Haden Blackman | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | William Haden Blackman United States |
Occupation(s) | Video game designer, writer |
Years active | 1999–present |
Website | hadenblackman |
William Haden Blackman is an American video game designer and writer.
Blackman grew up in Seal Beach, California. As a child, he read comic books during long road trips, which created his love for fantastical creatures. [1]
Blackman attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he earned his degree in Creative Writing.
Shortly after graduating, he worked as a ghost writer and submissions editor for a small Northern California literary agency while pursuing his writing career. His first published work was The Field Guide to North American Monsters: Everything You Need to Know About Encountering Over 100 Terrifying Creatures in the Wild, which was followed by a sequel entitled The Field Guide to North American Hauntings: Everything You Need to Know About Encountering Over 100 Ghosts, Phantoms, and Spectral Entities. Soon after completing the first Field Guide, Blackman began work at LucasArts as a writer and later a voice director, producer, and ultimately creative director. Blackman served as a producer on the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: Galaxies [2] He was the project lead on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed , a role which he described as "a hybrid between creative director and executive producer." [3]
While working at LucasArts, Blackman continued his freelance writing career. He penned several Star Wars comics, including Jango Fett: Open Seasons, Star Wars: Starfighter, [4] and Darth Vader & The Ghost Prison, among many other titles.
On July 29, 2010, he resigned from his position at LucasArts after thirteen years to form his own development studio, Fearless Studios. His last project at LucasArts was Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II , which he wrote and directed. [5] He also wrote the game's comic book adaptation. [6]
After leaving LucasArts, Blackman wrote Batwoman for DC Comics but left the series when the publisher would not allow the creative team to marry the protagonist Kate Kane to her longtime girlfriend, Maggie Sawyer. [7] His run on the series lasted for 24 issues and four story arcs, and reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. [8]
On December 30, 2013, it was announced that he would write Elektra, which marked his debut writing for Marvel Comics. [9] [10]
It was announced on February 26, 2015, that he would write Master of Kung Fu for Marvel. [11] [12]
In 2018, Blackman and J.H. Williams III revealed their next project together, a genre mash-up called Echolands to be published by Image Comics.
Fearless Studios, Blackman's game development studio, was acquired by Kabam in 2012. On December 4, 2014, it was announced that Blackman had created another new video game studio called Hangar 13 Games within 2K Games. He was quoted as saying "I wanted to build the kind of games that I enjoy playing... From my perspective, 2K always puts the game first." The studio was confirmed to be working on an unspecified game. [13] The game was later confirmed as Mafia III , the sequel to Mafia II , which he directed with his new studio Hangar 13, in conjunction with 2K Czech, the previous developer of the Mafia series. [14]
In 2009, Blackman won awards for outstanding video game writing from both the Writers Guild of America and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences for his work on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. He was nominated for another WGA award in 2011 for The Force Unleashed II. In 2012, Blackman won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book for Batwoman, and was nominated for the same award in 2014. [15]
Star Wars is an American epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various films and other media, including television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and themed areas, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe. Star Wars is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a 2002 action-adventure video game developed and published by LucasArts for the GameCube and PlayStation 2. The PlayStation 2 version was later re-released as a PlayStation 2 Classics title on PlayStation 4 on January 15, 2016. This version was given a limited physical run published and distributed by Limited Run Games on June 28, 2019. An enhanced version developed and published by Aspyr was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on August 1, 2024.
Salvador Larroca is a Spanish comic book artist, primarily known for his American work on various X-Men titles for Marvel Comics.
Over one hundred video games based on the Star Wars franchise have been released, dating back to some of the earliest home consoles. Some are based directly on films while others rely heavily on the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
James H. Williams III, usually credited as J. H. Williams III, is an American comics artist and penciller. He is known for his work on titles such as Chase, Promethea, Desolation Jones,Batwoman, and The Sandman: Overture.
Star Wars: Starfighter is a 2001 action video game, developed and published by LucasArts, that takes place right before the Battle of Naboo. The player unites alongside three starfighter pilots and is allowed to take control of several different spacecraft to help stop the invasion that threatens Naboo.
Evan Skolnick is an American writer, editor and producer who has created content in a wide variety of media including newspapers, magazines, comic books, books, websites, CD-ROMs, computer games and video games. He is currently an instructor in the Game Design & Development program at Cogswell College in San Jose, California, and a prominent game writer, with credits on recent titles such as Cuphead: Don’t Deal with the Devil!, Mafia III and Star Wars: Battlefront.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a 2008 action-adventure game developed and published by LucasArts, and part of The Force Unleashed multimedia project. It was initially developed for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 consoles and on iOS, second-generation N-Gage, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and Java-equipped mobile phone handhelds. The game was released in North America on September 16, 2008, in Australia and Southeast Asia on September 17, and in Europe on September 19. LucasArts released downloadable content for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. An Ultimate Sith Edition of the game, containing both new and previously released downloadable content, was released in November 2009, and later ported to Mac OS X and Windows. An enhanced remaster of the Wii version, developed by Aspyr, was released for the Nintendo Switch on April 20, 2022.
