Feargus Urquhart

Feargus MacRae Urquhart (born April 19, 1970) is the former President at Interplay Entertainment, Black Isle Studios and is the current CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. Urquhart was involved with the production of both Fallout and Fallout 2, and had been working on the Van Buren project up until its cancellation.

Career
In the mid-1990s, Urquhart joined forces with Tim Cain and others to produce the opening act of what would be the Fallout franchise, "Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role Playing Game". Following Fallout's 1997 release, team-structure negotiations between Interplay and Cain collapsed, leading to the departure of several principal designers of the original Fallout. In 1998, Urquhart was given the reins to Interplay's newly-created development division for role-playing games, Black Isle Studios.

After Timothy Cain, Jason D. Anderson, and Leonard Boyarsky left Fallout 2 to form Troika Games, Urquhart and Matt Norton took over in directing the game. Fallout 2 was released later that year, but due to a rushed production schedule, numerous bugs and programming mistakes were discovered by the general public. Although many of these mistakes were the result of an abnormally-compressed production schedule, blame was laid mostly at Urquhart's feet. However, Urquhart and the rest of the Black Isle Studios staff worked diligently to patch many of the mistakes that made it into the release.

In 2003, Interplay fell into serious financial difficulties. In December, the Black Isle Studios division was closed down, and its staff laid off - Urquhart included. With the help of former Fallout colleagues Chris Avellone, Chris Jones, Darren L. Monahan and Chris Parker, Urquhart founded Obsidian Entertainment in Santa Ana, California.

Gameography

 * Fallout (1997)
 * Fallout 2 (1998)
 * Baldur's Gate (1998)
 * Planescape: Torment (1999)
 * Icewind Dale (2000)
 * Van Buren (Canceled in 2003)
 * Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

External links and references

 * Feargus Urquhart's developer profile at No Mutants Allowed
 * Feargus Urquhart's Profile on Obsidian Entertainment
 * Feargus Urquhart Article on Wikipedia
 * Obsidian Entertainment Official Web Site
 * Feargus Urquhart's New Vegas developer diary
 * Bethesda Blog: Inside the Vault - Feargus Urquhart