I started at Unbroken Studios in October 2021, right in the middle of the COVID-19 chaos. At that point, I was ready to leave Canada behind. "While not a fan of Canada, they do have a better system in education in regards to [STEM]" the restrictions were getting out of hand, and a job opportunity in the US felt like an escape hatch. When I landed the role, I’ll be honest: I wasn’t thrilled about working on Quidditch Champions. Something about the project felt… aimless. A game amonng a smalll Qiddictch minority. Okay lets make a million at max out of that minrityy. (So invest half a million and see what comes of it?) And pretty early on, that hunch started showing. The producer kept pivoting — first monthly, then weekly — which didn’t exactly inspire confidence. But what I really wanted to work on was Fractured Lands. I genuinely believed it had the potential to become something like STALKER meets Fallout, all wrapped in the gritty dustbowl theme of the original game. Think: STALKER gameplay intensity + Fallout’s charming jank + Fractured Lands’ worldbuilding. I pitched the idea to my supervisor and even the CEO during our one-on-ones, but it never got any traction.
Despite that, day-to-day life at Unbroken was actually great. I liked the people, and I loved the technical challenges. My work revolved around building a pipeline installer, creating a bi-directional pipeline, and tying all the DCC applications together so content could flow smoothly. I enjoyed mass-fixing problems with automated workflows. It scratched that itch of solving puzzles all day. When Quidditch Champions eventually shipped, it unfortunately didn’t do well. From my and and other peirs it was expected. From my perspective, the game was gameplay hard to follow, visually tracking the quaffle was a challenge even for us during playtests. Games are supposed to be pick a controller and shoot, shit happens . E.G. the world reacts and you get a dopamine reward! After release, work slowed down significantly.
Then came the Hogwarts Legacy work. Warner Bros. initially wanted to turn it into some kind of MMO-lite world, but once we dug into the architecture, it became clear that the entire game would need to be rebuilt from the ground up. That idea died quickly, and talks shifted toward DLC concepts, which also fizzled out. My opinion is this was mostly related to the producer and game play designer. They never could come up with a compelling narrative or mechanics. It all flet canned and half ass. (sorry) My role at that point was to integrating our bi-directional pipeline and study their tools. They had some great systems, though there was definitely room for improvement like anywhere one goes.
In my last three months at Unbroken, I focused on reworking all the Fractured Lands tools. Right around then, I noticed a lot of people were being quietly let go. In early November, I was officially told my last day would be the end of December. A couple weeks later, we were all told we didn’t even need to be logged into Slack anymore. Still, I finished my tools, updated the docs, and said goodbye properly.
Now, every once in a while, I wander through Walmart, Fred Meyer, Target, or GameStop and check the shelves. The intent is not to buy, just to see where my work went to. Just to see if Quidditch Champions ever pops up. Haven’t seen it yet. Kind of a sad ending for something that cost a few million dollars to make.
Check out the work at here