknown whether his ideas will be implemented in the game.
Chris Avellon is a well—known figure in the industry, co-author of many popular RPGs. He has worked on games such as Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Pillars of Eternity and Prey. He also had a hand in Respawn‘s latest hit — Jedi: Fallen Order — and Pathfinder: Kingmaker from Russian Owlcat Games.
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