Zakariah "Zak" Garriss is a writer and game designer for cinematic adventure games who worked for Deck Nine Games as a content lead. He was the Lead Writer of Life is Strange: Before the Storm and the Game Director of Life is Strange: True Colors.
Career[]
Before working as a Senior Writer for Idol Minds LLC (doing business as Deck Nine Games), Zak's first major job at that time was an analyst for Buck Consultants on July 2005 to November of 2007. His first exposure to working in the video game industry was on November 2007 as part of Big Huge Games, where he served as an Assistant Producer. He was then later hired by 38 Studios as a Designer to work for Electronic Arts' upcoming game at the time, 2012's Action-RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning — with both Big Huge Games and 38 Studios were a part of the development for the game. After working on 38 Studios, Zak attended at Reed College in Portland, Oregon studying Bachelor of Arts - Classics and Classical Languages, Literatures and Linguistics from 2011 to 2015. In 2012, he was a Head Writing Tutor until 2015. He wrote two plays during his time there — Dialogue of a Man and his Soul(s) and Luster. He then later graduated with a Commendation of Academic Excellence in 2015.
In May 2015 to April 2016, he was a Researcher for CBS Television Studios as part of the Production Staff for Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. And on June 2016, he lands another Video Game opportunity to work as a Senior Writer for Idol Minds (doing business as Deck Nine Games) and served as the Lead Writer for the 2017's Life is Strange: Before the Storm where it received several nominations from critics and awards, including "Best Writing" at 2018 Webby Awards and "Game of the Year" from 2018 Games for Change Awards.
Zak was later promoted to Narrative Director from 2016 to Game Director on 2017. Currently, as of this writing, he is now the Chief Creative Officer for Deck Nine Games as of 2019.
Zak also has a "Full professional" language proficiency in Latin and "Professional Working" proficiency and Ancient Greek.
Interviews[]
Before the Storm[]
- Life is Strange: Before the Storm - The GDC 2018 Postmortem Interview with Zak Garriss (April 2, 2018)
- How the 38 Studios scandal shaped 'Life is Strange: Before the Storm' (March 28, 2018)
- Deck Nine Talks Deleted Scenes And Queer Characters In Life Is Strange Prequel (March 27, 2018)
- Life Is Strange Before The Storm - Season 2 update from Deck Nine Games will delight fans (December 17, 2017)
- Life is Strange Before The Storm Interview w Deck Nine Games' Zak Garriss & David Hein (September 7, 2017)
- Life Is Strange: Before the Storm - Interview w/ Zak Harriss & Chris Floyd | PAX West 2017 (September 1, 2017)
- Life Is Strange prequel lets you decide how close teens should be (August 5, 2017)
- Life is Strange : Before the Storm - Rencontre avec Zak Garris, le scénariste en chef (July 3, 2017)
- Life is Strange: Before the Storm dev on Ashly Burch's absence, season pass kerfuffle and more (June 19, 2019)
- E3 Coliseum Panel (June 14, 2017)
- Before the Storm Gameplay Interview (June 12, 2017)
True Colors[]
- The future of Life is Strange: how True Colors is leading the series into the next generation (March 26, 2021)
Gallery[]
Videos[]
