About this episode

Darby McDevitt discusses his role as a narrative director for Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed franchise and his new novel, The Halter.

Darby McDevitt is a narrative director and writer at Ubisoft . He’s worked on multiple games in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which spans time periods from Ancient Greece to Victorian England. But what does it mean to be a writer on a massive video game where your character is mostly running, climbing, jumping and fighting? The key to his work lies in historical research, but he is sometimes torn between what would actually happen and what pop culture has trained us to expect from different eras of history. We also discuss his new novel, The Halter, which imagines a future where virtual reality is so realistic and addictive that people abandon their real lives and have to be tracked down. This is the first episode in a multi-part series on video games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Eric Molinsky

Guest: Darby McDevitt

Topics covered

• video games
• narrative design
• historical research
• virtual reality
• pop culture

Keywords

• Assassin's Creed
• video game writing
• historical accuracy
• virtual reality
• narrative director

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ubisoft

Books & works: The Halter

Places: Ancient Greece, Victorian England

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