Rhianna Pratchett studied journalism at the London College of Printing. Following graduation, Pratchett began writing for Minx magazine, where her first games reviews were published.[5] She moved to the long running PC Zone magazine[6] as an editorial assistant, staff writer, eventually becoming a section editor. She wrote for many other publications including The Guardian.[7]
Pratchett moved into script writing and narrative design in 2002, with Beyond Divinity, produced by Larian Studios in Belgium.[8] She also wrote a novella to accompany the game. In 2007, her work on Heavenly Sword was nominated for a BAFTA and a year later she won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain 'Best Videogame Script' award for Overlord.[9] Pratchett wrote the comic Tomb Raider: The Beginning with Dark Horse and the Mirror's Edge miniseries with DC Comics, along with several of her own short stories. She has contributed to various books on games narrative including Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing and Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames.[10]
Since 2012, she has been co-director of Narrativia Limited, a production company which holds exclusive multimedia and merchandising rights to her father Terry Pratchett's works following his death.[11] In 2012 and 2013, Narrativia announced that it would be working on three television projects based on Pratchett's father's works: The Watch, Good Omens, and Wee Free Men, as well as several other projects; Pratchett was reported as co-writer of The Watch[12][13] but in 2019 she announced she had not been involved in the project "for many years".[14] In a deal announced in April 2020, multiple Discworld novels are to be adapted for television by Narrativia, Motive Pictures and Endeavor Content.[15]
She has also spoken on BBC Radio 1, Radio 4, 5Live and multiple conferences around the world, including Develop, Animex, GDC and TEDx Transmedia.[16] In June 2015, she said that her father's 41st Discworld novel The Shepherd's Crown, to be published posthumously later that year, would mark the end of the series, and that no further novels or books of unfinished work would be authorised for publication.[17]
In 2023, Pratchett hosted her first radio programme, Mythical Creatures, a ten-part documentary series for BBC Radio 4 about creatures from British folklore. It was first broadcast from 18–29 December 2023.[18]
Pratchett has appeared in the documentaries Games Britannia,[40]Critical Path[41] and Charlie Brooker's How Video Games Changed the World.[citation needed]
Achievements
Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015) – Won Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing at 68th Writers Guild of America Awards 2016.[42] Won Outstanding Achievement in Character for Lara Croft at 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards 2016[43]
Risen (2009) – co-nominated for a WGGB award 2010.[44]
Won the European Women in Games Hall of Fame Award in 2013.[45]
^Pratchett, Rhianna (10 August 2019). "@rhipratchett on Twitter". Twitter. Archived from the original on 25 December 2020. Retrieved 17 February 2020. Just to be clear (since I'm asked this a lot) I am not working on The Watch TV series, and haven't been for many years. The show is under the creative control of BBC Studios.