Chris Avellone was interviewed last night on Shane Plays, a radio show/podcast hosted by Codexer sstacks. In the 45 minute interview, Chris talks about the games that he's made, from his early work with Star Trek back at Interplay, all the way up to Torment: Tides of Numenera and in particular, Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, which he has a lot of good things to say about.

Chris praises Beamdog's effort in making the transition from the original game to the expansion believable, with a prologue chapter focused around the political situation in Baldur's Gate following the protagonist's defeat of Sarevok. He's impressed by how their writers have given the original game's companion NPCs character development that explains how they arrived at where they are in the sequel, yet without the loss of stylistic consistency. He's also impressed by the expansion's antagonist, the Shining Lady, who he says is not really a villain, and even comes across as more heroic than the protagonist at times.


In addition to talking about games, Shane also asks Chris about his work as a writer (with a particular focus on his recently revealed Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter short story), doodle illustrator and graphic novel author. Chris admits that transitioning from games writing to regular fiction writing can be difficult, especially with longer works. It turns out that he had to get help from inXile's Nathan Long to finish his Wasteland 2 novel, which he says he made a lot of mistakes with.

At the end of the interview, Shane passes on a bunch of questions from the Codex and elsewhere. Embarrassing quotations abound! Chris says he'll come here and answer any questions that Shane didn't have time to convey. Let's hope that he does.