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IGN Unfiltered

IGN Unfiltered goes in-depth with creators of your favorite video games, talking not just about the games themselves but about the fascinating lives of the people behind them. New episodes each month!
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Nov 1, 2022

Cliff Bleszinski, renowned designer of Gears of War, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Jazz Jackrabbit, and more, returns for his first IGN Unfiltered interview since 2016 to discuss his life and career as detailed in his new memoir, Control Freak. Cliff talks about the making of Gears of War, Epic's decision to sell Gears to Microsoft, his friendship with Hideo Kojima, his admiration for Shigeru Miyamoto, and much more!

Oct 18, 2022

Justin Roiland reveals the origin of Rick & Morty's voices, the long road towards finally getting a hit show, and the longer road towards creating a successful video game studio – including lots of discussion Squanch's upcoming comedy-FPS, High on Life. WARNING: Explicit language throughout.

Nov 23, 2021

My guest this episode is Halo Infinite head of creative and longtime Bungie writer Joseph Staten. In this career-spanning interview, Staten discusses his unique path into the video game industry, the early days of Halo at Bungie, helping create Destiny, and how he's affected Halo Infinite since joining the team in 2020 just prior to the one-year delay.

Nov 9, 2021

Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard – my first repeat guest! – returns to discuss Skyrim as The Elder Scrolls V celebrates its 10th anniversary this week. Of course, we don't just talk about this past. Todd also discusses his next big project, Starfield, and his next next project, The Elder Scrolls 6.

Jun 15, 2021

ZeniMax Online Studios boss Matt Firor discusses his long career in MMORPGs, bringing The Elder Scrolls online, what the studio is up to next after the Microsoft acquisition, and more!

May 25, 2021

Shadow Warrior 3 game director Kuba Opoń, who discusses his career in games – from his start as a programmer inspired by Quake 3 to becoming a game director on Shadow Warrior 3 to what makes good first-person shooter AI and more!

May 11, 2021

This month's guest is games media investigative reporter Jason Schreier, who's written a new book called Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry. The former Kotaku and current Bloomberg reporter talks about the perils of the game industry in his experience reporting on it, from crunch to studio instability and more, as well as what might be done about it to make the industry a healthier, more sustainable place for its many thousands of talented developers.

Apr 6, 2021

IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak talks very openly and honestly about running a AAA independent game studio in the modern era. In this 75-minute interview he discusses leaving Square Enix to go it alone and how the studio almost ran out of money at one point, how the studio landed the James Bond game deal and how the team is thinking about it, the future of Hitman, and much more!

Mar 23, 2021

Peter Tamte and Jaime Griesemer, two ex-Halo developers from Bungie, have now teamed up to help bring Six Days in Fallujah, the military shooter based on the real-life Iraq War battle in 2004, to market in 2021 after the original version of it was announced and quickly canceled by publisher Konami in 2009. Tamte and Griesemer discuss how they want the game to be a 'playable documentary', the controversy surrounding the idea of basing a video game on such a modern-day real-world incident, and much more.

Mar 16, 2021

My guests this episode are Aliens: Fireteam development leads and Cold Iron Studios co-founders Craig Zinkievich and Matt Highison. The duo discusses how they came to get the Aliens license from Disney, the game they were working on before the Disney deal came together, their work on a canceled Marvel superhero MMORPG, building Star Trek Online, and much more!

Oct 27, 2020

Raven Software cofounder Brian discusses starting Raven with his brother in Wisconsin, partnering with Doom creators id Software early on, and subsequently working with giant pop culture brands like Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, and Call of Duty. Raven is the lead developer on the single-player campaign in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which will be released on November 13.

Aug 25, 2020

Geoff Keighley – longtime games media personality best known as the host, creator, and executive producer of The Game Awards – discusses his long history with awards shows, his thoughts on the PS5 and Xbox Series X, the cancellation of E3, his famous friendship with Hideo Kojima, and much, much more. [Note: this interview was recorded on July 31, prior to the delay of Halo Infinite, which is referenced here as still releasing this holiday.]

Aug 18, 2020

Square Enix External Studios heads Jon Brooke and Lee Singleton discuss their time in the video game industry, from Outriders, their brand-new game with People Can Fly, to their past work on Hitman Go, Sleeping Dogs, Just Cause, and more!

