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A lead engine engineer on Diablo 4 says games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are "a great example" of what a passionate team of juniors can achieve and show why every development team should seek a balance of experience and raw talent.
As part of this year's Digital Dragons conference, Marcin Undak delves into the realities of working on triple-A games in the modern day. Once we get to the question-and-answer session of that talk, however, the conversation shifts to the importance of blending youth and experience within teams and why that's getting harder and harder to do.
As RPS reports, during that segment of the presentation, an indie character artist overserves that companies like The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 maker CD Project seem to have fewer junior roles open at the moment – and even when they do, the expectations only seem to have gotten higher.
In response, Undak agrees the bar for juniors is "really high," though adds that it "was always like that." As for why everyone might be noticing fewer roles these days, he reckons it has something to do with how long each game takes to make.
You see, a company is most likely to take on junior staff at the start of a project so they can train them up over that project's lifecycle. However, when "even seven or eight years is not that unusual" when it comes to finishing a game these days, companies are simply not at the start of something as often as they were previously.
"If the game is already in full production, and they just need some roles, they usually open just senior positions," he says. "And because the cycle of the productions is getting longer and longer, it might take years for a big company like Blizzard or CD Projekt to start a new project, and start opening those roles."
Following on, Undak is then asked if it is more valuable to hire someone who is more green at the start of a project, so you can build them up over the course of the game's production.
"The best teams have all seniority levels," Undak says. "Because when you only have seniors and principals, those people are usually there for a long time, and they are very good at what they're doing, but maybe not as excited as junior people that come in. And also junior people bring more fresh ideas. I think recently, Expedition 33 was a great example of what a passionate team of junior people can achieve."
The development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been of interest to the industry over the past year. Naturally, anything that puts up the kind of sales the J'RPG does while sweeping awards attracts curiosity.
However, there's more to it. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is more of an AA-sized game built with a smaller team, thanks to help from outsourcing. When so much of the industry talk around the place revolves around the ballooning budgets of AAA games and how long they take to get out the door, something cheaper but just as successful, like Clair Obscur, is naturally a draw.
Of course, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 studio Sandfall Interactive does have experience on board – creative lead Guillaume Broche worked at Ubisoft, for example – though the developers have spoken previously about hiring young people because they had no money. Thankfully, though, it all worked out.
