Technical Director at Limit Break
Graduated 2013
I'm Fredrik Larsson, a senior game developer with 7 years in the industry. Most of my time has been spent as a programmer, but I've also worked a lot with project/team leading and as a manager.
I've always been an avid gamer and remember being around 7-8 years old having my parents setting up the Super Nintendo for me to play because it was such a good babysitter. After having worked for a while with various jobs, I realized that I'm going to be working until I'm at least 65 years old and I wanted to do something that I'm passionate about. One of my strengths has always been my natural affinity for tech and working together with people. This coupled with my interest in games lead me to apply for the 'Bachelor Programme in Computer Engineering' at LTU in Skellefteå.
In 2010 I got accepted and started my journey into the games industry. While the education is deeply rooted in the development of computer games, having a broad programming knowledge and a Bachelors degree would definitely make it possible to pursue other areas of work in the tech sector. This was one of the reason of why I chose this particular education as my first hand choice. The 3 years I spent at LTU was amazing and very tough at the same time. You learn so much on a daily basis while also meeting so many incredible people! One particular thing I would like to highlight is the importance of networking and collaborating with other developers, students and companies as getting into the games industry requires both proficiency in what you do but also the ability to work together with others.
My thesis work was done in Stockholm for Paradox Interactive, where I met some of the smartest people in the games industry from every possible discipline. After my thesis ended in 2013, I joined the newly founded Paradox Arctic studio as a generalist programmer. During my 6 years at Arctic I worked on Magicka 2, Knights of Pen and Paper, Pillars of Eternity, Stellaris and more. At Paradox, there were a lot of different tasks that a programmer would work with on an everyday basis. From writing optimized C++ code to extend the engine, implement platform specific features like cloud saves or achievements, working with scripting languages to build tools, deliver gameplay features, implementing UI elements or setting up and managing automated build servers to ensure consistent and continuous builds for QA to test.
In September 2020 I joined a new startup studio called 'Limit Break' as the Technical Director. Here I oversee the general technical implementations of our projects, while also being the point of contact for external parties in tech related issues. I'm also in charge of recruitment for new programmers and that technical knowledge is shared between the game teams so they can deliver awesome stuff to the players!