GDC 2025 Session Viewer
'Avowed' Branching Narratives: Shifting from QA Testing to Analyzing
David Benefield (QA Lead, Obsidian Entertainment)
Location: Room 2016, West Hall
Date: Wednesday, March 19
Time: 9:00 am - 10:00 am
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass - Get your pass now!
Track: Production & Team Leadership
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: All
The Quality Assurance department at Obsidian have taken great strides in shifting the perception and use case of QA Analysts on Avowed from being 'testers' who spend the majority of their work hours playing the game and reporting obvious bugs, to being 'analysts' who spend most of their time outside the game client to find, correct, and prevent defects.
This talk focuses on how QA put this philosophy into practice for Quests in Avowed. Attendees will see each step leading up to the 'Joint Analysis Sessions' that leveraged Area Designer and Quality Assurance Analysts to fix bugs before they were even reported.
Takeaway
Attendees will learn which black box testing methods were originally applied on previous titles. See how QA analysts shifted their work upon gaining access and knowledge to development tools. Eventually resulting in QA working directly with implementors to review and iterate on quests from within the Unreal editor.
Intended Audience
QA looking for a step by step review of how a team moved from black box, to grey box, to white box testing. Any developers looking to better embed QA in their workflows and prevent bugs.