This shouldn’t be a particularly alarming bit of news for Guild Wars 2 fans, but the movement of one of the game’s major narrative team members is still something to report on regardless: Tom Abernathy, the senior narrative director for the MMORPG, is leaving ArenaNet in pursuit of other work. According to Abernathy’s Twitter profile and LinkedIn page, he will now take up the seat of senior narrative lead at Bungie.
“Leading the team [Bobby Stein] & I built has been the honor & thrill of my career, & I’ll miss them & all our collaborators deeply. I couldn’t be prouder of our work together. […] I’m overjoyed to say [Stein] has taken the reins to lead the Narrative team into the future. He’s gonna be great.”
Most fans of GW2 are generally supportive of the move, noting that writers staying in one place is commonly a bad thing from a creative standpoint and mostly offering him well wishes. We also hope the best for both him at his new position and for Stein as he takes the (literal) narrative lead; Stein has been at ArenaNet for around 16 years so we suspect the game’s story is in pretty good hands. Readers will recall that ArenaNet won our Studio of the Year award this year.
After 5 years in the best job I’ve ever had, it’s time for me to find new challenges. I’ve left ArenaNet. Leading the team @BobbyStein & I built has been the honor & thrill of my career, & I’ll miss them & all our collaborators deeply. I couldn’t be prouder of our work together.+
— tom is HONOR DR KING BY SAVING OUR DEMOCRACY. blm. (@tomabernathy) January 2, 2022
