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.]

IGN Unfiltered

Episode 53: The Game Awards Host Geoff Keighley

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!

Episode 52: Jon Brooke and Lee Singleton (Outriders, Hitman Go, Sleeping Dogs)

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.

Episode 51: Max Schaefer and Matt Uelmen (Diablo 1, 2, and Torchlight)

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.

Episode 50: Marcus Lehto (Halo, Disintegration)

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.

Episode 49: Robin Walker and Chris Remo (Valve/Half-Life: Alyx)

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!

Episode 48: Hugo Martin and Marty Stratton (id Software/DOOM Eternal)

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.

Episode 47: Stig Asmussen (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, God of War trilogy)

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.

Episode 46: Phil Harrison (Sony, Xbox, Google)

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.

Episode 45: Sean Krankel (Oxenfree, Afterparty)

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.

Episode 44: Sam Lake (Max Payne, Alan Wake, Control, Quantum Break)

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.

Episode 43: Bethesda Game Studios Director Todd Howard

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!

Episode 42: Denis Dyack

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!

Episode 41: Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot

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.

Episode 40: Amy Hennig and Ted Price

343 Industries studio head and AIAS Hall of Famer Bonnie Ross discusses her entire career in this 70-minute interview, from her start on an NBA basketball game to how she came to ask for – and get – the keys to the Halo franchise, including the trials of Master Chief Collection and the lessons being applied to Halo Infinite. She discusses taking over Halo from Bungie, the mistakes of the Master Chief Collection, the reception of Halo 4, what they've learned from Halo 5, and what 343's approach is for Halo Infinite.

Episode 39: Bonnie Ross

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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IGN Unfiltered

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