Ian Towers

Tempest Rising
Jan '24 - Sep '25

In the winter of 2023 I had a unique opportunity through my network to visit Slipgate Ironworks in Denmark, and see their new upcoming RTS for myself. It's A vision of a modern-made RTS inspired by the Classic RTS formula that has been long missing from the industry for some time. I was really impressed by their work, all their talented staff, and the CEO's Passion. By the end of the week I was discussing how I wanted to assist them full time.Over the course of development, I helped the game's development and QA team improve, whilst building up their internal QA processes, bug tracking, feedback methods, and planning more embedded development support. This Included research into automation, and working on long-term plans for growing the department for their next project.

• Arrow Down

Hyenas
May '18 - Dec '23

In 2018 I sought to re-join the team behind Alien: Isolation and Halo Wars 2 who were working on a brand-new sci-fi PvEvP shooter. it was my longest stint on any project at the time, and as a result I gained experience in many different Quality and support roles across it's development from early concept to Alpha and Beta releasesWorking with the team as a senior QA, we held embedded roles within feature teams. I also created debug testing features in Unreal during this time and assisted the design and roll-out for new bug metadata standards. I helped author improved general internal guidance for developers, including; workspace setup, QA handbook, and console platform Support documents. I also joined leadership and assisted establishing and running a new central QA sub-team. After an office relocation, I moved into a Platform specialist role and adopted playtest area management, including help with rollouts of new console inventory, and support for Linux based Server-side testing and deployment including work to automate a package deployment tool for the team to teach myself Python.

• Arrow Down

Total War Warhammer II: PC
Sep '17 - May '18

in late 2017 I had the opportunity to see Creative Assembly's famous Total War development machine first-hand and learn some valuable new lessons about testing for a long-standing franchise.After Halo Wars 2, we joined the Total War: Warhammer 2 team before their main release, and provided some final pre-launch and post launch quality support. Then we began a long stint of supporting their DLC roadmap, I was able to provide an assessment from an outside perspective on the Team and provided this feedback to QA Management with recommendations.Alongside QA, during my time at CA i was able to support Total War with various crowd voice roles for:
* Total War Saga: Thrones of Brittania(2018)
* Total War: Warhammer (2016)

• Arrow Down

Halo Wars 2: PC/Xbox
July '15 - Sept '17

in 2015 i applied and joined Creative Assembly so that i could join My first AAA title as a developer, I was very excited to get to grips with the industry full-time and learn the ins-and-outs on my first project, I was fortunate enough to be there from greenlight and announcement to launch + DLC. It was one of the most stable multiplatform releases CA had been involved with, and it was received well by the community. We helped 343 Industries introduce one of the community's most favoured antagonists: Atriox, and his "Banished" faction of brutes, which went on to appear in 343i's later title: Halo: Infinite.During our time together, we achieved 3 simultaneous Demo/Beta launches at E3 2016: including a public beta test. and another for “Blitz mode” in January '17. Throughout development we delivered regular executive presentation builds. and personally I provided on-site support in January 2017 for a press event in London. we also had a very successful launches with our major DLC: "Awakening the Nightmare"

• Arrow Down