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How did you break into games? I’ve known ever since I was young that I wanted to work in games, and eventually through wanting to make my own games I discovered a love for programming. I made sure that throughout my education I was always putting in that extra bit of effort, and as I got towards the end of my degree that effort got noticed by my lecturers and they put me forward for an open spot as a gameplay engineer at Playground Games.
What has been your proudest achievement so far? Without a doubt releasing Forza Horizon 5, the first game I worked on. Seeing your name in the credits of such a big release is a special feeling and it makes all the hard work worth it. I couldn’t have wished for a better reception to the game and seeing people online play through and enjoy the features I worked on is amazing.
What has been your biggest challenge to date? Adjusting from working on my own individual projects to suddenly working in a large studio with so many other people was quite a big challenge at first. You must adapt to working with many different teams every day and coming up with solutions that work for everyone. This is especially the case in engineering where you’re often working on systems and writing code that other people will use and interact with. This is a whole new level of responsibility, and it pushes you to produce high quality work all the time.
Every month, we pick the brain of an up-and-coming talent
Matt Loveday, engineer at Playground Games, talks about discovering a love for programming, getting to work on Forza Horizon 5 and pursuing his passions
day. I’m surrounded by people that share my passion for making great games. Working with that many smart, driven and creative people every day means that I’m constantly learning and improving faster than I ever would have done alone.
What’s your biggest ambition in games? My end goal is to help push the industry forward by developing new technologies that further empower others to develop bigger and better games. The games industry is constantly evolving, and new ideas are always pushing the boundary of what we can achieve. You never know what is just around the corner, and what we think is impossible today could become trivial for us to do tomorrow.
What do you enjoy most about your job? Before working in the industry, I would spend most of my spare time working on games, writing code and trying to become a better engineer. Now my hobby has become my job, I look forward to coming into work every
“The best kind of side projects are game jams, mainly because they force you to work on a deadline and often on a particular theme.”
What advice would you give to an aspiring games engineer? The thing that helped me the most was consistently working on side projects outside of college and university, not only does this give you things to put on your portfolio but you also get great experience using a wide range of technologies. The best kind of side projects are game jams, mainly because they force you to work on a deadline and often on a particular theme. This forces you to get creative to finish the project in time, with the added benefit that you’ll have something cool to show off once you’re done! Working in teams during game jams is even
better. It will give you a good insight into the workflows of other disciplines and will make you a more well-rounded engineer as a result.
If there’s a rising star at your company, contact Chris Wallace at
chris.wallace@biz-media.co.uk February 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 23
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