The best video game story writers create meaningful choices and consequences. Choices are the primary difference between games and other storytelling media. Some games offer simple binary options, some have branching paths, and others have no story other than the one the player projects onto them. Video games’ interactive nature makes them uniquely suited to stories that explore identity and humans’ integration with a technological world. Alternatively, video games tap into the desire to escape modernity, offering glimpses into pre-industrial fantasy worlds.
Game writers create stories to be experienced rather than told. As a relatively new medium, the language, scope, and genres of video games aren’t set in stone. Many of the writers on the list earned their place by subverting expectations or taking a new approach to narrative in gaming. Hideo Kojima, Muriel Tramis, Kazushige Nojima, and more each added something new to the way we experience stories in video games. Read on to learn about the 20 best video game writers and what it is that makes them so great.
1. Hideo Kojima
Hideo Kojima is a writer, director, designer, producer, and an auteur-like figure in gaming. Kojima’s contribution to storytelling, character-driven narratives, cinematic presentation, and non-linear plot structures have influenced generations of game writers and developers. Themes in Kojima’s work include technology’s effect on humanity and the source of human emotion. Philosophical undertones about identity permeate much of Kojima’s writing, making his AAA games a compelling change from more lightweight titles.
Games from Kojima while at Konami like Snatcher (1988) and Metal Gear Solid (1998) introduced narrative depth and emotionally complex themes into what were previously gameplay-driven media. Kojima left Konami in 2015 to establish Kojima Productions. Death Stranding’s (2019) writing was rich in symbolism and social commentary that made its non-linear gameplay feel meaningful outside of direct plot exposition. Silent Hills’ playable teaser (P.T.), although not a full game, has been influential for how it swapped jump scares for unpredictable psychological terror through dark, surreal imagery and creepy sound design.
2. Muriel Tramis
Muriel Tramis is a video game designer originally from Martinique who rose to prominence at French studio Coktel Vision. Tramis is often credited as the first black female game designer and her adventure titles combine emotional storytelling with astute social commentary. The narratives in Tramis adventure games at Coktel Vision ranged from lighthearted and funny in her hybrid puzzle output to serious thematic reflection in adventure games.
Gobliiins (1991) put the player in control of a team of three characters, each with a unique skillset. The puzzle/adventure hybrid allowed for more character than a typical puzzle game with critics praising the game (and its sequels’) sharp wit. Lost in Time (1994) was a cinematic adventure with impressive (for the time) visuals and characters. Games like Mewilo (1987) and Freedom: Rebels in the Darkness (1988), however, explored the kind of themes that Tramis has become best known for. Mewilo and Freedom deal with concepts of identity and colonialism that make Tramis’ work groundbreaking in narrative design.
3. Kazushige Nojima
Kazushige Nojima is a Japanese video game writer and designer famous for bringing a new emotional depth to video games through his work at Square Enix. Complex characters, poetic dialogue, and overlapping interests without obvious moral clarity are some of the unique elements Nojima introduced to game writing. Characters whose personal trauma and journey reflect the world-saving struggle are at the heart of what makes Nojima’s scripts resonate.
Nojima’s work as principal writer on games like Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and X created games beloved for their worldbuilding, characters, and plot. Part of why these games are so fondly remembered is that each of these elements feeds into the other. The worldbuilding makes the central conflict more high-stakes and the characters’ arcs are reflected in the broader plot. Cecil, Yuna, Tidus, Zack, and Noctus all feel grounded in the fiction because their personal struggles are reflected in the story. Nojima’s contribution moved the JRPG further in the direction of legitimate, grown-up entertainment and continues to influence game writing today.
4. Lawrence Schick
Lawrence Schick is an American game writer who started in the tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) industry before moving to video games. Schick’s career began at TSR (publishers of Dungeons & Dragons) in the late 1970s, creating some of their best-loved adventure modules. Shick has a reputation for deep worldbuilding and immersion-focused storytelling. The earliest D&D iterations were character/hero-focused interpretations of a miniature wargame, meaning they were heavily rules and mechanics-focused. Schick’s work helped move TTRPGs towards more narrative-driven experiences.
