Fred Zeleny is a developer who worked at Bethesda Game Studios as a quest designer and writer on Fallout 3, as well as an additional quality assurance tester.
Work on the Fallout series[]
For Fallout 3, Zeleny worked on the Wasteland Survival Guide[1][2] and The Superhuman Gambit quests.[3] Zeleny also contributed to Dogmeat's appearance in Fallout 3, in particular the companion's item-fetching system.[4] Zeleny was one of the main narrative designers for The Pitt add-on, alongside Erik J. Caponi,[5] as well as a quest designer on Point Lookout.[6]
Employment history[]
From | To | Company | Role |
---|---|---|---|
September 2006 | September 2009 | Bethesda Game Studios | Quest Designer |
October 2009 | March 2012 | Big Huge Games | Narrative Designer |
June 2012 | January 2015 | 2K Games | Narrative Designer |
March 2015 | December 2015 | Sucker Punch Productions | Narrative Designer |
March 2016 | December 2016 | Failbetter Games | Contract Writer and Editor |
January 2017 | ? | Massive Entertainment | Senior Mission Designer |
? | ? | Guerrilla Games | Narrative Systems Designer |
Credits[]
Fallout series[]
Year | Title | Credited as/for |
---|---|---|
2008 | Fallout 3 | Quest Designer & Writer Additional Quality Assurance |
Other work[]
Year | Title | Credited as/for |
---|---|---|
2007 | The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion | Additional Quality Assurance |
2012 | Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning | Narrative Design & Writing |
2013 | The Bureau: XCOM Declassified | Narrative Designer |
2015 | Evolve | Narrative Designer |
Behind the scenes[]
- During Fallout 3's development, Zeleny suggested a quest where an archive of old music tapes could be brought to Three Dog at the GNR building plaza. The music would be taken from a directory on the player's PC or console, so that the player could add their own songs to the rotation of Galaxy News Radio. Although it was within the team's scripting capabilities, the idea was nixed by Todd Howard, who had concerns about music licensing, even on client-based files, as well as its implications for the game's tone.[7] The team also came to be unsure of how it would work on consoles, and wanted there to not be too much difference between PC and console functionality.[8]
- According to Joel Burgess and Nathan Purkeypile, Zeleny may have created The Dark Heart of Blackhall for Point Lookout, though they were admittedly unsure, saying it was "probably Fred."[9]
External links[]
- Inside the Vault - Fred Zeleny (archived) (Bethesda Blog - March 26, 2009)
- Defunct blog (inactive since 2009)
References[]
- ↑ Fred Zeleny on Tumblr (November 16, 2020)
- ↑ Fred Zeleny on Tumblr (June 21, 2023)
- ↑ Fred Zeleny on Tumblr (September 4, 2023)
- ↑ "Who Makes Games?" by Fred Zeleny (May 2, 2024)
- ↑ Fred Zeleny on Twitter (August 22, 2014): "@mpacholik @BillZoeker Please save at least half of that love for the other main narrative designer for The Pitt, @DoctorSpooky."
- ↑ Fallout 4 Point Lookout Mod with Joel Burgess and Nate Purkeypile (13:00)
Kenneth Vigue: "What about some of the particular quests that you started putting out, how did that process come about? So when you put together the Blackhall quest, Plik... was that from that initial pitch that you both kind of picked around, or did you develop the quests as you went along?"
Joel Burgess: "I think Blackhall and all that stuff kind of came as we went. Y'know, obviously to say that Point Lookout is Purkey and I would be a gross injustice against the team, right? So as we started working with more folks and it became more clear who the Point Lookout team was that we could collaborate with, a lot of the quests shook out of... y'know, I think it was Fred in there who we were working with on the quest side. So we had some ideas, like we knew that we wanted to revisit the Dunwich horror. We had some various points of interests that we were interested in. Nate and I are very world-first people. So we kind of knew points of interests and locations that we were excited about. And then like we're working with Fred in there on quests and story stuff to try and weave those into like, the mansion and the boardwalk and the internment camp, and all these things sort of started to shake out of that creative process. [...] The central storyline I think really was like, maybe a 70-30 split? With us like being the 30% influence onto I think it was Erik that did the main story for Point Lookout."
Nathan Purkeypile: "Yeah, we were just kind of guiding it, I would say." - ↑ Fred Zeleny on Tumblr (July 4, 2021)
- ↑ Fred Zeleny on Tumblr (May 7, 2024)
- ↑ Fallout 4 Point Lookout Mod with Joel Burgess and Nate Purkeypile (1:09:23)
Kenneth Vigue: "Yeah, we were talking about The Dark Heart of Blackhall, which has the Lovecraftian references, one of my favorites. The original design outline of that, it seems like it changed late in development and some of the lines were cut or rerecorded. Do you happen to remember why that quest was changed?"
Nathan Purkeypile: "Maybe Joel remembers? 'Cause I don't."
Joel Burgess: "Yeah, I tell ya, I'm rackin' my brain actually. 'Cause The Dark Heart... so Blackhall wasn't Erik, it was separate from this stuff, right? Was that Fred?"
Nathan Purkeypile: "It was probably Fred."
[...]
Joel Burgess: "[disconnection] ...more ambitious plans for trying to branch it. Honestly, if I went back and looked at those lines, I'd be like 'oh, it was this!' But I think that was one where we kind of got a little bit big for our britches in terms of how we wanted the wrap-up to be. And I think we pulled it back a little."