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Karrie Shirou Shao is a Taiwanese-American writer and designer in the video game industry.Shao is the Nebula-nominated and BAFTA-longlisted writer and narrative designer of Pacific Drive, the 2024 best-selling supernatural survival game on PC and PlayStation 5 described as "Stephen King's X-Files in a Station Wagon". The game sold 1.5M+ copies and has been honored by BAFTA, The Game Awards, and Game Developers Choice Awards. Shao's writing has been nominated for the Nebula Awards (one of the most prestigious science fiction and fantasy writing awards), and has garnered praise as "funny and compelling" by GamesRadar, "exquisite" by ScreenRant, and "heartfelt" by DreadCentral. Pacific Drive is currently in development for television by James Wan at Atomic Monster.She recently wrote Warren Spector's next game and hosted the Independent Games Festival Awards at GDC 2026. She is currently guest hosting The Game Maker's Notebook from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.Shao is a BAFTA Breakthrough 2024 talent and was one of the first women to write and produce on League of Legends, the most played PC game of all time. During her time at Riot Games, she contributed to champions including Lux, Sona, Ahri, and Talon. She went on to launch over 50 titles in a collection of roles, including production on the multi-million seller Hello Neighbor franchise and marketing leadership on Terra Battle 2 (Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's independent studio).

NARRATIVE & WRITING

⭐ Warren Spector's Next Game (OtherSide Entertainment)⭐ Pacific Drive (Ironwood Studios)
...........Top 10 Best Selling On Steam
...........2024 The Game Awards Nominee - Best Debut Indie
...........2024 BAFTA Game Awards Nominee (Best Debut Game), Longlist (Best Narrative, Best New Intellectual Property, Best Game Design)
...........2024 Nebula Award Finalist for Best Game Writing⭐ League of Legends (Riot Games)
...........Most Played PC Game of All Time
...........2010 Golden Joystick Winner for Online Game of the Year⭐ TBA (Kepler Interactive)⭐ Per Aspera (Tlon Industries / Raw Fury)
...........2020 D.I.C.E. Nominee for Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year
...........2021 BIG Festival Winner for Best Game: Latin America⭐ The Exit Game - The School of Sorcery, The Lab, Villains Lair
...........Most Reviewed Escape Room in Los Angeles

PRODUCTION

🎈 League of Legends (Riot Games)
Tutorial, Co-op vs AI, Dominion🎈 tinyBuild
Hello Neighbor, Graveyard Keeper,
Party Hard, Streets of Rogue🎈 Arc System Works
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle
2018 The Game Awards Nominee - Best Fighting Game
2018 D.I.C.E. Nominee - Fighting Game of the Year
The MISSING
2018 The Game Awards Nominee - Games for Impact

TALKS & HOSTING

📣 Independent Games Festival 2026
Host, Writer, Director
Game Developers Conference - San Francisco, Caliofrnia📣 Ghosts on the Airwaves:
Caring About Unseen Characters in 'Pacific Drive'
Top Ranked Speaker 2025
Game Developers Conference - San Francisco, Caliofrnia📣 Game Maker's Notebook
Slay the Spire 2 and Building the Deckbuilder Genre with Mega Crit's Casey Yano
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences📣 Say Less: How I Learned to Write Less to Do More
Featured Keynote
Games Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) 2024
Melbourne, Australia📣 How To Go From "Aspiring" to "Narrative Designer"
LudoNarraCon 2021 - Online
LudoNarraCon's Most Viewed Talk