Kevin Saunders (video game developer)

Last updated
Kevin D. Saunders
Occupations Game designer, Video game producer
Known for Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir

Kevin D. Saunders is an American video game designer and producer, best known for his roles in developing Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (Producer and Lead Designer), Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (Producer), [1] and Torment: Tides of Numenera (Project Director). [2] [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Kevin Saunders created his first game at just six years old, building a ZX81 version of the Intellivision title Astrosmash. [4] His enthusiasm for programming carried into his college years, where he focused on building AI systems for natural‑language processing. [5] His graduate work in environmental engineering involved multi‑day lab experiments that required round‑the‑clock monitoring, giving him long stretches of downtime that he used to explore online games. [4] Saunders earned his Bachelor of Science and graduated with a Master of Engineering degree from Cornell University. [5]

Career

Saunders' graduate work opened the door to his career at Nexon, as director and lead designer on Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds , one of the earliest MMOGs when it launched in 1998. [6] [4] He went on to design and produce Shattered Galaxy , the first MMO real‑time strategy game, which won multiple awards at the 2001 Independent Games Festival and won of Best Multiplayer Strategy Game of 2001 from GameSpot. [6] [4] [5] Saunders as the producer of Shattered Galaxy was also a guiding voice behind its design philosophy—emphasizing teamwork, tactical coordination, and player cooperation over traditional RTS resource‑gathering. [7] He went on to work as a designer at Westwood Studios as part of Electronic Arts (on Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour and Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth), before becoming a senior designer and producer at Obsidian Entertainment (on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords, [8] [4] Mask of the Betrayer , Storm of Zehir , Aliens: Crucible, and Dungeon Siege III ). [9] He next joined inXile Entertainment, where he served in a production role on Wasteland 2 before helping Torment: Tides of Numenera become, at the time, the most successful Kickstarter ever. [10] [5] He served as project director on Torment, having taken over full development once initial pre‑production was complete, [9] as the project lead for Tides of Numenera, overseeing its successful Kickstarter and managing the entire development team and project until his 2015 departure from inXile. [11] [12] He then returned to Nexon, where he served as Head of Studio on the company's Nebula project. [5] His last game work was for Arcanity, providing story, design, and production assistance on Tanzia. [13] [14]

In addition to this work, Saunders served as Creative Director at Alelo, where he led the development of an award-winning language-learning RPG. [5] Saunders also authored a college text on game interface design (Game Development Essentials: Game Interface Design). [13] He served as the principal NLP designer at Embodied, the company behind the children's social robot Moxie. [5] In 2019, he co‑founded Digimancy Entertainment, an independent studio dedicated to narrative‑driven RPGs and hybrid RPG titles [5]

References

  1. ↑ Gillen, Kieron (19 June 2008). "Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir Interview". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved March 28, 2013.
  2. ↑ Game Banshee (27 March 2013). "Torment: Tides of Numenera Interview". Game Banshee. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
  3. ↑ Kuchera, Ben (17 March 2013). "The men who believed in, and risked their careers for, a new Torment". Penny Arcade. Archived from the original on 12 March 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Novak, Jeannie (2005). Game Development Essentials: An Introduction. Clifton Park, New York: Delmar Learning. p. 208. ISBN   1-4018-6271-3 . Retrieved 2026-01-31– via Google Books.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Novak, Jeannie (2022). Game Development Essentials: An Introduction. Santa Monica, California: Novy Unlimited. p. 206. ISBN   978-1-954416-02-4 . Retrieved 2026-01-31– via Google Books.
  6. 1 2 Saunders, Kevin (April 2005). "Jedi Mind Tricks: Choice and consequence in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II", Game Developer12 (4): 30–36.
  7. ↑ Cheung, Kevin; Hollingworth, David (2002-03-01). "fresh play". The Age . p. 16. ProQuest   363460731.
  8. ↑ Carless, Simon (April 2005). "Money hats: Fett's Vette", Game Developer12 (4): 2.
  9. 1 2 Peel, Jeremy (2013-03-04). "InXile to fund Torment sequel via Kickstarter; Chris Avellone sends stickynotes of endorsement". PCGamesN . Archived from the original on 2025-10-09. Retrieved 2026-01-31.
  10. ↑ Peel, Jeremy (4 March 2013). "InXile to fund Torment sequel via Kickstarter; Chris Avellone sends stickynotes of endorsement". PCGamesN. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
  11. ↑ Makuch, Eddie (2015-11-02). "Torment: Tides of Numenera Delayed to 2016, Project Lead Leaves the Studio". GameSpot . Archived from the original on 2023-12-07. Retrieved 2026-01-31.
  12. ↑ Osborn, Alex (2016-08-04). "Torment: Tides of Numenera Delayed, Loses Lead Director". IGN . Archived from the original on 2026-01-31. Retrieved 2026-01-31.
  13. 1 2 "Kevin D. Saunders Video Game Credits and Biography". MobyGames. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  14. ↑ Saunders, Kevin (7 January 2020). "LinkedIn". LinkedIn.


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