Mitch Dyer jumps from ‘Star Wars’ to ‘Gotham Knights’
When most people think about writing games, they have dream projects. It’s not often you get to start your career with one. But Mitch Dyer’s career has been anything but normal and led to him working on one of the year’s most anticipated games — “Gotham Knights.”
“Writing a game is one of the most unique experiences a human being can have in terms of creative endeavors,” Dyer said. “It doesn’t feel like a real job.”
Dyer’s path to game development started with a different avenue — games journalism.
“I love writing about games,” Dyer said. “I love thinking about games and I love overthinking about games. I was doing anything I could to just write about games.”
His first full-time job in the industry was at one of the biggest gaming journalism outlets in the world:IGN.
“I got very lucky in that I got to go to the biggest place first,” Dyer said. “It felt like this is the culmination of everything I wanted to do.”
Dyer said he had a blast, but the creative side of him longed for a new challenge.
“After all this time talking to creatives about the process of making games, it gave me a very false sense of I know how games are made and it seems really interesting,” Dyer said. “I was inundated with information about the kinds of people who make games and the kinds of stuff that excites the people who make these games and a lot of it was stuff I connected with.”
Dyer decided a change was necessary. Now, he just needed a project. He’d find one in “Star Wars Battlefront II.”
“I got an interview at Motive and they decided what we should do is roll the dice on this guy who has never done this before and give him the biggest IP in the world,” Dyer said.
The pressure was on to craft a compelling Star Wars story in one of the biggest gaming licenses in the world.
“The responsibility of Motive is to build with DICE the first canonical triple A Star Wars story in a game in the new Disney timeline,” Dyer said. “That’s a big responsibility that we took seriously.”
Dyer relied on his instincts to drive the story forward.
“Your instincts are your first, best test bed for any story beat,” Dyer said. “If something clicks with you when you’re writing it, hopefully, and probably, it’s going to resonate with somebody else. The second-best resource in a game studio is your team. When you have a team rallying around a moment or an idea or a beat, it tells you you’re onto something.”
Dyer is now jumping to another big universe: DC. Dyer is working on “Gotham Knights.”
“I was attracted to the project because I was a fan of it at announce,” Dyer said. “The idea of playing four different characters in an open world in a setting where Bruce Wayne has died, that is extremely compelling to me.”
While details are scarce beyond that, Dyer said he is excited to see players get a chance to play a new kind of Batman game.
“Shifting the focus to be about these characters in the aftermath of this pivotal death that is important to all of them, the framework of this story is unique,” Dyer said. “Having this very fresh, unique take on the DC Universe makes it approachable and engaging in a way that is instantly gratifying to me.”
While “Gotham Knights” still is in production, Dyer also has his eyes set on the future and he can’t wait for gamers to see what’s next.
“I’m excited to hopefully define and build IP,” Dyer said. “I want to be part of a team that is going to take an IP and give it a little meat and substance and build it into something that is more of its own.”
Contact Lukas Eggen at leggen@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Follow @lukaseggen on Twitter.