EA details new cloud native development platform, Project Atlas

Electronic Arts has this week announced it is entering the cloud technology arena, with Project Atlas.

The cloud-native development platform was detailed by CTO Ken Moss in a post on Medium.

Over 1,000 people at EA are working on the project every day, according to Moss, along with dozens of studios "driving priorities" and "contributing their innovation".

With Atlas, EA is hoping to overcome the main roadblocks to evolving game development, such as the spiralling costs that come with technological advances; this has caused development to plateau, suggested Moss.

"Without significant automation, it becomes almost untenable to scale beyond current game sizes because the demand on creator hours and cost does not scale," he said.

However, Project Atlas promises to "seamlessly converge" artificial intelligence and cloud computing with the Frostbite game engine, and online services such as hosting and matchmaking, into a single unified solution.

"The two formerly distinct worlds of engine and services are merging, and what is emerging is the need for a next-generation unified platform," said Moss.

Power, scalability, creativity, and security are the four primary areas in which EA intends to empower developers and players with the tech.

"Taken as a whole, developing the technology behind Project Atlas -- increasing scalability, enabling power easily, unlocking AI, and enhancing security -- are all just one step towards the future," said Moss.

"We're solving for some of the manually intensive demands by bringing together AI capabilities in an engine and cloud-enabled services at scale."