Lawrence Schick’s work as Lead Loremaster for The Elder Scrolls Online expanded the factions, geography, history, and religious groups in interconnected ways that had only been hinted at in the series’ previous lore. Since 2021, Schick has worked at Larian Studios Dublin, where he worked as Principal Narrative Designer for Baldur’s Gate 3. His understanding of narrative depth, choice and consequence, and character-driven plots make his contribution to game writing stand out.
5. Ragnar Tørnquist
Ragnar Tørnquist is a Norwegian game designer and writer whose main contribution to video games is in narrative driven adventure experiences. Tørnquist’s games are often a mix of fantasy, science fiction, and psychological drama, encouraging players to ask questions about identity and the human condition.Tørnquist’s games typically feature complex protagonists, imaginative worldbuilding, and narrative options that force players to carefully consider their options, for example. The believable characters, stakes, and consequences cause players to reflect on their own life choices.
Ragnar Tørnquist began his career at Funcom in 1994, working on games like The Longest Journey (1999), Anarchy Online (2001), Dreamfall (2006), and Secret World (2012). The themes of occult threats, elder gods, parallel worlds, technology versus the magical permeate most of Ragnar Tørnquist’s work. Tørnquist left Funcom in 2012 to form Red Thread Games, where he continues to work on the The Longest Journey IP on license from his old employer. Tørnquist’s major contribution to game writing is his use of choice as a core experience of gameplay, allowing players to co-author outcomes with decisions.
6. Tom Abernathy
Tom Abernathy is an American writer known for blending blockbuster scope writing with the characters, conflicts, and factions video games require. Abernathy’s work on large, established franchises show his ability to create narratively coherent interpretations of existing IPs in addition to his work on entirely new properties. His work and talks demonstrate the importance of unity between narrative and gameplay design. The writing in Abernathy’s projects’ leans on centering the human motivations beneath the epic conflicts depicted in the overarching plot.
Tom Abernathy’s writing on the underrated The Saboteur (2009) brought Nazi-occupied Paris to life. The game’s clever writing device for turning once black and white areas of the open world back to color works similarly to Tarkovsky’s film Stalker. As writer on Halo Reach (2010), Abernathy brought a more character-driven focus to the series’ writing. State of Decay (2013) featured roleplaying elements in its survival horror blend that held up in part because of the RPG-level writing. Tom Abernathy’s work is unique for its introduction of character-driven, emotional storytelling to AAA blockbuster space that once depended on gameplay and bombast.
7. Marc Laidlaw
Marc Laidlaw is an American writer best known to gamers for his work at Valve from the late 1990s to 2016. Laidlaw was a novelist and short story writer before working at Valve, writing in the horror and fantasy genres. Working on Half-Life in 1998, Laidlaw introduced what he called “old storytelling tricks” to the medium of video games for the first time. He created a narrative in an FPS that unfolded through player experience instead of railroaded cutscenes.
As principal writer for Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Laidlaw created a setting and narrative that felt grounded. Despite the sci-fi setting, playable spaces were filled with intimate, human-feeling environmental storytelling. The sparse, but well–written and acted dialogue builds atmosphere and tension, encouraging the player to project themselves onto Gordon Freeman. Laidlaw’s design philosophy of emphasizing player agency, immersion, and “baking the narrative into corridors” has influenced the entire field of game writing. Immersive sims like the Dishonored franchise couldn’t exist without Laidlaw’s work to show the way.
8. Susan O’Connor
Susan O’Connor is an American writer known for her contributions to some of the most successful action and adventure IPs in gaming. O’Connor has worked on genre-defining titles like Gears of War, BioShock, Tomb Raider, Batman, Far Cry, and Conan. Susan O’Connor’s reputation from these games is an ability to create emotionally grounded, interesting characters, even in high-intensity gameplay experiences. Punchy dialogue, and complex characters make NPCs like the Buddies in Far Cry 2, for example, feel like more than blank slate combat aids.
