Feargus Urquhart

Feargus MacRae Urquhart is the founder and current Chief Executive Officer of Obsidian Entertainment.

Background
In 1991, Urquhart joined Interplay Entertainment for a summer job as a play tester for the company's quality assurance. This allowed him to both play games and to pursue his interest in making them. He eventually got hired on a full-time contract as Assistant Producer in 1993, and got promoted to Associate Producer in 1994, Producer in 1995, and Division Director of Interplay's RPG division in 1996. When the division got re-branded as Black Isle Studios in 1998, his title changed to President of the studio, without much changing for him in day-to-day operations.

Urquhart contributed to Fallout, in particular toward the functionality of the Hub and a quest. He was also responsible for assigning additional staff for work on assets, shortly before the game's release date. He is especially proud of the effect the game had on other role playing games, his contributions to it that worked, and those that failed, but from which he learned from.

In 1998, Urquhart and Matt Norton directed Fallout 2, after Timothy Cain, Jason D. Anderson, and Leonard Boyarsky left Interplay to form Troika Games. The trio left due to different visions on how to make games, and Urquhart recalls the development of Fallout 2 being "rocky for the first six months," and having a "hiccup in the production cycle." He was involved in the design of Vault City. In retrospect, he regrets two choices on design elements for the game, namely going "too crazy" on inside jokes and real world references, and having talking deathclaws.

Urquhart also worked on Van Buren, but ultimately left Interplay in April 2003, stating that the company losing the Dungeons & Dragons license was one of his main reasons for leaving.

On June 12, 2003, Urquhart co-founded Obsidian Entertainment, together with his former colleagues Chris Avellone, Chris Jones, Darren L. Monahan and Chris Parker.