Sam Maggs on Jedi: Battle Scars and Anthem

Mass Effect creator Casey Hudson left the University of Alberta with a bachelor’s degree in 1998 and soon found himself creating 3D art for a game called MDK2. He stayed at Edmonton-based developer BioWare for the next sixteen years, serving as project director on the licensed RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the beloved sci-fi trilogy that followed it. Today, Hudson’s working on an all-new game at Humanoid Origin, the studio he founded in 2021. We spoke via Zoom last spring. Edited by Elijah Beahm. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

When Xalavier Nelson Jr. made his first game, he meant for it to be his farewell to the industry after years as a young, enthusiastic video-game journalist. Instead, he caught the gamedev bug, founded his own studio, and has been on more or less the same path ever since. He’s worked on projects like We Are the Caretakers, Hypnospace Outlaw, Skatebird, An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, Sunshine Shuffle, and a Stranger Things VR title. His latest, El Paso, Elsewhere, launches Tuesday, September 26th, on Steam and Xbox. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

At the turn of the millennium, Jon Warner worked as a UI/UX designer at Perot Systems—till the day he arrived at work and found out he was no longer a designer there. Laid off for the first time, he took a friend’s advice and applied at Microsoft, where he became a test lead for Xbox. After that, he went on to work as a producer at the Walt Disney Company and Electronic Arts. He served as a senior producer on Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer component, then Mass Effect 3: The Citadel, and other BioWare releases before winding up in the role of game director on the short-lived Anthem. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

When Jason Voorhees rose from the dead in summer of 2017, Gun Interactive co-founder Ronnie Hobbs was one of the men responsible. Friday the 13th: The Game became a monster hit, ushering in a new generation of slasher-movie fans. Now, six years later, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre—based on one of the most beloved horror films of all time—arrives on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox in hopes of leaving a similar mark on the asymmetrical multiplayer genre. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Special thanks to Tom Ohle and TJ Anhorn. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

This giant-sized episode is a trip through decades of video-game history. Industry veteran Mike Gallo got his start doing customer support for the TurboGrafx-16 in 1989 before working as a tester and then producer for publishers like Konami, LucasArts, and Sega in the nineties and aughts. Gallo’s credits include Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series, and the ill-fated passion project Star Wars: Uprising. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

Josh Ratsavong didn’t plan on quitting school and breaking into the industry in the middle of a pandemic. But plans change, and he wound up getting a contract gig as a hardware tester for Microsoft. The products he’d been hired to test turned out to be the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles. After that job ended, Josh applied to Nintendo of America’s software-testing team in Redmond, Washington, where he earned his first video-game credit—for an eleven-month stint doing QA on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

Sam Maggs is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars. She’s also worked as a writer on a number of high-profile video games, including BioWare’s Anthem, Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Call of Duty: Vanguard. Sam and Alex discuss the writing life, Knights of the Old Republic, Nightsister Merrin, Anthem, and more. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

Debra Wilson seems to have done it all, from her eight legendary seasons on Mad TV alongside people like Alex Borstein and Jordan Peele to acting in Star Trek projects, voicing Daisy Duck for Disney, and playing the baddies in Halo Infinite and Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. And she delivers the video-game performance of the year in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, where she plays Jedi Master Cere Junda, guiding Force-sensitives to refuge as part of the Hidden Path on Jedha. Debra and Alex talk Mad TV, Star Wars, Wolfenstein, Diablo IV, the human journey that we’re all on, and more. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

Pete Stewart has been in games for a little over a decade, spending much of his career at Creative Assembly. After getting his start as a QA tester on Total War: Rome II, he later served as a writer on a number of strategy games, including the highly acclaimed Total War: Three Kingdoms. In late 2020, he joined Respawn Entertainment as a senior writer for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Pete and Alex talk about Star Wars, finding the joy in writing for games, and how to prepare for a career in the industry. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Special thanks to Javy Gwaltney and Kelly Van Boxtel. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe

Tom Keegan has worked as a performance director on some incredible projects—Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, The Darkness, a number of Battlefields for DICE, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst, three Wolfensteins, a couple of recent Need for Speed titles, Forspoken, StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, Star Wars Battlefront II, Fallen Order. Tom and Alex talk about directing actors for video games, the three things every actor needs to know, Jedi: Survivor’s most intimate moments, and more. Music by Christy Carew. Art by Audrey Estok. Special thanks to Derrick Clements, Marie-Claire Gould, and Brad Whipple. Get full access to The Endpoem Podcast at endpoem.substack.com/subscribe