Star Wars: Clone Wars or The Clone Wars are titles of various series of comics set in the Star Wars universe during the Clone Wars conflict. Dark Horse Comics published a nine-volume series of trade paperbacks (2003–2006) collecting various comics dealing with the conflict, a ten-volume graphic-novella series titled Clone Wars: Adventures (2004–2007) in the style of the 2D animated series, and both a monthly comic book series (2008–2010) and a quarterly graphic-novella series (2008–2013) tying into the 3D animated series. A series of webcomics were also released on starwars.com (2008-2011).
Amy Reeder, formerly known as Amy Reeder Hadley, is an American comic book artist and writer known for her work on titles such as Fool's Gold, Madame Xanadu, Batwoman, and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
Jango Fett is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise, created by George Lucas. He first appeared as the secondary antagonist of the 2002 film Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, played by Temuera Morrison. The character is a Mandalorian bounty hunter, regarded as the best mercenary in the galaxy of his era, and the father of Boba Fett, an unmodified clone of Jango whom he kept as payment for serving as the genetic template of the Galactic Republic's clone army and raised as his son. After Jango's death at the hands of Mace Windu, Boba follows in his father's footsteps, using his father's armor, equipment, and ship, Slave I, to become a successful bounty hunter in his own right. The animated series The Bad Batch further reveals two daughters of Jango to have been grown alongside Boba, without Jango's knowledge: Omega and Emerie Karr.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is an action-adventure video game developed and published by LucasArts. It is the second installment of The Force Unleashed multimedia project, and the sequel to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008). The game was released in the United States on October 26, 2010, in Australia on October 27, and throughout Europe on October 29 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii consoles, as well as Windows and the Nintendo DS and iOS portable devices.
Batwoman is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writers Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, and artist Alex Ross, Kane is a wealthy heiress who becomes inspired by the superhero Batman and chooses, like him, to put her wealth and resources toward a campaign to fight crime as a masked vigilante in her home of Gotham City as Batwoman.
The New 52 was the 2011 revamp and relaunch by DC Comics of its entire line of ongoing monthly superhero comic books. Following the conclusion of the "Flashpoint" crossover storyline, DC cancelled all its existing titles and debuted 52 new series in September 2011. Among the renumbered series were Action Comics and Detective Comics, which had retained their original numbering since the 1930s.
Batwoman is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. She is the first DC character to bear the name "Batwoman". She was created by writer Edmond Hamilton and artist Sheldon Moldoff under the direction of editor Jack Schiff, as part of an ongoing effort to expand Batman's cast of supporting characters. Batwoman began appearing in DC Comics stories beginning with Detective Comics #233 (1956), in which she was introduced as a love interest for Batman in order to combat the allegations of Batman's homosexuality arising from the controversial book Seduction of the Innocent (1954). When Julius Schwartz became editor of the Batman-related comic in 1964, he removed non-essential characters including Kathy Kane, Bat-Girl, Bat-Mite, and Ace the Bat-Hound. Later, the 1985 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths retroactively established that Batwoman's existence was on an Earth separate from DC's main continuity.
Mafia III is a 2016 action-adventure video game developed by Hangar 13 and published by 2K. It was released in October 2016 for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, in May 2017 for macOS, and in October 2021 for Google Stadia. It is the sequel to Mafia II and the third installment in the Mafia series. Set within the fictional city of New Bordeaux in 1968, the story follows former criminal and Vietnam veteran Lincoln Clay, who is forced to return to a life of crime to help his adoptive family settle problems with the local branch of the Mafia. After the Mafia betray and murder his family, Lincoln embarks on a quest for revenge while slowly building a criminal empire and seizing power from other criminal organisations in the city.
Hangar 13 is an American video game developer based in Novato, California, in the area of the former Hamilton Air Force Base. Established with Haden Blackman in December 2014 as a division of 2K, the company's debut game was Mafia III, released in October 2016. In 2017, 2K Czech was merged into Hangar 13, wherefore the studio received two additional studios in Brno and Prague; another studio was opened in Brighton in 2018. Their second title, Mafia: Definitive Edition, was released in September 2020. Their third title, TopSpin 2K25, was released in April 2024.