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Leonard Boyarsky | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Boyarsky in 2017 | |
| Occupations | Video game designer, visual artist |
| Employer | Obsidian Entertainment |
| Notable work | Fallout,Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura,Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines,Diablo III,The Outer Worlds |
Leonard Boyarsky is an Americancomputer game designer andvisual artist. He is one of the key designers of the video gamesFallout andDiablo III.
After he earned abachelor's degree in Illustration (atCal State Fullerton) and a bachelor's degree in Fine Art (atArt Center College of Design), he worked as freelance artist forInterplay andMaxis in 1992.
He has citedWizardry andLands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos as being his favorite video games, albeit admittedly he was more into comic books when first entering the industry.
Boyarsky joinedInterplay Entertainment as employee number 88.
After some freelance work forInterplay (Rags to Riches: The Financial Market Simulation andCastles II: Siege and Conquest) he was hired as art director, lead artist and designer-writer.
His first work was as lead artist in 1995 wasStonekeep. He was in charge of the conceptualization and implementation of 2D and 3D sprites.
While at Interplay, Boyarsky metTim Cain andJason D. Anderson, the future co-founders ofTroika Games. The three met after work hours to playDungeons & Dragons andGURPS. Cain eventually sent an email around, proposing colleagues to meet after work hours over pizza to discuss making a video game based on an engine he had built. The five people who showed up, including Boyarsky and Anderson, would become the core team working onFallout.
Boyarsky recalls suggesting the post-apocalyptic setting, as he and Anderson were both hugeMad Max 2 fans. Boyarsky was adamant about not making a fantasy game, due to the large number of fantasy RPGs in the market.
Two years later, in 1997, he finished his work as art director onFallout, where he set the recognizable 1950s future graphics style, the humorousVault Boy Traitcards and also the unusual ending. He also did some polishing on the dialogs for the game. Before leaving Interplay to form Troika Games with Cain and Anderson, he designed the overall gameplay refinements and main story arc, quests, areas, and characters forFallout 2 in 1998.
Boyarsky had different roles atTroika Games; among others he was project leader, art director, designer-writer andCEO.
On their first project,Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, which was released 2001, he filled similar positions as inFallout, doing the art direction, dialog writing-editing and story-quest design. He was the project leader and art director on Troika's last released game in late 2004,Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. He worked also on an untitled post-apocalyptic game which was never released due to financial trouble, though a demonstration video of the engine was later released for the public.[1]
As Troika closed in early2005, he took a year off due toburnout syndrome. He was later asked byBlizzard Entertainment to work on the story and RPG elements onDiablo III.[2]
Boyarsky worked as lead world designer onDiablo III and its subsequent expansionDiablo III: Reaper of Souls atBlizzard Entertainment. His role included fleshing out the lore, dialogue and quests in the game. He found it important to build upon the story elements of the Diablo franchise, and convey its intricacies in a more compelling way.
This emphasis marked a shift for Blizzard, who had previously focused less on developing the story elements of the Diablo franchise. This shift was exemplified at 2011’sBlizzCon, whereChris Metzen chaired the first-ever lore panel, with Boyarsky as the main presenter.
Subsequently, Boyarsky would go on make several public appearances and became somewhat of a spokesperson for the lore and story aspects of Diablo III.
Boyarsky was affectionately known as ‘LeBo’ in the Diablo fan community. A legendary gem called ‘Boyarsky’s Chip’ can be found inDiablo III as an homage. Its item description contains a reference toFallout.
In April 2016, Boyarsky joinedObsidian Entertainment.[3] Soon after,Feargus Urquhart has confirmed that Boyarsky andTim Cain are working together on an unannounced project.[4] Urquhart also stated that the duo were not working on then current Obsidian projects such asTyranny,Pillars of Eternity orArmored Warfare. Boyarsky has described the project as his “dream game”.
During the2018 Game Awards, Obsidian announced that the game Boyarsky and Cain have been working on isThe Outer Worlds, afirst-personscience fictionaction-RPG that takes place on aterraformedexoplanet.[5][6] The game was released forMicrosoft Windows,PlayStation 4, andXbox One on October 25, 2019.[7]
When later asked why he leftInterplay, Boyarsky commented that
Interplay had been a great place to work, and we felt that it was losing a lot of what we felt was great about it, and that they were making a lot of bad decisions that would destroy the company. We were about five or six years early on that, but we saw the writing on the wall. IfBaldur's Gate hadn't hit big, Interplay might well have imploded much earlier, but we left about a year beforeBG was even released.[8]
After theFalloutIP was bought byBethesda he said (in 2004):
To be perfectly honest, I was extremely disappointed that we did not get the chance to make the nextFallout game. This has nothing to do with Bethesda, it's just that we've always felt thatFallout was ours and it was just a technicality that Interplay happened to own it. It sort of felt as if our child had been sold to the highest bidder, and we had to just sit by and watch. Since I have absolutely no idea what their plans are, I can't comment on whether I think they're going in the right direction with it or not.[9]
| Title | Year | Role(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Castles II: Siege and Conquest | 1992 | Artist |
| Unnatural Selection | 1993 | Assistant artist |
| Stonekeep | 1995 | Lead artist |
| Fallout | 1997 | Art director, original game design |
| Fallout 2 | 1998 | Main story arc, quests, areas, characters |
| Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura | 2001 | CEO, project leader, art director, designer-writer |
| Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines | 2004 | CEO, project leader, art director, designer-writer |
| Diablo III | 2012 | Senior world designer |
| Diablo III: Reaper of Souls | 2014 | Senior world designer |
| The Outer Worlds | 2019 | Game director (withTim Cain) |
| The Outer Worlds 2 | 2025 | Game director (with Brandon Adler) |
