The podcast behind Contact: Wait Out, an ops room command game.

Our first guest episode. Chris Wood spent sixteen years as a programmer before founding Tanglewood Games, which has grown from one person at a desk to around 60 staff fixing the hard engineering problems inside Unreal Engine for other studios, on games including Hogwarts Legacy. We ask him the question every studio now faces: how far to lean into AI.

Ryan starts with what Epic has announced for Unreal Engine 6. Chris explains why he sees AI as an unprecedented tool rather than another industrial revolution, why his studio cannot sit it out, how his clients' contracts have changed in eighteen months, and what it means for juniors and graduates. Ryan gives the artist's view, and we ask what it all means for a two-person team building a game about commanding on information you cannot fully trust. We finish with Chris's hopes for the next five years, and our own thoughts on making a game with soul.

Chapters

00:00 Cold open

00:37 Picture this

01:12 Now swap the radio for a chat window

01:41 Episode two, and our first guest

03:22 Unreal Engine 6 and Epic's pivot to AI

05:15 Welcome, Chris Wood

06:04 From programmer to studio founder

07:36 No investors, no big break

08:36 Tiny steps, not great leaps

10:42 Why build it at home

12:33 What an external development partner does

15:02 Small strike teams

16:27 How far to lean into AI

17:08 A spiky topic

19:40 A tool like nothing before

20:49 Ten times slower

23:00 Is AI inevitable?

24:11 What if it gets switched off?

25:09 The commodity end of the market

26:34 Who owns AI-written code?

28:36 Can you trust what it tells you?

29:27 Juniors, and an apprentice's journey

32:42 What universities should teach

34:39 Advice for two developers with an idea

37:20 AI-enabled, but with soul

38:40 Shiny, or substance?

39:47 Ryan on AI and the art

41:34 Scrappy indies and big budgets

43:13 The next five to ten years

45:15 Tanglewood is hiring

46:42 Tom and Ryan reflect

50:15 Get involved

Our guest

Chris Wood, founder and CEO of Tanglewood Games. Tanglewood is hiring engineers, technical artists and technical animators with Unreal Engine experience: tanglewoodgames.com

Get involved

Watch the playtests and read the devlog: contactwaitout.com/devlog

Sign up for news: contactwaitout.com

Join the Discord: discord.gg/gVXbshznpb

Did one of these jobs and willing to talk to us? team@warfighter.studio

New episodes every fortnight.

Contact: Wait Out is a work of fiction. The theatre, places, units, people and operations in the game are invented. Features discussed are in development and may change.

Contact: Wait Out is an ops room command game. It is not made to glorify war. It is made to represent, with respect, the real challenges that everyday soldiers and officers faced.