About

Devan Soyka is a game writer and narrative designer from the Washington, DC area, currently working as a Senior Narrative Designer at Crytek.

She’s worked on RPGs, FPS, simulation games, and visual novels and other interactive fiction, producing over 350,000 words of content per year.

She has spoken about the games industry and narrative design at Devcom (2024, 2023), Indiecade (2020), and various events for students at universities and local libraries.

Background

Before beginning her career in games, Devan was an editor, and before that she was an English language teacher, which gives her an edge on writing clean copy, delivering useful feedback, and explaining complex narrative concepts.

She graduated with honors from James Madison University, where she earned a B.A. in English (Creative Writing) and a second in Modern Foreign Language (Spanish). When her undergraduate program cut medieval literature classes, she was granted special permission to enter a graduate seminar to continue her lessons, and later won the college’s award for Excellence in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.