Susan O’Connor worked as a writer on Tomb Raider (2013), a hard reboot of the franchise. Tomb Raider in this iteration is considered the most coherent, entertaining narrative arc for Lara Croft, developing from inexperienced newcomer to competent adventurer. The game’s writing included enough emotion, moral complexity, and character to ground Lara’s action in an engaging story. Tomb Raider’s writing also helped with seamless, well-timed and executed transitions between cutscenes and gameplay. Susan O’Connor believes in video games as a vehicle for meaningful narratives, as reflected in Tomb Raider 2013’s writing. Her talks, advocacy, and training institution, The Narrative Department, push for elevating the craft of story in games.
9. David Cage
David Cage is a French video game writer, director, and designer known as the founder of studio Quantic Dream. Cage is primarily known for his focus on highly-polished and produced interactive drama. Many Quantic Dream productions lack twitchy gameplay or mechanical depth, but offer deep, consequence-rich choices that alter their cinematic experiences. The use of performance capture, emotional topics, and plots that result in moral dilemmas for the player create high engagement.
Cage wrote a 2000-word script for Heavy Rain (2010), moving to Philadelphia to research the theme, tone, and location. Heavy Rain took over one hundred and seventy days to shoot, with a huge cast of actors and stuntmen. Praise for the game focused on its narrative, visual quality, and ability to elevate video games to the realm of art. Detroit: Become Human continues Cage’s interest in cinematic, choice-driven interactive fiction, using the backdrop of a society with humanoid robots to facilitate branching paths.
10. Sami Järvi (Sam Lake)
Sam Lake is a Finnish writer and creative director, known for rich narratives, self-aware dialogue, and metaphysical themes. Lake’s work at Remedy has elevated their mechanically sound action games into narratively interesting, character-driven experiences where the writing touches on noir-esque elements, questions about identity, and surrealism. The blurry lines between dream, vision, fiction and the real world in Lake’s games feels similar to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks at times.
Lake’s writing on the Max Payne and Alan Wake series explores the space between fiction and reality. Both series featured traumatized protagonists looking to make sense of a morally corrupted world. Techniques like unreliable narration, dreams, and hallucinations create a complex picture of how people process grief and guilt. Sam Lake’s writing is inspirational to a generation of game writers because of his experimentation (and success) with narrative structure and emotional depth in interactive fiction.
11. Richard Dansky
Richard Dansky is an American veteran game writer, narrative designer, and world builder. Dansky began his game writing career at TTRPG publisher, White Wolf Inc., where he contributed to their World of Darkness series. His tabletop background means Dansky’s writing retains deep RPG elements like moral ambiguity and the consequences of power, even in action-focused experiences. Dansky’s characters typically show some frailty that helps to frame the broader conflict in human terms.
Richard Dansky’s work at Red Storm Entertainment (a subsidiary of Ubisoft) sees him as the Central Clancy Writer. Danksy is responsible for the plots and characters of franchises like Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and The Division. Dansky’s character writing brings emotional depth and psychological complexity to these military or espionage-heavy experiences. Players respond to both the gameplay challenge and the character arcs revealed. The Division’s environmental storytelling, in particular, deepened the immersion and reflected the themes of the writing.
12. Drew Karpyshyn
Drew Karpyshn is a Canadian game writer known for creating beloved RPG characters and plots. Karpyshn’s writing at BioWare is characterized by epic scope, relatable characters, and the struggle between free will and destiny. The motivations and backgrounds of protagonists and antagonists often overlap and intersect in games written by Karpyshn, making players determine what the “good” and “bad” choices are. Complex playable characters and companions paired with occasionally sympathetic villains make Drew Karpyshn’s writing work as well for space opera as for high fantasy.
Karpyshn made significant contributions to BioWare classics Baldur’s Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, and Jade Empire before working as lead writer on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). KOTOR was celebrated as an appropriately Star Wars-feeling fiction with an entirely new set of characters on a new timeline with dramatic twists and turns. After BioWare lost the license for Star Wars, Karpyshyn played a large role in defining the rich lore of its space opera successor, the Mass Effect Universe. Karpyshn has written novels in addition to his game contribution, penning official Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, and Mass Effect series.
