Saber's new chief narrative officer discusses good game storytelling

gamedeveloper.com:

World War Z: Aftermath and Evil Dead: The Game developer Saber Interactive has announced it's promoting longtime game writer Craig Sherman to the role of "chief of narrative at the studio." The move is a particularly noteworthy one for Fort Lauderdale-headquartered studio, which is now owned by Embracer Group.

Sherman's role isn't just to be head writer on one particular game—he'll be overseeing the many different titles the studio has in production.

In an exclusive interview discussing the announcement, Sherman dropped in to chat with Game Developer about his game writing philosophy and what the role of "chief of narrative" means in a studio producing games across different interactive genres.

Sherman's relationship with Saber Interactive only goes back 12 years, but his friendship with CEO and co-founder Matthew Karch goes back even further—the pair had been friends since the age of four, and even though they took different paths as they started their adult careers, they reconnected after Karch helped found the studio that would produce Will Rock and TimeShift.

Sherman himself had gone out to Los Angeles to work as a screenwriter, and at first treated his gigs with Saber Interactive as a rewarding side job. He'd be later joined by writer Oliver Hollis-Leick (now creative director on Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2), but with seven to eight games in production, the company realized it needed a bigger strategy for telling great game stories.

What does that strategy entail? First and foremost, Sherman explained that it's important for each of the games Saber is developing to "have its own voice." "We want the writer or writers [working on the game] to have ownership over it," he explained. It doesn't serve the developer if