Tasks
Own and evolve core combat systems for a third-person action game, including targeting, combat metrics, input buffering and queuing, player abilities, progression, aggro and threat management, enemy AI behaviors, combat states, and related foundational systems.
Develop and refine the overall combat framework for a melee- and ranged-focused power-fantasy experience, ensuring that combat is responsive, readable, impactful, and consistently rewarding.
Design, prototype, implement, balance, and ship a wide variety of enemies, elite units, and bosses, from core combat archetypes to complex multi-phase encounters.
Tune combat at the micro level, including animation timing, hit reactions, attack windows, i-frames, damage volumes, hit detection, recovery frames, stagger, crowd-control, and other moment-to-moment parameters.
Work closely with gameplay engineering to build and improve combat systems, identify technical constraints, and develop solutions for complex combat interactions.
Collaborate with character art, animation, VFX, audio, and narrative teams to deliver enemies, weapons, abilities, and combat encounters with a high level of polish and strong moment-to-moment feedback.
Help define and balance player-facing combat systems such as weapons, abilities, damage, player progression, enemy scaling, and other systems that directly affect combat power and game balance.
Produce clear design documentation, technical specifications, and implementation guidelines to communicate combat designs and ensure alignment across disciplines.
Mentor other combat designers and contribute to the development of combat design practices, standards, and tools across the team.
Work with production to scope combat features and ensure designs can be delivered within available time, resources, and technical constraints.
Requirements
•Proven experience shipping at least one commercially released action game as a Combat Designer or equivalent role.
•Strong experience designing combat for third-person action games, preferably with both melee and ranged combat.
•Hands-on experience with gameplay scripting or visual scripting, such as Unreal Engine Blueprint, and a solid understanding of how combat logic is implemented.
•Experience collaborating directly with animation teams, including defining combat animation requirements, timing, state transitions, attack windows, and, where applicable, motion-capture workflows and shot lists.
•Strong prototyping and iteration skills, with the ability to quickly turn a combat concept into something playable and evaluate it through hands-on testing.
Conditions
No conditions stated in the posting.
