With your title "lead designer," what is your balance between writing and design? How does that work at Bethesda?

EP: Bethesda's interesting because this is the first time we've actually had a "lead writer." The model for Fallout 3 was different than it was for Oblivion. With Fallout 3, I wrote the main quest and I laid out all the miscellaneous quests, and came up with most of the characters and stuff, but then everything was passed off to the designers. When the designers came onto the project, they were given a framework that was already in place.

My duties as lead writer and lead designer have shifted over the course of the project. It's been interesting.

Even as lead writer, since the designers are implementing the gameplay, they would write the dialogue for a lot of the characters. It was much more of an editorial role, giving them general creative direction after things had already been in place. It was interesting.

But I would still write some stuff -- the radio stations, I wrote all that. Every time I get a chance getting my hands dirty writing stuff, I love to jump in. It's hard to get used to passing it off to somebody else. You know -- "Auuughh... Okay, you do it. It's okay."

Does Bethesda have a role that's actually "creative director," like a lot of studios these days, or is that basically you?

EP: We don't. I think the role of creative director -- ultimately, Todd as executive producer is the creative director as well. I am sort of the creative director in his stead. That's a good way to look at it.

Fortunately, Todd and I are on the same page creatively 95 percent of the time. Even when there are 50 people who are not on the same page as us -- "Sorry." (laughs)

So yeah, I would say those duties are pretty much shared between us.

At some studios the head of the project is called the creative director, some the lead designer, or the project lead, or the director. Lead designer and creative director are diverging these days.

EP: Even the title of designer itself -- as a designer at Looking Glass, or Ion Austin, you'd be writing and doing quest design, and building spaces too. So a designer was a level designer as well, and that's not true anymore. We have dedicated level designers now, and designers do all the quest writing.

Do you have any thoughts as to the importance, or unimportance, of creating more consistency in development roles, akin to as in films?

EP: You know, I've heard that. I think the title's not important. The important thing, and this is something I love about Bethesda, is working with people you know, and you trust.

It doesn't matter what my title is, as long as I know what Todd needs from me, or what I need from another designer, and how well we interact with each other. It really depends on the company, and how well the people in that company work with one another.

Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3

Despite not being involved in the original Fallout games, you do have a history that goes back to some of that series' contemporaries in that fairly influential era of PC gaming -- Thief, and so on.

EP: Yeah, I started in the industry in 1996 or 1997, working with Pete Hines, our marketing director -- we both worked at The Adrenaline Vault together, a popular gaming website at the time. We reviewed Fallout back then. (laughs) We had a friendly argument with the writers about who would review Fallout -- I didn't.

My background is very much hardcore PC gamer guy. Now, I'm a big Xbox 360 player too, but I definitely still have those PC sensibilities, and those have definitely worked their way into Fallout 3.

You look at Fallout 3, there are a lot of old-school PC clues -- reading text, going into old computer screens. It's charming in a way. Old-school PC games have a lot of depth, and I think we definitely bring that.

Do you feel there's a certain tone or feel that PC games of that era share? Deus Ex, Thief -- they sort of attempt to model reality in a way that's a little grittier than many other video games. It's hard to define.

EP: You know, my first design job was working at Looking Glass Studios. I did some work on Thief Gold; I was a designer on Thief 2. I was in really good company -- it was like a crash course in good game design. I couldn't have asked for a better experience joining the industry.

A lot of what I like to bring personally is that old-school Looking Glass depth -- Ultima Underworld and Thief. I'm a really big fan of Deus Ex, which making Fallout 3 is a real inspiration to me. It's not Deus Ex in Fallout 3, but it has sort of that same vibe. And the gun works the same way. (laughs)

I could be getting my wires crossed, but did you ever work with [BioShock 2 creative director] Jordan Thomas?

EP: Yes, I did! Jordan's a very good friend of mine. We ended up working together at Ion Storm Austin on Thief 3 -- when it was Thief 3, before it was Deadly Shadows.

So you're here heading up Fallout 3, and he's heading up BioShock 2, both big anticipated multiplatform games with that lineage dating back to that whole Looking Glass-centered PC crowd.

EP: Yeah! It's funny, because Jordan and I definitely have a lot of the same design sensibilities, and a lot of the same passions, in terms of what we both appreciate in the genre. It's fantastic for me to see him doing so well. I'm so proud of him. It's great.