Jun 23, 2020

This month's guests are Echtra Games's Max Schaefer and Matt Uelmen, both former Blizzard North developers and co-creators of Diablo and Diablo 2 as well as the Torchlight series. The duo shares stories about Diablo 2 in celebration of its 20th anniversary while also discussing how Diablo has helped them make their new game, Torchlight III, the best action-RPG it can be.

May 12, 2020

Longtime Bungie art director and eventual game director Marcus Lehto created the Master Chief himself and helmed Halo Reach, one of the series's most beloved entries. In this one-hour interview, Lehto discusses his humble origins, such as how he got Bungie to hire him, as well as leaving the studio in recent years and starting a new studio to work on a new game, June 2020's Disintegration.

Mar 24, 2020

Valve's Robin Walker and Chris Remo two of the developers behind the long-awaited return of Half-Life in the form of Half-Life: Alyx. In this interview, Walker and Remo discuss everything from the unexpected origins of The Orange Box, Alyx's insane level of audio-design detail, Left 4 Dead 3, Portal VR, and much more – including, yes, Half-Life 3.

Feb 19, 2020

Our guests this month are two of the leaders behind the 2016 reboot of DOOM and the upcoming sequel DOOM Eternal, Hugo Martin and Marty Stratton. In this interview, Martin and Stratton discuss everything from the failed DOOM 4 prototype to why they think DOOM's revival succeeded where Star Wars didn't, and much more!

Dec 17, 2019

Veteran game developer Stig Asmussen, who discusses his career in gaming, from being an art director and eventual game director on God of War 3 to leading a team at Respawn Entertainment on the smash-hit Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Nov 18, 2019

My guest this month is Phil Harrison, who joined Sony during the early PlayStation days and rose through the ranks. He shares career stories from behind the scenes of the PS2 and PS3, and also of his time at Microsoft in the late-Xbox 360, early-Xbox One era. And don't miss part 2 of this Unfiltered interview tomorrow, which focuses on Harrison's present-day job running the Stadia platform at Google.

Oct 8, 2019

Welcome to the newly relaunched IGN Unfiltered, my monthly interview series where I sit down with the best, brightest, and most fascinating minds in the video game industry. I'm back with a brand-new bar/arcade set – complete with a working beer tap! My guest this month is Sean Krankel, the creator of Oxenfree and the upcoming Afterparty. In this interview, Sean discusses his unique journey into game development, starting with a job on a late-'90s Aaron Spelling teenage soap opera (during which time he threw up in Spelling's bowling alley), working at Disney, and eventually setting up Night School Studio with his cousin and bringing Oxenfree (and now Afterparty) to life – including how Xbox Game Pass has been a boon to his studio's success.

Jul 23, 2019

Longtime Remedy Entertainment writer Sam Lake sat down to discuss his unexpected career, from how helping a friend led to writing Max Payne, creating Alan Wake, the elusive Alan Wake 2, lessons learned from Quantum Break, and how it's all led to Remedy's new game, Control.

Jun 4, 2019

Longtime Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard joins us to discuss his Hall of Fame career, from the Terminator first-person shooter that got him started to the incredible success of The Elder Scrolls series to the acquisition of the Fallout IP to his new sci-fi project, Starfield.

May 7, 2019

On this episode of our monthly interview show IGN Unfiltered, veteran game creator Denis Dyack talks about his wild career that started at Silicon Knights, from convincing Nintendo not to nix Eternal Darkness's sanity effects to working with Hideo Kojima to suing Epic Games, and more!

Apr 9, 2019

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot sits down to discuss his incredible 30+ year career at Ubisoft, from co-founding the company with his brothers to meeting a 17-year-old Michel Ancel for the first time to partnering up with Tom Clancy to why he's super excited for the next-gen consoles and more!

Mar 26, 2019

In this special episode of our monthly interview series IGN Unfiltered, filmed at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, game design legend Amy Hennig (Uncharted series, Legacy of Kain series) and Insomniac Games founder Ted Price (Marvel's Spider-Man, Ratchet and Clank series, Sunset Overdrive, Resistance series) separately join us to discuss their decorated careers. Hennig talks about her canceled Star Wars game with EA, codenamed 'Ragtag', experimenting with VR, and much more. Price, after having been a guest on Unfiltered last fall prior to Spider-Man's release, talks about what life has been like since their open-world superhero adventure took the world by storm and won a number of awards in the process.

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