Michio Okamura | |
|---|---|
 Okamura in 2002 | |
| Occupation | Video game artist |
| Employer | Blizzard Entertainment |
| Known for | Artwork for Diablo |
Michio Okamura is a computer game developer and artist. He was the lead artist for the popular computer game Diablo , and senior artist on Diablo II . He designed many of the game's characters, including the title character. He is currently the art director for Rumble Entertainment.
Okamura began his artistic career as a comic book artist on Reggie Byers' Shuriken, as well as Comico's adaptations of Robotech . Afterwards he joined Condor Inc. as an artist working on the Sega Genesis title Justice League Task Force . [1] [2] At the time, Okamura did not have experience using the computer, so he drew most of the art on Justice League Task Force by hand. [1]
He worked at Blizzard North on the Diablo franchise for over a decade. He was the Lead Artist for the first version of Diablo and created the concept design for the majority of the characters and monsters in the game, including Diablo himself. [2]
On Diablo II, Okamura was a Senior Artist, and created character and monster concept designs, including the second incarnation of Diablo.
After Diablo II, Okamura worked as an Art Director establishing the pipeline and creative direction for several internal projects, and then joined Castaway Entertainment in 2004. In 2005, he founded and was president of Hyboreal Games with former Blizzard North employees Eric Sexton and Steven Woo. [3] [4] Hyboreal changed its name to U.I. Pacific, Okamura was the Creative Director. Okamura is currently working as an art director for Rumble Entertainment. [5] [6]
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded in February 1991 as Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles: Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios' games before beginning development of their own software in 1993, with games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1993, the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., and then Blizzard Entertainment soon after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates early in the following year. Shortly after, Blizzard released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.
Diablo II is an action role-playing hack-and-slash video game developed by Blizzard North and published by Blizzard Entertainment in 2000 for Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS, and OS X. The game, with its dark fantasy and horror themes, was conceptualized and designed by David Brevik and Erich Schaefer, who, with Max Schaefer, acted as project leads on the game. The producers were Matthew Householder and Bill Roper. The game was developed over a three-year period, with a crunch time of a year and a half.
A role-playing video game, a role-playing game (RPG) or computer role-playing game (CRPG), is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character immersed in some well-defined world, usually involving some form of character development by way of recording statistics. Many role-playing video games have origins in tabletop role-playing games and use much of the same terminology, settings, and game mechanics. Other major similarities with pen-and-paper games include developed story-telling and narrative elements, player character development, complexity, as well as replay value and immersion. The electronic medium removes the necessity for a gamemaster and increases combat resolution speed. RPGs have evolved from simple text-based console-window games into visually rich 3D experiences.
Flagship Studios was an American video game developer founded by Bill Roper along with Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik, former high level Blizzard North executives. The core personnel of Flagship Studios had been collaborating as a team since 1993 when they founded Condor Studios and in addition to creating the Diablo franchise many were key high level executives in the development of Warcraft, StarCraft and World of Warcraft games. Flagship Studios was formed following the resignation en masse of Blizzard North management following a dispute with Blizzard Entertainment parent company Vivendi regarding the potential fate of the company, development team, and titles, which were in doubt at that time. Flagship Studio's primary target platform for their games was the PC.
Blizzard North was an American video game development studio based in San Mateo, California. The studio was the Bay Area division of Blizzard Entertainment, known for its Diablo series. The company was originally based in Redwood City, California, before moving a short distance away to San Mateo, with Blizzard proper being based in Irvine, southern California.
BlizzCon is an annual gaming convention held by Blizzard Entertainment to promote its major franchises including Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch.
Sam "Samwise" Didier is an American artist. He served as senior art director at Blizzard Entertainment, having been with the company since 1991. As the art director for the flagship games of the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises, the producer of several games, and an artistic contributor to almost every game released under the name Blizzard Entertainment, Didier has created a distinctive Blizzard house style. Edge described Didier's style as "a striking, pulp sensibility that may be an acquired taste, but one acquirable on either side of the Pacific, side-stepping polarisation of appeal to either eastern or western audiences." His other contributions to Blizzard projects include writing, voice acting, music, sculpture, the Pandaren species, and the name "Warcraft". Leonardo Marcato calls him "one of the game designers that can be legitimately called authors thanks to the imprint they gave to projects they directed."
Stieg Hedlund is a computer and video game designer, artist, and writer who has worked on more than thirty games in the video game industry. He is best known for his work in action RPGs, and has also worked on games on real-time strategy, tactical shooter, beat-'em-up and action-adventure games.
