WB Games Avalanche - Senior Designer, Gameplay Mechanics *Position is hybrid with weekly onsite days at Avalanche Studio in Salt Lake City, UT. Relocation assistance provided for qualified candidates out of the area.
Join the team behind 2023's smash hit Hogwarts Legacy! Avalanche Software, a division of WB Games Inc., is seeking a Senior Gameplay Mechanics Designer with a passion for finely tuned gameplay control and feel, vast knowledge of 3C's design and implementation, inspiring player abilities, and highly responsive moment-to-moment gameplay feel. This position involves direct collaboration with design leadership, the mechanics design team, producers, and other peers across every discipline to help define the goals and experiences for future releases.
The Daily- Design, prototype, and implement gameplay mechanics with focus on 3Cs, player abilities, and interactions.
- Partner with design leadership to help define pillars, player experience goals, and feature plans that support the broader vision for the game and build on established gameplay mechanics systems.
- Translate high-level creative direction, team feedback, and cross-discipline conversations into clear design documentation, specs, and implementation plans.
- Work closely with discipline leads and stakeholders across the studio to gather input, vet proposals, and align gameplay systems with the broader needs of the project.
- Work closely with production to prioritize features and keep milestones on track.
- Help improve tools, pipelines, and documentation for implementation and iteration, and share those processes with the team.
- Collaborate with engineers, animators, artists, VFX, audio, UI, and other designers to solve gameplay-related technical and design problems.
- Partner with the broader team to tune and refine systems based on leadership & peer feedback, playtest results, and data analysis.
- Contribute to progression, reward, and other connected gameplay systems that complement the moment-to-moment gameplay experience.
The Essentials- Minimum of 5 years progressively complex game industry experience.
- Strong gameplay and systems design experience, with the ability to own features from concept through polish.
- Demonstrated ability to define feature direction and turn broad creative goals into clear design plans and documentation.
- Experience designing and implementing third-person player mechanics in 3D games; action RPG experience preferred.
- Contributed to shipped titles and participated in a full dev cycle from concept through release.
- Experience with Maya, Unreal Engine 5, including Blueprint and other gameplay implementation tools, to create and iterate on gameplay features.
- Excellent collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively within a multidisciplinary team and provide clear guidance to designers, engineers, and artists.
- Strong written communication skills, with the ability to synthesize feedback from multiple stakeholders into coherent design proposals and implementation specs.
Good to Have- Experience with broader gameplay and progression systems is a plus.
How We Get Things Done...This last bit is probably the most important! Here at WBD, our guiding principles are the core values by which we operate and are central to how we get things done. You can find them at www.wbd.com/guiding-principles/ along with some insights from the team on what they mean and how they show up in their day to day. We hope they resonate with you and look forward to discussing them during your interview.
