Case Study: The Coalition Studio accelerates AAA game development with Microsoft Azure and IncrediBuild

The Coalition Transforms Azure VMs into a 700-Core IncrediBuild Virtual Supercomputer and Releases Two AAA Games in One Year

The Coalition Studio, a first-party Microsoft game development studio, faced significant internal and external production challenges while developing two major game titles. Internally, their developers experienced slow Unreal Engine 4 shader compilation, causing level loads to take up to 30 minutes and severely hindering productivity. Externally, their third-party outsourcing partners lacked the necessary computing power to use the engine effectively. To overcome these obstacles, the studio turned to its parent vendor, Microsoft, and its Azure cloud platform.

Microsoft's solution involved using Azure Virtual Machines in conjunction with IncrediBuild's acceleration software. This combination created a massive 700-core "virtual supercomputer" that dramatically accelerated compilation and level loading times. The results were transformative: the studio successfully released two AAA games in a single year, eliminated developer wait times, and empowered its under-resourced partners by providing them with scalable cloud-based processing power through short-term, cost-effective Azure deployments.

The Coalition Studio

Joe Vogt

IT Manager