Senior Combat Designer in London

Join CI Games and be part of shaping the future of gaming. As we embark on an ambitious strategic roadmap with major releases planned, we're seeking a talented and dedicated Senior Combat Designer to help us create ground-breaking experiences that captivate players worldwide. A career at CI Games is about being part of a team working on some of the most creatively rewarding and ambitious projects to be found in any entertainment medium. You would be welcomed to a dedicated and inclusive environment where you can learn and collaborate with some of the most talented people in the industry.

Key Responsibilities:

• Combat Systems & Enemy Design: Develop our approach to combat by building upon and refining the project's core systems. Pitch, prototype, implement, balance, and ship a wide variety of enemy archetypes and/or bosses. Tune the combat experience at the micro level: animation lengths, I-frames, Hit boxes, and frame-data polish. Collaborate to structure enemy behaviour in conjunction with overarching RPG mechanics and game progression, including weapon levelling, stats, and character builds.
• Technical Implementation & Oversight: Implement character combat behaviours using Unreal features such as Behavior Trees, Animation Graphs, and Blueprints. Provide Gameplay Programmers with comprehensive technical requirements and collaborate to achieve the desired feature implementation. Build basic combat level setups to communicate design intent to Level Design, Art, and Production departments. Address bugs and gameplay issues to ensure a stable, polished product through to shipping.
• Collaboration & Documentation: Work with other departments (Character Art, Animation, VFX, Audio, etc.) to ship characters with state-of-the-art levels of polish. Create clear, concise, and visually oriented design material explaining mechanics, features, and systems. Help assess project progress and quality by utilizing results from usability, focus, and in-house playtests. Provide constructive feedback and propose solutions to improve the quality of the current project or future titles.

Let’s be honest! On occasions, this role may be challenging. The gaming industry is extremely fast-paced - project priorities can change quickly and deadlines can be tight. You will need to solve complex problems and iterate via rapid prototyping, providing multiple solutions while keeping the player experience as the primary goal. Your role will be fully remote which may be sometimes challenging.

Key Requirements:

• 5+ years of Game Design experience.
• Demonstrable prior experience as a Combat Designer for several years or in a comparable role.
• A deep passion for and expertise in the Soulslike genre.
• Preferably have shipped at least 1 AAA title in a design capacity.
• Excellent knowledge of gameplay mechanics, features, and what makes modern games work.
• Familiarity with Unreal Engine and experience with the creation of Blueprints.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills are essential for this role.
• An open and creative mind with the ability to work well under pressure and meet deadlines.

What we offer:

• Attractive remuneration and annual discretionary bonus.
• Generous benefits supporting your wellbeing.
• Opportunities for professional development within a supportive and collaborative team.
• Remote work with flexible schedules (core working hours 10am-4pm CET), allowing you to work alongside talented individuals from around the world.
• An opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies and stay at the forefront of the gaming industry.
• A diverse and inclusive workplace that celebrates all backgrounds, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or social status.
• Studio events and wrap-up parties, access to all games released by CI Games and company merchandise.
• A chance to be part of something ground-breaking as we shape the future of gaming.

Recruitment Process:

Once our Talent Acquisition team receives your application, together with the hiring team, we will review your CV, portfolio and the answers you provided in the application form and if all the boxes are ticked, we're moving to the next stage. Initial call with Talent Acquisition Specialist - During this call you'll learn about the company and we learn about you. We'll talk about your experience & expectations with working in a fully remote environment and we'll talk about your expertise. We'll finish this call with some admin questions. There will be an opportunity for you to ask any questions as well. After the initial call, usually 1 or 2 interviews with the hiring team follows. These interviews will be a bit more technical and will go deeper into your experience, skills & knowledge. As you would have signed an NDA by now, you'll also learn a bit more about the project you would work on. During these interviews we'll also focus on finding out whether you're a good fit for our company culture and that we share the same values. We may or may not ask you to do the test - this is decided on an individual basis and you will receive instructions with the test. If everything goes well, the last step in the recruitment process is the offer presentation call with the Talent Acquisition Specialist and your future line manager to discuss the offer and next steps to get you successfully on board.

We are an equal opportunities employer with a commitment to building a diverse workforce, representative of the world we live and game in! Accessibility is at the heart of our games and we reflect that in how we operate as a business. Should you require adjustments or flexible arrangements to interview, or take up a role at with us, please let us know in your application and we will accommodate to the best of our ability.