13. Emil Pagliarulo
Emil Pagliarulo is an American game writer renowned for creating the most-played open world RPGs in gaming. Working at Bethesda, Pagliarulo was lead writer and design director on The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Starfield. The open-ended gameplay, freedom, moral ambiguity, and environmental storytelling of Bethesda RPGs needs effective writing to support it. Pagliarulo excels at creating interesting factions with overlapping interests and populating large maps with natural-feeling encounters. Bethesda games are experiences and player power fantasies as much as they are stories. Pagliarulo’s writing understands this fact.
Pagliarulo’s work on Oblivion created some of the most beloved side quests in RPG history. The Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines are fan favorites today. Bethesda’s faction quests were a new high watermark for what was once seen as “filler” content to facilitate character levelling. The quality of Pagliarulo (and others’) writing on Oblivion and the Fallout series meant that many players eschewed the main quest entirely, opting for faction quests instead. Emil Pagliarulo’s writing inspires game writers today. The quality of the writing in The Witcher 3’s sidequest or the detailed, reactive open world of Kingdom Come Deliverance couldn’t exist without Pagliarulo.
14. Mac Walters
Mac Walters is a Canadian game writer and narrative director known for his work on the Mass Effect series. Walters began working at BioWare in 2003 and contributed to the development of its RPG identity at the time. Themes of BioWare games from this era include the nature of identity, the consequences of choice, free will versus destiny, and the complexity of human (and inter-species) relationships. As a result, the player character was invariably leading a group of adventurers in classic BioWare RPGs. Walters’ writing focused on dialogue and choices that made players weigh up the costs of leadership.
Mac Walters first worked on the eastern-themed RPG, Jade Empire. He then worked as a senior writer on the first Mass Effect game before becoming the lead writer for Mass Effect 2 and 3. Commander Sheppard’s complicated relationship with his/her crew comes to life through the dialogues and choices created by Walters’ writing. Mac Walters has also written novels and comic books in the Mass Effect series that deepen the lore of the IP. The themes of these novels reflect those of the games – personal sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds and the power of hope and love.
15. Ken Levine
Ken Levine is an American game developer, director, and writer who revolutionized storytelling in first-person games through titles like Thief: Dark Project and System Shock 2. Before Levine’s contribution, first-person games were predominantly action shooters. Ken Levine introduced interactive stealth mechanics around light, darkness, and sound, making silent traversal a gameplay mechanic in the player’s control. Levine’s work also featured novel environmental storytelling through audio logs, apparitions, and other techniques that didn’t break player perspective. His contribution has raised the bar for immersion first-person games.
Ken Levine created the fiction and design of Thief: The Dark Project in the late 1990s. The original Thief stood out not only for adding new mechanics to first-person gaming, but also for going beyond the usual simple black-and-white writing to justify gameplay. Players of Thief remember the deep worldbuilding and factions. System Shock 2’s writing worked alongside its hybrid of RPG and action to elevate the experience beyond anything comparable from the era. Levine’s next project, Bioshock, created a franchise that has sold over 25 million units worldwide. A large part of the appeal of Bioshock is the franchise’s rock solid writing and worldbuilding.
16. Cory Barlog
Cory Barlog is an American game writer, designer, and director best known for helming the reboot of God of War in 2018. His writing explores human vulnerability against the backdrop of epic stakes. Barlog’s transformation of God of War shifted the focus from a vengeance motif to a character-driven, emotionally resonant tale about a father. With effective character writing, Balrog demonstrates that human connection and raw emotion are the cornerstones of storytelling, even against the backdrop of mythical gods and monsters.
Cory Barlog’s start in the game industry was as an animator, working as lead animator at Paradox Development in the early 2000s. Barlog moved to Santa Monica Studio in 2004 and worked as lead animator on God of War in 2005 before becoming director for its sequel. God of War II received a BAFTA for its writing. The God of War reboot from 2018 was a milestone in gaming and Barlog’s career. The game effectively uses a single-shot technique where player perspective is never broken. This, solid gameplay, and excellent writing made it game of the year for many.
