[LVL Up KL 2019] Breaking games in the name of QA, interview with Anna Prein of Larian Quebec

You excited about Larian Studios opening in Malaysia? We talked briefly about it with Swen in our interview with him, and we catch up with Anna Prein to do the same! She’s the QA Producer at Larian Quebec in Canada, so let’s see what she has to say.

You eager job seekers would certainly be curious on Larian’s requirements, wouldn’t you? Prein admits she’s looking forward to hiring QA people considering her position in the Quebec studio, so she’s seeking talent there. Regardless, they will be looking at disciplines at all levels. No certificate or diploma is needed to join Larian. They just want you to have a good foundation and set of skills.

According to Prein, QA looks for people who pay attention to details. They also need to be patient, be good under stress and those who persevere. QA has to reproduce certain values, and it can be challenging to find and replicate the exact thing to find an issue. How often have you wanted to report a bug but couldn’t figure out how it happened?

Team Russia and Team Canada will be working together with the Malaysian team. They’ve standardized the flow, but the studios do have certain specialties to them. Prien mentions a QA tester in Belgium who’s great at bug testing, breaking games with no structure. St. Petersburg has people who can do excellent detail documentation. Quebec does the playtesting, making different playthroughs of the games with a variety of characters and classes.

Since the announcement of Baldur’s Gate III, we asked about what QA has already been done. Prien can only tell us there’s constant testing on it, revealing there’s actually two departments within QA. One team continues work on Divinity: Original Sin II, with work on patches and additional content. The other team works with the Baldur’s Gate III programmers to help integrate the content to ensure it doesn’t break either game or editor.

Larian Malaysia is the final part in the 24-hour international workflow for the studios. Malaysia’s QA covers the large gap between St. Petersburg and Quebec, taking over from the Canadian team to pass on to the Russian team. QA in Malaysia will be evenly split for now, as they want to create both sides of QA. There will be those who will help with Baldur’s Gate III, and it’ll eventually start needing more serious testing as it approaches release.

Prien expresses excitement to be in Malaysia, eyeing that big pool of growing talent. Should you be interested, you can contact them on their website. Think you got the skill?

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