Harvey Smith (game designer)

Harvey Smith
Smith in Seoul, 2006
Born1966 (age 59–60)
Other nameWitchboy
OccupationsVideo game designer, writer
Years active1993-present
Known for

Harvey Smith (born 1966) is an American video game designer and writer, who worked at Arkane Studios from 2008[1] until the closure of its Austin branch in 2024.[2]

Smith has lectured in various places around the world on topics such as level design, emergent gameplay, leadership, game unit differentiation,[3] future trends and interactive narrative. At the Game Developers Conference in 2006, Smith won the Game Designer's Challenge: Nobel Peace Prize, for his design featuring a mobile video game that facilitates political social action.[4]

Early life

Smith was born and raised on the Texas Gulf Coast.[5] He grew up playing games like Pong[6] as well as Dungeons & Dragons.[7] He read books by Ursula K. Le Guin, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov and Roger Zelazny, among others.[8] He served six years in the U.S. Air Force, including tours in Germany and Saudi Arabia.[5] Smith moved to Austin at the behest of a friend to try his hand at video game design.[9]

Career

Early in his career, Smith worked in quality assurance (QA) at the Austin-based Origin Systems, where he became the QA lead for games including Super Wing Commander and System Shock.[10] In 1995, Smith became an associate producer for Ultima VIII, working with co-founder of Origin, Richard Garriott. Smith then pitched his own game, Technosaur, a real time strategy game inspired by Dune that would have featured "cybernetically augmented velociraptors". The project was canceled by publisher Electronic Arts after 18 months of work.[11]

After leaving Origin in 1996, Harvey Smith went to work at Multitude where they released FireTeam.[12]

After Multitude, Smith's game development career continued in Austin, Texas working with Warren Spector at Ion Storm as lead designer on Deus Ex as well as its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War.[13] After this he unsuccessfully pitched a further game in the Thief series, to be called Thief: Modern, in which central character Garrett lived in modern-day New York.[13]

Smith then left Ion Storm to work at Midway Games, originally to work on a title called Criminal with "immersive sim values" inspired by Michael Mann's 1995 crime film Heat, but shifting ultimately to work as lead designer on BlackSite: Area 51.[13][12][10] On November 29, 2007, Smith came out publicly to announce how unrealistic the BlackSite: Area 51's development schedule was and through mutual agreement left Midway a day later. He claimed the schedule caused the low reviews due to the fact they were not able to test the game properly.[14]

In 2008, Smith became partner and co-creative director of Arkane Studios in Austin alongside the company's president, Raphaël Colantonio.[12] They went on to release the stealth-action game Dishonored in 2012, which won many Game of the Year and Best Action/Adventure accolades including the 2013 BAFTA award for Best Game[15] and 2012 SPIKE VGA for Best Action/Adventure Game.[16] Smith also directed the sequel Dishonored 2 and its standalone expansion Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.[17] Smith served as co-director on Arkane Austin's Redfall, an open-world first person shooter, which released on May 2, 2023.[13][18] He continued to work at Arkane Austin until its closure in May 2024.[1]

Smith's semi-autobiographical novel, Big Jack is Dead, was released on April 2, 2013, by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.[19] That same year it was on Kirkus Review's list of "Best Indie General Fiction".[20]

Smith, along with other former Arkane developers, formed a new studio, Black Pony Interactive, in August 2026, with its aim to continue development of immersive sims.[21]

Works

Video games

Year Title Role
1994 Super Wing Commander Quality assurance
System Shock
1995 Ultima VIII: Pagan (CD-ROM version)[22]
BioForge
CyberMage: Darklight Awakening Producer, game designer, writer, voice actor
Technosaur (cancelled)[23] N/a
1998 FireTeam Game designer
2000 Deus Ex Lead game designer
2003 Deus Ex: Invisible War Director
2004 Thief: Deadly Shadows Game designer
2005 Area 51 Game designer, writer
2007 BlackSite: Area 51 Executive creative director
2009 Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor Quality assurance
KarmaStar N/a
2012 Dishonored Creative director, game designer, writer
2013 The Novelist Quality assurance
2016 Dishonored 2 Creative director
2017 Prey Quality assurance
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider Creative director
2023 Redfall Studio director

Book

Year Title Category Publisher ISBN
2013 "Big Jack is Dead" Fiction CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN 1482563657

References

  1. 1 2 ""My throat is still raw": Redfall's Harvey Smith reflects on the end of Arkane Austin". Eurogamer.net. May 8, 2024. Retrieved April 22, 2026.
  2. ↑ Yin-Poole, Wesley (May 7, 2024). "Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda". IGN. Retrieved April 22, 2026.
  3. ↑ "Harvey Smith's GDC presentation on Orthogonal Unit Differentiation".
  4. ↑ "GDC: The Game Design Challenge: The Nobel Peace Prize". Gamasutra.
  5. 1 2 "Harvey Smith". www.amazon.com. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
  6. ↑ "Gamasutra - The Subversion Game: An Interview With Harvey Smith". www.gamasutra.com. October 5, 2007. Archived from the original on May 9, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
  7. ↑ "Building a World with Dishonored 2's Harvey Smith". pastemagazine.com. December 21, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
  8. ↑ "Dishonored 2". Game Informer. Minneapolis: GameStop. June 1, 2016.
  9. ↑ Grayson, Nathan (October 17, 2012). "Interview: Unmasking Dishonored's Harvey Smith | Rock Paper Shotgun". Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
  10. 1 2 Lane, Rick (September 21, 2022). "Harvey Smith is in uncharted territory". NME. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
  11. ↑ McKeand, Kirk (2022). The History of the Stealth Game. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: White Owl. p. 74. ISBN 9781399096911.
  12. 1 2 3 "The mirror men of Arkane". Polygon. September 28, 2012.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Peel, Jeremy (March 2023). "Collected Works: Harvey Smith". Edge. No. 38. Future Publishing. pp. 70–79.
  14. ↑ "Confirmed: Harvey Smith Leaves Midway". 1up.com. November 30, 2007. Archived from the original on May 22, 2011.
  15. ↑ "BAFTA Awards Gaming 2013". BAFTA.
  16. ↑ "Around the Web: Award Season". The Bethesda Blog.
  17. ↑ McKeand, Kirk (September 5, 2017). "Why Dishonored: Death of the Outsider needed new writers, according to Harvey Smith". PCGamesN. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
  18. ↑ Makuch, Eddie (January 25, 2023). "Redfall Release Date Confirmed For May 2, As Lots Of New Gameplay Footage Debuts". GameSpot. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
  19. ↑ Futter, Mike (May 29, 2013). "Get Big Jack Is Dead By Dishonored's Harvey Smith For Free". Game Informer. Archived from the original on June 8, 2013. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Best in Indie Books 2013". Kirkus Review. Archived from the original on March 27, 2014. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
  21. ↑ https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/dishonoreds-harvey-smith-launches-new-studio-with-former-arkane-staff-to-make-immersive-sims/
  22. ↑ Gillen, Kieron (November 23, 2007). "The Making Of: Harvey Smith". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Gamer Network. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
  23. ↑ "Technosaur [PC – Cancelled]". Unseen64. April 7, 2008. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
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