On Far Cry 5, I was largely responsible for overseeing the open world narratives for the Holland Valley and Henbane River regions of the map.

This included providing some narrative feedback to the audio, and game design teams who created our “intel” conversation system, intel system, where every time you talked to a friendly NPC, they would give you hints about where to find main missions, side content, or collectibles, depending on where you were in the story and where you were located on the map. If they didn’t have intel to give, then they would give you lore about the area you were in or background info on the prominent characters in the region.

The intel and barks also reacted to your accomplishments as a player. At the start, when the Resistance is at its weakest and the cult is at their peak, friendly and enemy barks reflect this. But as the player proceeds through the game, the tide turns and the barks reflect this as well. It was a massive undertaking and I was lucky to have some incredible writers helping me out, as well as generous and supportive colleagues in the other departments involved.

I also worked hard to make sure that every point of interest on the map had its own background and story, and that players could discover those stories through exploration, reading notes, listening to conversations, and collectibles. Like all things in video games, it was a hugely collaborative effort.

The stuff I wrote more or less directly were the all of the Prepper Stash treasure hunts in the two regions, the Willis Huntley mission, and the intros to the Clutch Nixon stunts.