Leonard Boyarsky is an American computer game designer and visual artist. He is one of the key designers of the video games Fallout and Diablo III.
Christopher Vincent Metzen is an American game designer, artist, voice actor, and author known for his work creating the fictional universes and scripts for Blizzard Entertainment's three major award-winning media franchises: Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft. Metzen was hired by Blizzard Entertainment as an animator and an artist; his first work for the company was with the video game Justice League Task Force.
Matt Uelmen is an American video game music composer and sound designer. He is best known for his work in Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo series, which was recognized with the inaugural Excellence in Audio award by the IGDA in 2001. He also worked as a sound designer for the real-time strategy game StarCraft, and worked on World of Warcraft's expansion The Burning Crusade in 2007. From 2009 until the studio's closure in 2017, Matt Uelmen worked as a member of the Runic Games team, as a composer and sound designer for the Torchlight games.
Torchlight is an action role-playing hack and slash dungeon crawler video game developed by Runic Games and published by Perfect World Entertainment. It was originally released for Windows in October 2009. The fantasy-themed game is set in the fictional town of Torchlight and the expansive caverns and dungeons nearby, which adventurers explore to collect valuable loot and battle hordes of monsters. Following the October 2009 digital distribution release, a Windows retail box version was released in the U.S. in January 2010 by Encore, Inc, and JoWooD Entertainment published a retail box in Europe in April 2010. A port for OS X was developed by World Domination Industries and released through Steam on May 12, 2010. Runic Games and World Domination Industries developed a port for Xbox Live Arcade which was released on March 9, 2011. A Linux port was released as part of the game's inclusion in the Humble Indie Bundle 6.
Diablo is an action role-playing dungeon crawler video game series developed by Blizzard North and continued by Blizzard Entertainment after the North studio shut down in 2005. The series is made up of four core games: Diablo, Diablo II, Diablo III, and Diablo IV. Expansions include the third-party published Hellfire, which follows the first game; Lord of Destruction, published by Blizzard and released after the second game; and Reaper of Souls, which follows the third game. Additional content is provided through story elements explored in other types of media forms.
David Brevik is an American video game designer, producer and programmer who served as the co-founder and president of Blizzard North. He is best known for the critically acclaimed Diablo franchise. Currently he serves as game designer and founder of his independent studio, Graybeard Games.
Runic Games was an American computer game developer based in Seattle. It was formed by former Flagship Studios developers in August 2008. In 2009, the company released Torchlight, a single-player action role-playing game. It was acquired by Perfect World in May 2010. They released a sequel, Torchlight II, in 2012. It was at this time the developers revealed they were no longer pursuing plans to create an MMO in the Torchlight universe.
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is an expansion pack for the hack and slash action role-playing game Diablo II. Unlike the original Diablo's expansion pack, Diablo: Hellfire, it is a first-party expansion developed by Blizzard North.
Hellfire, often called Diablo: Hellfire, is an expansion pack for the video game Diablo, developed by Synergistic Software, a Sierra division, and published by Sierra On-Line in 1997. Despite the objections of Blizzard Entertainment, the Hellfire expansion was produced, permitted by Davidson & Associates, their parent company at the time. Blizzard North, who was developing the sequel Diablo II, thus imposed numerous restrictions upon Synergistic Software's development of Hellfire.
Diablo is an action role-playing video game developed by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment in January 1997, and is the first installment in the video game series of the same name.
Diablo III is a 2012 hack-and-slash action role-playing game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment as the third installment in the Diablo franchise. It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X in May 2012, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in September 2013, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August 2014, and Nintendo Switch in November 2018. Set 20 years after the events of Diablo II, players control one of seven character classes – Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, Witch Doctor, or Wizard – and are tasked with defeating Diablo.
Western role-playing video games are role-playing video games developed in the Western world, including The Americas and Europe. They originated on mainframe university computer systems in the 1970s, were later popularized by titles such as Ultima and Wizardry in the early- to mid-1980s, and continue to be produced for modern home computer and video game console systems. The genre's "Golden Age" occurred in the mid- to late-1980s, and its popularity suffered a downturn in the mid-1990s as developers struggled to keep up with changing fashion, hardware evolution and increasing development costs. A later series of isometric role-playing games, published by Interplay Productions and Blizzard Entertainment, was developed over a longer time period and set new standards of production quality.