17. Sam Barlow
Sam Barlow is a British game writer and director whose interactive experiences push the boundaries of narrative in gaming. Barlow cites influences as diverse as David Lynch, Paul Auster, Alfred Hitchcock, and Shirley Jackson on his work, borrowing elements like unreliable narration and quasi-mystical themes. The player dictates the investigation at the heart of Barlow’s games, discovering events in a fragmented, non-linear way.
Barlow first rose to prominence for the interactive fiction work, Aisle, in 1999. Aisle popularized the “one move” genre, where a single move resulted in hundreds of possible outcomes. Barlow worked as writer and lead designer on Silent Hill: Origins and Shattered Memories. Shattered Memories was praised for its story, atmosphere, and psychological profile mechanic. Her Story from 2015 was a narrative experiment where the player pieced together their interpretation of events depicted by reviewing witness testimony. Barlow’s contribution to game writing is his capacity for fusing personal stories with lofty, artistic presentation styles.
18. Christine Love
Christine Love is a Canadian indie game writer and designer known for her contributions to interactive fiction and visual novels. Her work explores concepts like power dynamics, queer identity, and humanity’s relationship with technology. Love has stated that she sees herself as a writer first and game developer second. This attitude is clear in the narrative and character focus of her work. Digital: A Love Story from 2010 is a free visual novel set “five minutes into the future of 1988”. The game recreates the Amiga 500 aesthetic and transmits its narrative through text in bulletin board-style exchanges.
Love and Order was Christine Love’s first commercial project with Italian game designer Riva Celso. Love wrote narrative, dialogue, and worked on design for the project. Don’t Take it Personally, Babe, it Just Ain’t Your Story is a spiritual sequel to Digital: A Love Story. Don’t Take it Personally focuses on power dynamics, control, and surveillance. Analogue: A Hate Story tells a sci-fi story about a generation ship showing up after six hundred years adrift, but the narrative also reflects on themes of patriarchy and LGBTQ issues. Love’s writing reveals an interest in themes of identity and technology, and how the two combine and interact.
19. Greg Kasavin
Greg Kasavin is an American game writer, designer, and director whose work at Supergiant Games has helped define the standard of indie games since the 2010s. Kasavin’s games at Supergiant are beloved for their prose and seamless integration of narrative and gameplay, with the player revealing plot as they explore. A background in design and writing means Kasavin weaves narrative elements into game mechanics – players often reveal more plot as they uncover new power.
Greg Kasavin worked as a game journalist for GameSpot until 2007 when he took a role at EA’s Los Angeles studio. There, he worked as executive producer on the Command & Conquer series. Kasavin left EA to join SuperGiant as a writer and designer. Bastion from 2011 was praised for its presentation, design, and compelling story elements. Transistor from 2014 featured an intriguing, but deliberately mysterious narrative that left a lot to player interpretation. Hades was many peoples’ 2021 game of the year, fusing twitchy action RPG elements with a Greek-mythology inspired plot.
20. Neil Druckmann
Neil Druckmann is an Israeli-American writer, director, and studio head, most known for his work at Naughty Dog. Druckmann’s narrative work at Naughty Dog has helped to redefine the expectations of players in AAA blockbuster games by elevating the human impact of the high stakes plots video games require. Druckmann has become most associated with character-driven, cinematic experiences that sacrifice open-endedness for cinema-quality pacing and carefully crafted set pieces.
Druckmann joined Naughty Dog as a programming intern in 2004. He transitioned to the position of designer by 2006, working on Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune in 2007. Druckmann took the position of lead designer on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in 2009. The Last of Us, released in 2013 was a new high watermark for storytelling in video games, taking players on an emotional rollercoaster with cinematic flair. The Last of Us Part 2 from 2020 pushed the envelope further, with a story about human vulnerability that synergized with its setting, presentation, and gameplay.
