Jeff Husges Interview

Jeff Husges is a 18 year veteran of the industry, first starting as a designer on Interplay’s attempt at Fallout 3, codenamed Van Buren and then moving to work as an area and level designer for a variety of titles for Obsidian Entertainment including Stick of Truth (2014) and the Pillars of Eternity series (2015, 2018). He still works as a designer doing both area and level design for Obsidian.

This interview took place over email on January 15, 2021 and has been edited here for ease of readability. The subject of the interview covered topics related to his time working as an area designer on Dead Money, the Fallout New Vegas DLC Expansion.

NF: Can you explain what your responsibilities were as Area Designer on Dead Money? Did these change from your time on the Fallout New Vegas base game? At what point did you join the Dead Money team, was this during the final months of Fallout: New Vegas’ development or after its completion?

JH: Just like on the base game, I was responsible for blocking out some areas - for Dead Money, I created the Abandoned Bunker at the start of the DLC and some of the residential neighborhoods. I was also in charge of setting up most of the critical path quests. The base game was already done by this point, so after a short break, work on the first DLC started.

NF: What were your hours like during the project? Were there ever periods where those hours changed? That can apply for the entirety of the development of the Fallout New Vegas DLC expansions given how long ago it was.

JH: I probably worked slightly more than a 40 hour week for all the DLCs, depending on what I was doing at the time. Definitely no crunch - everyone had put in a lot of extra hours on the base game, and while we were still on a fairly tight schedule for the DLCs, it was preferable to cut down scope rather than try to get every single thing done and burn people out.

NF: What was an average day of production like? What did meetings look like? What was the pipeline for an average area, from conception to completion?

JH: The designers had a meeting maybe twice a week? Just so everyone knew what everyone else was working on that week. We also had a general DLC team meeting for updates on the project as a whole.

We started off with a Regional Design Constraint document (RDC) which was a general concept of what the area was about along with key things that must exist in the area, like a companion or a critical path quest branch. The RDC is assigned over to an area designer to write up the Area Design Document (ADD) to flesh out what the area layout looks like, what kind of gameplay is planned, the quest steps that occur, what art and audio assets are required, etc. Once that's written, the leads review it, revisions are made to the document, and actual implementation can begin.

NF: From my research I found that there were a few films that were used as inspiration for the project such as Battle Royale, Cube, Lifeboat and most importantly The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, what influences did you take from these films specifically in terms of the designs of the areas you worked on?

JH: I did watch The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but since I didn't do any NPC writing for the DLC, there wasn't much influence.

NF: What influences did you personally bring to the project when tackling the area design of Dead Money?

JH: I took some inspiration from System Shock, knowing that the player wouldn't have access to all their gear from the base game. I've always found it fun in a survival-horror type game to start out minimally equipped and sneaking around, full of fear, but eventually getting to the point where you're kicking down doors and taking vengeance on all the things that were previously terrifying.

NF: One of the big things I’m looking at with this project is how the thematic elements of the narrative interact with the design decisions made in regards to the world and the mechanics of Dead Money. With this in mind what are the themes of Dead Money to you? How did these conceptions of the tale being told influence the design decisions you made?

JH: I myself wasn't too focused on the theme, though at the end we came to the conclusion that something extra was needed in the vault for the player to "let go", and Charlie Staples, the lead area designer, came up with gold. Lots and lots of gold. Worked out quite well!

NF: How many passes did each area receive, was there one area in particular that required more tweaking than other areas?

I don't recall any major revisions being required, just lots of tweaks as is the norm for development.

NF: How did you as an area designer work with other departments to bring the design of Dead Money to life?

I primarily worked with environment art, calling out specific assets - this is a police station, needs police props - or narrative requirements, like Dean being able to have a view of the Sierra Madre. Usually they'd come back with suggestions to layout changes for performance or aesthetic reasons.

Audio didn't do their pass until towards the end of the project, and it was mostly a matter of pointing them towards specific assets for sound hookup, or asking how to trigger specific events so they could test music stingers and such.

NF: What fundamentals did you have when creating Dead Money’s area design? More specifically were there ideas that would be out of place for Dead Money or the Fallout Setting in general? Or alternatively was there a new overall design approach to the environments of Dead Money that varied from the base game?

JH: Since there were only three NPCs that you could talk to, there was a heavier emphasis on environmental storytelling. Nothing out of place from the base game, just an awareness that the player wouldn't be able to find the nearest citizen to interrogate to find out what was going on in an particular area.

NF: Given the smaller scope of Dead Money compared to the larger wasteland of Fallout New Vegas, how did your process change when crafting the overall design of this experience as opposed to the base game? Did the experience of having just finished New Vegas impact the choices you made with the world of Dead Money?

JH: The process didn't change at all, but it did become simpler. We didn't have to worry about wide open spaces or a bunch of NPCs with schedules. There were also far fewer quests to script.

NF: When I’ve played Dead Money the experience of exploring its world is much more foreboding compared to the rest of the wasteland of the base game. Was there a conscious decision to stay away from the sometimes open environments of the base game? Were there specific elements of the base game you tried to shy away from?

JH: Yes, the experience was intended to be a claustrophobic experience. Aside from the obvious, like having no peaceful NPCs wandering around or making the Sierra Madre look like it was recently lived in, we weren't trying to stay away from anything, just making decisions that reinforced the mood and gameplay in the Sierra Madre.

In Dead Money there was a new emphasis on an almost survival horror experience such as defective radios, toxic gas, and traps. Were there design decisions that were impacted by the new more dangerous game space of Dead Money?

It certainly affected the blockout phase. The environment itself was an enemy this time, and we wanted to punish the player who was incautious or hasty. This required some fine tuning because we didn't want the slower pace of exploration to get too boring.

NF: Were there any disagreements about how Dead Money should be designed given its overall darker tone compared to the rest of the Fallout New Vegas base game?

I don't believe so. We were trying to make each DLC its own experience and not just "more New Vegas".

NF: During the creation of Dead Money, were you splitting your time between Dead Money and the other DLC projects such as Honest Hearts and Old World Blues as they started their productions? If so how did this affect your team's ability to construct the worlds of each of these experiences?

JH: I personally spent the bulk of my time on Dead Money, though I did do the initial set up for Honest Hearts. I wasn't too involved with Honest Hearts, skipping over that one for Old World Blues and eventually Lonesome Road. I usually got tasked with setting up the beginning of the DLCs as well as the ends.

NF: How did you feel about the critical and public reception of Dead Money?

I didn't pay much attention, actually. It's not something I tend to worry about for the most part. As long as most people thought it was a decent addition, I'm happy.