Emil Pagliarulo

Emil Pagliarulo is an American video game designer who works at Bethesda Game Studios.

Emil Pagliarulo
Education	Salem State University
Occupation	Video game designer
Employer	Bethesda Game Studios
Known for	Thief II: The Metal Age The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Fallout 3 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Starfield
Awards	2008 Game Developers Choice Awards For Best Writing

Career

Pagliarulo started his career writing for the website Adrenaline Vault.^[1] He has been working for Bethesda Softworks since 2002.^[2] He previously worked for Looking Glass Studios and Ion Storm Austin.^[3] His first works at Bethesda include a credit for writing and quest design for The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon, and quest design for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in which he wrote the Dark Brotherhood quest line. He was then promoted to lead designer and lead writer for Fallout 3, for which he received the Game of the Year award and the Best Writing award at the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards.^[3] He was credited as the senior designer and writer of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4.

Fallout 76

Pagliarulo worked on Fallout 76 as design director.

Starfield

Pagliarulo worked on Starfield as design director and lead writer. In an interview with Polygon, Pagliarulo stated that Starfield was the most ambitious RPG Bethesda has ever worked on and that the game would raise questions regarding the future of religious faith for players.^[4]

Prior to the release of Starfield's DLC Shattered Space Pagliarulo gave an interview with GamesRadar+ praising the DLC as a return to form for Bethesda going back to hand-crafted exploration.^[5] In an interview with GamesRadar+, when asked what the studio learned from making Starfield that it would carry into future projects, Pagliarulo responded, 'Fans really, really, really want Elder Scrolls 6.'^[6] In a separate interview, also with GamesRadar+, he said "I think in a lot of ways, Starfield is the hardest thing Bethesda has ever done. We pushed ourselves to make something totally different. To just jam into an Xbox the biggest, richest space simulation RPG anyone could imagine."^[7]

Video game credits

• Thief II: The Metal Age (2000)
• The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon (2003)^[8]
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
• Fallout 3 (2008)
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
• Fallout Shelter (2015)
• Fallout 4 (2015)
• Fallout 76 (2018)
• Starfield (2023)^[9]