Currently, Joe Fielder is watching his latest work hit the marketplace. The senior narrative designer for The Outer Worlds 2 had been busy working on the game. Obsidian Entertainment’s follow-up installment for The Outer Worlds just dropped into the marketplace this week. In fact, if you’re keen on learning more about that game, in particular, we have a ‘Before You Buy’ video on it, which we’ll embed below. However, Joe recently reflected on his days working on BioShock Infinite.
Irrational Games’ last big hoorah was BioShock Infinite, and a part of that team to help bring this game through the finish line was Joe Fielder. Thanks to an interview with PC Gamer, we’re gaining a little more insight into how the developer secured a role as a writer for this game and what aspects he was involved in crafting.
Joe Fielder Talks BioShock Infinite
During the conversation with PC Gamer, Joe Fielder noted that at the time of BioShock Infinite, he had secured a spot on the team as a producer. However, there was a point during development when the studio wanted to expand the writing team. That’s where they decided to hold a blind writing test to get potential applicants in on the project.
During that process, Joe tried his hand at it and wrote something up. After submitting it, he found that the developers had read his piece and wanted to invite the person in, only to discover that it was Joe Fielder, someone working on the game in the next room.
I was an art producer and narrative producer for a while on BioShock Infinite. I’d come in on that as somebody who had also recorded and directed and whatnot. But at a certain point, there was a blind writing test because they were looking to expand their writing team, and I contributed.
This may be an apocryphal story, but apparently they read over everyone’s samples, and they were like, ‘OK, bring this person in.’ And they looked up who it was, and they were like, ‘Well, that’ll be easy, it’s Joe, he’s in the next room.’ So I was pulled in to work on that.
There are a few pieces of content that Joe helped build up the lore. Specifically, he mentions that when you first enter Columbia and you hear all these side conversations from people going about their perfect day, that was from Joe. It’s all these little extra bits of world-building that made BioShock Infinite thrive, as players were immediately drenched in the lore just from listening in on other conversations and exploring the world.
While Joe is no longer attached to the BioShock IP, the franchise is still pressing on. For instance, we know that BioShock 4 is in the works, with Rod Fergusson lending a hand at Cloud Chamber. Furthermore, the franchise is soon to receive a movie adaptation, and we have recently learned that the movie’s premise will follow the story from the first game.
