Join Our Team
Principal Combat Designer
Responsibilities:
Reporting to the Lead Designer, the Principal Combat Designer is responsible ensuring
the combat and related gameplay have a best-in-class feel while maintaining
accessibility and depth. The ideal candidate will have proven experience in combat
feel, AI behaviors, ability balance, as well as presentation and controls.
Essential Functions:
- Design, document, and iterate upon combat systems and gameplay loops.
- Design, maintain, and balance Player and NPC Abilities.
- Creation and maintenance of AI Behavior Trees and related scripting.
- Combat Encounter composition and balance.
- Work closely with Engineers to create the back-end systems and tools necessary to drive engaging combat experiences.
- Own the combat experience; participate in playtests and adapt to feedback throughout development.
- Collaborate and communicate with Engineers, Systems Designers, Level Designers, Character Artists, Animators, and VFX Artists.
Preferred Qualifications:
- At least 1 shipped title in a Senior-to-Lead Combat Design Role
- Extensive knowledge of AI Behaviors and scripting
- Experience with balancing Player and NPC Combat Actions and abilities
- Knowledge of current industry trends with regards to combat and gameplay
- Strong problem-solving and time-management skills
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Ability to work collaboratively and adapt to feedback, design, and scope changes throughout development
- Experience with Unreal Engine
- Experience with scripting languages (C++, C#, Lua, etc)
- Strong technical writing and documentation skills
- The ability to explain complex topics to non-technical teammates
- Understanding of cinematography, UI, and other concepts that relate to how combat is presented to the Player
- Love of role-playing games and a grasp on the relationships between combat and other gameplay systems to enable Players to solve problems multiple ways